Lucky Pulpit Succumbs to Heart Attack

Coalinga, CA (February 13, 2017)-Lucky Pulpit suffered an apparent heart attack this afternoon while covering his first broodmare of the 2017 season. Both David McGlothlin (farm manager) and Raul Rosa (stallion manager) were in the Harris Farms breeding shed with Lucky Pulpit when he collapsed coming off the mare.

Lucky Pulpit was owned and raced by Mr. and Mrs. Larry Williams and stood his entire career at Harris Farms in Coalinga.

The 16-year-old son of Pulpit out of Lucky Soph, by Cozzene, currently sits atop California’s 2017 general sire list. He was the state’s leading sire last year by progeny earnings, with more than $10.7 million and was the states leading sire in three of the past four years.

From seven crops of racing age, Lucky Pulpit is the sire of 148 winners, including the multiple Eclipse Award winning Californian Chrome. His 229 starters to date have amassed progeny earnings of $24 million.

“The California and national thoroughbred racing industry, where Lucky Pulpit has ranked at the top of the sire lists year after year with world class performers, will still have another three crops from this stellar sire yet to race. Lucky Pulpit hit homerun after homerun with his offspring both in the sales ring and on the racetrack and from early on we had a glimpse of what he would become as a sire.” David McGlothlin.

Lucky Pulpit, who was bred and raced by Mr. and Mrs. Larry Williams, was a winner in his second outing at two. He then placed in a grade 3 at two and a placing in a grade 2 at three, before capturing the five furlong turf Smile Stakes at Arlington Park as a four-year-old. Overall, he won three races from twenty-two starts with five seconds and five thirds earning $209,928.