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Son of Encosta De Lago succumbs to laminitis.
Road To Rock (Encosta De Lago) died last week after succumbing to laminitis, Wellfield Stud announced on Wednesday.
The stallion who is famed for being the sire of multiple Group 1 winner Beauty Generation, had been battling laminitis issues in recent years and the decision was made to euthanise the dual Group 1 winner.
"He has had laminitis issues, which we have been managing for some time," Wellfield Lodge director Bill Gleeson said.
"It got to the stage last week where we had to make a welfare decision on him, which was unfortunate."
During his racing career, Road To Rock landed the Queen Elizabeth Stakes (Gr 1, 2000m) and George Main Stakes (Gr 1, 1600m) for trainer Anthony Cummings before retiring to the New Zealand stud.
"We had a bit of an association with Anthony Cummings and he approached us to stand the horse," Gleeson said.
Eight-time Group 1 winner Beauty Generation is one of four stakes winners for the son of Encosta De Lago (Fairy King) with the others being Group 2 scorer All Roads, Group 3 winner Rock On and Listed winner Sitarist.
While he served a minimal amount of mares in his last few seasons at stud, Gleeson said Beauty Generation's success had certainly led to a peak in popularity from Asia.
"It generated quite a bit of interest in the farm, particularly from Asia.
"Beauty Generation was the flagbearer for Road To Rock. As a result of his Asian success we fielded a number of calls about sending him to stud in China. But we resisted that opportunity because he meant a fair bit to us at the farm, he was a real character."
Meanwhile, with New Zealand under lockdown as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, Gleeson said the farm took a proactive approach last week in turning out their entire race team and he said the farm's clients will hopefully benefit from the farm's private track.
"We decided to close our racing team down straight away and bring them all back to Wellfield," he said.
"We took a stance when you could keep training them, that we wouldn't because of the current situation.
"As to what the future holds it is very difficult to tell."
