Perennial stakes performer Kisses has been retired and pencilled in for a date with new Chequers Stud stallion Il Cavallo.

Mark Fraser-Campin, who bred, raced and trained the Iffraaj mare in partnership with his brother Chris Campin, said the decision to call time on the six-year-old's career came after she strained a tendon in a trial at Cambridge last week.

Kisses was using the trial as a conditioning gallop ahead of Saturday week's Gr.2 Westbury Classic (1400m) at Ellerslie and the Gr.1 New Zealand Thoroughbred Breeders' Stakes (1600m) at Te Aroha on April 9.

"We trialled her in preparation for the Westbury Classic, but she pulled up with a tendon issue,” Fraser-Campin said.

“We scanned her and it's only minor, but she's got her broodmare career ahead of her and we've just decided it's time for her to do that.

"She'll go to our new stallion Il Cavallo next spring. He's an exciting up-and-coming sire and we think she'll make a lovely cross with him. He's getting some nice mares and looks like he's going to really hit the ground running at stud."

Kisses won six of her 29 starts for earnings of $206,000, with her career-best win her Gr.3 Taranaki Breeders' Stakes (1400m) triumph over dual Group One winner Recite at Hawera in October last year.

She was a Listed winner at three and four and last season pushed dual Group One winner Puccini to a nose when second in the Gr.3 Thompson Handicap (1600m) at Trentham and went down by the same margin to another Group One winner Sakhee's Soldier in the Gr.2 Rich Hill Mile at Ellerslie a matter of weeks later.

"She was a very good mare and knocking on the door of being a star mare," Fraser-Campin said.