'A Pleasure To Have Around': Preakness Starter Sway Away Dies At Age 15

‘A Pleasure To Have Around’: Preakness Starter Sway Away Dies At Age 15 originally appeared on Paulick Report.

Sway Away, a multiple Grade 2-placed runner and 2011 Preakness Stakes starter known for the deep curve of his namesake swayback, died in 2023 due to a presumed heart attack. He was 15.

Jennifer Moore, former farm manager at The Quarter Company in Chamberino, N.M., where Sway Away resided, confirmed to the Paulick Report that the stallion collapsed and died in the breeding shed after covering a mare. A necropsy was not conducted.

“They were breeding the mare, and I got a call from the breeding manager that after he bred her, he just fell down dead,” Moore said. “You just kind of assume it was something cardiovascular.”

Bred in Kentucky by Billy Tillery and Bob Sliger, the son of Afleet Alex sold as a weanling to Classic Oaks Farm for $170,000 at the 2008 Keeneland November Breeding Stock Sale, then was sent west, where he hammered to buyer Sierra Sunset for $75,000 at the 2010 Barretts March Selected 2-Year-Olds in Training Sale.

He was placed in the barn of trainer Jeff Bonde, who sent him to Northern California for his debut start, taking a maiden special weight at Pleasanton by a widening 3 1/4 lengths.

From there, Sway Away spent most of his career in the deep end. He finished his 2-year-old season with a runner-up effort in the G2 Best Pal Stakes at Del Mar, followed by another close second-place finish in the G2 San Vicente Stakes at Santa Anita Park to kick off his sophomore campaign.

Sway Away then shipped to Oaklawn Park to make a run at a spot in the Kentucky Derby, but he fell short of qualifying after running sixth in the G2 Rebel Stakes and fourth in the G1 Arkansas Derby.

Instead, his connections pointed toward the Preakness Stakes, where he finished 12th in a field of 14 behind winner Shackleford.

Sway Away returned to friendlier confines a month later for his final start of the season, taking a Hollywood Park allowance race that featured future Grade 1 winner Sahara Sky.

The horse raced three times at age four, all in graded stakes company, with his best effort being a second in the G2 San Carlos Stakes at Santa Anita Park. He retired with two wins in 10 starts, earning $206,800 for an ownership group including Batman Stable, Phillip Lebherz, Cindy Olsen, Janet Sharp, and Glen Wallace.

Sway Away arrived in New Mexico ahead of the 2020 breeding season after beginning his stud career in California in 2013.

He has sired 10 crops of racing age, with 28 winners and combined earnings over $2.8 million. His best runner to date is Let Him Be, a New Mexico-bred who has won 12 of 14 starts, never finishing worse than third in his two defeats, including six stakes triumphs for earnings approaching $600,000.

Sway Away never sired a graded stakes winner, but he got close with Windribbon, who ran second in the Grade 3 Longacres Mile Handicap at Emerald Downs in 2021.

In a breeding industry where conformation is crucial, and breeders aim to strengthen the positives and breed out the flaws, Sway Away’s pronounced swayback could have been seen as an easy red flag to avoid.

However, Moore said the mutation that causes lordosis, the technical term for swayback, is rarely passed on, and none of Sway Away’s foals picked up that trait from their sire, to her knowledge.

With that being said, Moore admitted it was always an uphill battle to get breeders to see beyond Sway Away’s unique silhouette.

“A gentleman from Track Magazine had come out to take pictures of our Quarter Horses that we had that year, and he said, ‘If you want to go ahead and bring out the Thoroughbreds, we’ll just take pictures for you guys of them too. We won’t put them in the magazine or anything, but since I’m here doing photos,'” Moore said. “So, they went to go pull him out of the barn, and we had three or four people there, and I was kind of describing him and explaining how some people were really turned off because he was a little bit swaybacked and unfortunately, he was named Sway Away.

“They pulled him out of the barn, and everybody went, ‘Oh,’ when he came out,” Moore continued. “But then, as we took pictures, he ended up taking some really beautiful pictures of him…He was a wonderful stallion. Just one of those guys that was a pleasure to have around.”

This story was originally reported by Paulick Report on Jul 24, 2025, where it first appeared.

‘A Pleasure To Have Around’: Preakness Starter Sway Away Dies At Age 15

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