Today's Edition

When Brazilian billionaire Gilberto Sayao Da Silva purchased Nat Rea's Regis Farm (formerly part of Rick Trontz's Hopewell Farm) on Pisgah Pike in Woodford County in 2015, his wife christened the 300-plus acre property Bonne Chance Farm. The name, which means "good luck" in French, has been prophetic. That same year, Gilberto Sayao also bought Canadian champion Sealy Hill (Point Given) for $750,000 from the Regis dispersal. The Medaglia d'Oro filly she was carrying, the first Bonne Chance-bred yearling sold at auction, made $1.25 million at Keeneland September in 2017,...

When Len Green went to his first horse race in the 1980s and watched his friend's horse win, the CPA thought he had just discovered the "easiest business in the world" and decided to jump into the horse business himself. He quickly discovered that succeeding in the world of horse racing was anything but easy. However, once Green began to apply the business savvy and entrepreneurial spirit that had served him so well in his professional life to his latest endeavor, he turned his D. J. Stable into his latest...

   Despite drifting from odds-on favouritism to odds-against, Divine Image (Scat Daddy) nonetheless quelled any concerns with an impressive performance tackling one mile in her Chelmsford City unveiling. The chestnut recovered from a slightly awkward break to track the pace in third along the fence from flagfall. Angled into a clear path when shaken up off the home turn, the 6-5 pick received one flick of James Doyle's enhancer once hitting the front approaching the final eighth and powered clear under mild coaxing in the closing stages to easily account...

Cloth of Stars (Ire) (Sea The Stars {Ire}) is the second-highest rated horse to retire to stud in France in the past 40 years. He had just two brilliant fillies-Enable (GB) (Nathaniel {Ire}) and Sea Of Class (Ire) (Sea The Stars {Ire})-in front of him in two G1 Prix de l'Arc de Triomphes. He is from the prolific Niarchos family that includes G1 Prix de Diane winner Northern Trick, and more recently Group 1 winners Main Sequence (Aldebaran), Light Shift (Kingmambo) and Ulysses (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}). That looks like a...

Editor's Note: Today's column on equine tax planning is the first in a new regular series in the TDN, presented by Keeneland. It is written by Len Green of The Green Group and DJ Stables, who won the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies this year with Jaywalk. As is often heard in the horseracing industry, "The race is not over until the horse crosses the finish line!" The same is true with maximizing your tax deductions and minimizing your taxes. For those, who think it is too late to save on...

Yearling entries for the 241st running of the 1 1/2-mile G1 Investec Derby, totalling 356 yearlings, were announced by Epsom Downs Racecourse on Wednesday. Slated to carry a purse of at least £1.5 million and be run on June 6, 2020, the Investec Derby sees 12 entries from Godolphin, who won the 2018 edition with Masar (Ire) (New Approach {Ire}). Coolmore has won the Derby seven times with various partnerships, and they have entered 75 yearlings representing Sue Magnier, Derrick Smith and Michael Tabor. Among their best yearlings is a...

Following the completion of the foal and breeding stock sales in Great Britain and Ireland, there has been much comment about the state of the bloodstock market. While the middle and top end have arguably never been stronger, the bottom end of the market has plummeted to a state not seen since the years following the worldwide financial crisis a decade ago. It is easy to gloss over what has happened at the bottom of the market as being a result of overproduction leading to supply exceeding demand. However, to...

"Price is what you pay, value is what you get." The axiom is routinely attributed to Warren Buffett, though credited by him to Ben Graham. But there is nothing like the bloodstock market to remind us that value is subjective--making the setting of a stallion's fee, the annual exercise that has occupied some of the most experienced minds in the business over recent weeks, an extremely delicate balancing act. A mare owner's sense of value, after all, may itself be determined precisely by the ambitions implied in a fee. In...

After clearing a Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee Monday by a 13-0 vote, a New Jersey bill that would guarantee a five-year, $10 million annual purse subsidy for Monmouth Park could be up for a full Senate vote as early as Dec. 17. In addition, the State Assembly and Governor Phil Murphy still have to approve SB 2992 before it becomes law. The proposed bill would authorize the New Jersey Racing Commission to split a $20 million annual allocation from the state's general fund equally between the Thoroughbred and Standardbred...

Toronto-based Ivan Dalos, who exclusively races homebreds and campaigns a stable of 32 primarily at Woodbine Racetrack, is quietly putting together a career year as an owner/breeder. Entering the final week of racing at his hometown track, Dalos has won a personal best 23 races from 104 starts in 2018, and has averaged nearly $1.2 million in earnings in each of the past five seasons. Dalos, a construction executive whose company specializes in flooring, has bred Thoroughbreds under the banner of Tall Oaks Farm for the past four decades. He...

The Hong Kong Jockey Club's new racecourse in Conghua, China offers trainers a plethora of facilities above and beyond what is available at the Club's two Hong Kong racecourses: four racetracks together with a 1100-metre uphill gallop; 20 spelling paddocks; a world-class veterinary hospital equipped with an X-ray unit, an exam room and operating suites, and a rehabilitation unit that includes salt-water spas and an aqua treadmill to treat injured horses. The Hong Kong Jockey Club has invested HK$3.7-billion (almost US$500-million) into Conghua Racecourse, which is situated in the Guangdong...

As expected, the dispersal of the breeding operation of Simon Munir and Isaac Souede dominated the final day of the Arqana Breeding Stock Sale, which brought the curtain down on the bloodstock trading season in Deauville with increases in both turnover and average. Nine of the 12 most expensive lots of the day hailed from the dispersal draft, which was presented on the owners' behalf by Haras du Lieu des Champs. As befitting their former celebrated status on the racecourse, the headliners Ma Filleule (Fr) (Turgeon) and Gitane Du Berlais...