Mitch Haynes wasn’t interested in breeding horses until he inherited them from his father. It soon became a life-changing passion, and Mitch bred a filly in his father’s shadow; she became more than an animal. She was a living thread back to a man he lost. Then, without warning, that thread snapped too.

Trainer Saffie Joseph Jr. has confirmed the news after reports indicated that the Grade 1 Miller Racing’s winner had passed away.

“Claret Beret unfortunately passed away at the barn,” Joseph told BloodHorse. “She was an amazing filly who will always be remembered. May she rest in peace.”

Just before the 151st running of the Preakness Stakes, Hit Zero passed away after finishing last in a race. Before that, six other horses have died this month under various circumstances.

As per BloodHorse, Claret Beret, the five-year-old filly, died of an apparent cardiac event. That was despite working 4 furlongs in 49.55 at the Palm Meadows Training Center. She returned to her barn after breezing but died at the barn after a possible cardiac event.

Claret Baret’s training methods will be scrutinized when the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority looks into this death as part of their Equine Fatality Reporting Requirements. Cardiac events continue to be the leading cause of sudden athletic death, with the mortality rate for sudden athletic death typically around 9 to 19% of all race-related fatalities.

Mitch Haynes, the well-renowned breeder, loses what is one of the last links to his father. When Alvin passed away in 2014, Mitch wasn’t entirely sure what to do with the mares and foals he had inherited, but a curiosity took hold. So much so that by the following year, he was buying his own mare. That turned out to be Bessie M, and unbeknownst to Mitch Haynes, the horse had a line back to his father.

“My dad was into breeding some,” Haynes opened up on Instagram. “He liked to race horses. In 2014, he passed away, and we inherited some mares. Shortly after that, I decided that I wanted to buy a mare of my own.

“We bid on two or three, and then the third one was Bessie M, and we ended up buying her for $42,000. My brother came to look at her, and I was showing him the catalog, and, unbeknownst to us, my dad had owned the dam and the granddam of her.”

Claret Beret was bred in Kentucky by Mitch Haynes out of the Medallist stakes winner Bessie M with Not This Time, a stallion known for producing Gr 1 winners. As the latest in the long line of Haynes horses, the filly became a living testament to Alvin Haynes’ legacy.

Claret Beret was Not This Time’s second-highest-priced filly at the September sale in 2022. After Claret Beret won the Apple Blossom in 2026, she became the 13th lifetime Gr.1 winner sired by the stallion. But Bessie M passed away shortly after Claret Beret was born, and it meant that Haynes needed to bring in a nurse mare.

“She had the baby, and she hemorrhaged at that time, and we lost the mare,” Haynes added. “So we had to have a nurse mare, so the nurse mare raised Claret Beret. We sold her as a weanling.”

Haynes had sold her as a weanling, yet fate had a way of keeping them connected. Because when Claret Beret crossed the line first at the Apple Blossom, it wasn’t just a Grade 1 win, it was personal.

Mitch Haynes reflects on the moment Claret Beret won the Apple Blossom

When Claret Beret surged into first, eventually beating champion Nitrogen by 4 1/2 lengths at the Apple Blossom, the result wasn’t completely unexpected. The filly wasn’t the favorite going into the Gr.1 race, but she was among the top contenders. After all, she had won seven out of the 19 races she competed in from her debut as a three-year-old.

She did take three races to win her first, but was in fine form before she passed away. That included winning back-to-back events in her final races. Her Gr. 3 Royal Delta stakes win in mid-February was followed up with the Gr.1 Apple Blossom Handicap in mid-April. Moving back even further, the filly has won four out of her last ten races, finishing on the podium seven times in the same period.

The news of the Gr. 1 win did reach Mitch Haynes, even if he wasn’t watching the race at the time. But his wife was and made sure that her husband heard exactly how well the horse he bred had done.

“I was actually at dinner with some friends,” Haynes told Thoroughbred Daily News. “My wife and I were watching on our phones. She screamed, and everybody in the restaurant wanted to know what was going on. It was pretty neat.”

Saffie Joseph had reported that the plan was for Claret Beret to target the Ogden Phipps Stakes or Fleur de Lis Stakes in June. That was with the trainer targeting the Breeders’ Cup, and for Haynes, that would have been the ultimate achievement.

“There are so many highs and lows, and the highs make you want to go deeper into it,” he added. “She goes on and wins the Breeders’ Cup, it’ll be great.”

The unfortunate passing of the horse has only raised questions about the harsh conditions of modern horse racing, where young fillies are overworked.