Gio Ponti to race in 2011

By: SPORTS NETWORK

Lexington, KY (Sports Network) - Two-time Eclipse Award winner Gio Ponti will return to the races in 2011. Castleton Lyons, owner of the champion thoroughbred, made the announcement in a press release on Tuesday.

"We at Castleton Lyons are delighted to announce that we have decided to keep our dual champion Gio Ponti in training for one more year, with the 2011 Dubai World Cup as our main aim," Castleton Lyons president Shane Ryan said in the release. "It is an exciting time to have a tough consistent horse in training as prize money is generally one of the more lucrative sides of our business at the moment. We would like to thank all his fans and well wishers to date. It is our hope that we can continue to campaign him with imagination and of course, success!"

Gio Ponti is trained by Christophe Clement and is ridden by Ramon Dominguez. The five-year-old colt concluded his 2010 season with a second-place finish in the Breeders' Cup Mile behind three-time race winner Goldikova.

For the year the colt won two of seven starts for $1,884,000. He won the Shadwell Mile on the turf in his last start before the Breeders' Cup and also took the Man o'War Stakes this year.

Gio Ponti was voted 2009 champion older male thoroughbred and older male turf horse. He finished second to Zenyatta in last year's Breeders' Cup Classic. He has 11 wins in 23 lifetime starts for better than $5 million.