Bill Oppenheim
A Kansas native who has worked in racing journalism since 1974, Bill Oppenheim is the co-founder of the newsletter Racing Update, and served as the paper's editor until 1993, when he moved to Scotland. Oppenheim developed a reputation as an independent observer of the sales scene in the early 1980's, and he and the staff of Racing Update originated a number of methods of stallion and sales analysis which have been adopted throughout the industry. From 2000-2017, he wrote a weekly column for TDN, as well as reported from the major sales.
The German Industry
September 4, 2013
Liesl King has been filling you in with maximum efficiency and her usual flair for fashion about the sales, races, and other social activities last weekend in Baden-Baden, which is gaining a reputation in racing circles as 'the Deauville of Germany.' Certainly the sale, the latest edition of which was last Friday, just gets better [...]
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September Time
August 28, 2013
Speaking of revamping sales, which we have been (see WST p8) in the context of Arqana's new Av.2 Deauville sale a week ago Tuesday, this year we see another new, revised format for the Keeneland September Sale. Last year, you'll recall, there was a one-dayBook 1 with just 132 yearlings catalogued, of which just 75 [...]
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Oh, It's Galileo
August 21, 2013
Saturday' horses. That's what the commercial market is all about. Horses that can run at the big tracks, on the big days, in the big races. There are various ways of tallying sires' performances in this respect; our way, as you know, is earnings-based. The top 8% of earners in each jurisdiction we cover, each [...]
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Leading Sires of 2013 ABC Runners Through
August 21, 2013
'Saturday' horses. That's what the commercial market is all about. Horses that can run at the big tracks, on the big days, in the big races. There are various ways of tallying sires' performances in this respect; our way, as you know, is earnings-based. The top 8% of earners in each jurisdiction we cover, each [...]
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Surprise! It's Galileo
August 14, 2013
Because of the way the APEX ratings are calculated– top 2% earners as of July 22, when the threshold in North America was $83,650, whereas at the end of 2012 the A Runner threshold was $121,200–it is possible that some horses which show as A Runners now may end up as B or even C [...]
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Young Apex Stars
August 8, 2013
The year when sires have their first 4-year-olds racing (they are referred to as 'third-crop' sires, meaning their third crop of 2-year-olds has reached racing age) is a critical one: with more horses racing, we have a chance to see whether the sires who made such a fast start look like they're progressing, or look [...]
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Galileo Tops NA-EU Apex Sires
July 31, 2013
Though Japan's Deep Impact boasts a 4.40 A Runner Index, with just his first 5-year-olds racing, we've decided to try a different treatment of the 918 sires assigned midyear 2013 APEX ratings. Though we've been able to include Japanese sires in the APEX ratings for about the last 15 years, their racing pretty much falls [...]
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Half Term Reports
July 24, 2013
The win by Chicquita (Montjeu) in last Saturday's G1 Irish Oaks marked the last of the European Classics bar the G1 English St. Leger, over about 14 furlongs, at… [...]
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$20 Million Day
July 17, 2013
It had been since 2009, when their July sale was a two-day yearling event, that Fasig-Tipton grossed over $20-million at the yearling sales season opener. There were a lot of smiling faces around the Fasig pavilion Monday night; they sold just 163 yearlings, which was 14% fewer than in 2012, but the gross of $14,635,000 [...]
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Sales Start Here
July 10, 2013
The sale in Japan looks good–and why shouldn't it, considering the mares the Yoshida family have been scooping up to breed to Deep Impact and King Kamehameha the last five years? The 2-year-old market was up $27 million (17%) from last year, and is within $3 million of 2008 totals, so the auguries are all [...]
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