Yeats goes out as champion

Yeats (9h Sadler’s Wells-Lyndonville, by Top Ville) retires to the Coolmore stallion ranks for 2010 as not just one of the greatest horses of recent years but also a Champion in his final season racing. Yeats progressed from being a smart juvenile to a simply outstanding stayer, winning the G1 Gold Cup at Royal Ascot an unprecedented four times. His fourth success in the famous race last June saw him allotted a mark of 122 in the 2009 World Thoroughbred Rankings, making him the Champion Stayer in the World last year, an accolade he also shared in 2008. Garry O’Gorman, co-chairman of the World Rankings Supervisory Committee and senior flat handicapper of the Irish Turf Club, said: "Yeats has been remarkably consistent. He has been in the low 120s for the last four years. "The view of the committee was that he was as good in 2009 as he was in 2008. It was a great achievement to bring the horse back year after year in similar form. His Gold Cup record will stand for a long time." Yeats, who is bred on the same cross as Montjeu, retires to Coolmore as the winner of seven Group 1 races and is standing for a fee of €10,000 in 2010.