Chiefswood Stables’ brilliant graded stakes winner WEYBURN has been retired and will stand at stud at Frank Stronach’s Adena Springs North in Aurora, Ontario for the 2025 breeding season. The impeccably-bred son of Pioneerof the Nile (sire of American Triple Crown winner and top sire American Pharoah) was one of the top three-year-olds of his generation in the U.S. and a stakes winner at ages four and five.
Born in 2018, Weyburn broke his maiden in his third career start late in his two-year-old season, battling on the pace to win at seven furlongs at Aqueduct racetrack in New York. Trainer Jimmy Jerkens felt the colt was impressive enough in that win to try the one-mile Gotham Stakes (G3) in his next start. The big colt settled nicely just off the early pace before engaging several rivals in the stretch and winning by a nose at 46-to-1. Among the colts behind him was eventual Grade 2 winner Highly Motivated, trained by Chad Brown.
Following a fourth-place finish in the Wood Memorial Stakes (G2), Weyburn missed by only a neck in the Pegasus Stakes at Monmouth Park in June to Kentucky Derby (G2) winner Mandaloun.
Weyburn won consecutive editions of the Sir Shackleton Stakes in 2022 and 2023 at the Championship meet at Gulfstream Park, once with a Beyer Speed Figure of 102. As a five-year-old, Weyburn finished second to eventual Horse of the Year and Breeders’ Cup Classic winner White Abarrio in an allowance race at Gulfstream Park and finished third in the Westchester Stakes (G3) at Belmont Park.
“He was always a big, good-looking horse,” said Chiefswood Stables’ manager and Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame jockey Robert Landry. “He was very athletic and showed the signs [of a top horse] early.”
The late Pioneerof the Nile, a Grade 1-winning son of Empire Maker, has sired more than 54 black-type winners and has made a name as a top sire of sires. American Pharoah is the sire of over 41 black-type winners, seven already in 2024, and is among the leading North American stallions. Pioneerof the Nile is also the sire of Cairo Prince, whose 33 stakes winners including Canadian champions My Boy Prince — currently the favourite for the 2024 King’s Plate — and Cairo Consort. Promising freshman sires of 2024, Thousand Words and Aurelius Maximus, are also by Pioneerof the Nile.
Weyburn’s dam, Sunday Affair, has two of the world’s leading sires in her immediate pedigree: she is by A.P. Indy out of the Sunday Silence mare Million Gift (Jpn). Sunday Affair is also the dam of Chiefwood’s graded stakes-winning sprinter Yorkton, an exciting young stallion prospect standing in Kentucky.
Weyburn is the first stallion to stand in Canada for Chiefswood since their leading sire Niigon, the Plate winner of 2004, passed away prematurely in 2012.
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