Today's Edition

NEWMARKET, UK--Watership Down Stud's Dubawi colt out of the multiple Group 1-winner and budding blue hen mare Dar Re Mi (GB) (Singspiel {Ire}) (lot 325) was widely expected to be the star attraction on the second day of Book 1 of the Tattersalls October Yearling Sale in Newmarket on Wednesday, and the handsome bay made good on that promise, fetching the top price of the sale thus far when knocked down to David Redvers at 3.5-million gns. As could be expected from a physically striking colt from one of the...

When Knicks Go (Paynter) won the GI Claiborne Breeders' Futurity Saturday at Keneeland, it came as major shock to anyone following the race in the U.S. The 2-year-old was the longest shot on the board at 77-1 and was coming off a distant third-place finish in the Arlington Washington Futurity. In Korea, they didn't exactly see it that way. The colt is owned by the Korean Racing Authority, which controls racing in that country. Trying to improve breeding and racing and in Korea, they have acquired dozens of stallions from...

G1SW Lancaster Bomber (War Front-Sun Shower {Ire}, by Indian Ridge {Ire}) has been retired and will stand at the National Stud in Newmarket in 2019. The Aidan O'Brien trainee's stallion career will be managed by the Avenue Bloodstock team of John Ferguson, Mark McStay and Amy Lanigan. Lifetime breeding rights will be sold and the G1 Tattersalls Gold Cup hero will command a fee of £8,500, Oct. 1, SLF. Bred by the Sun Shower Syndicate in Kentucky, the bay was off the mark at second asking at Leopardstown at two...

A bitter and divisive power struggle that has been simmering behind the scenes for years within the Stronach family is about to boil over very publicly in a court of law. Frank Stronach, the 86-year-old Canadian business titan who is renowned within the Thoroughbred industry as a breeder and owner of racehorses and for building North America's largest conglomerate of racetracks, filed a bombshell lawsuit in a Toronto court Oct. 1 alleging that the daughter he appointed to run his empire, Belinda Stronach, has mismanaged the family's chief assets and...

A colt by popular young sire Cairo Prince (Pioneerof the Nile) out of a mare who was purchased for just $1,000 fetched a record final bid of $340,000 from leading owner John Oxley to top Tuesday's select session of the OBS October Sale in Central Florida. Oxley also acquired the 2017 OBS October topper, going to $275,000 for Strike Silver (Violence), who in the 12 months since just missed in the GIII Sanford S. ahead of a worst-to-first victory in the Oct. 7 Indian Summer S. at Keeneland. The previous...

MG1SW Hawkbill (Kitten's Joy-Trensa, by Giant's Causeway) has been retired, Godolphin announced on Tuesday. Highweighted in England as a 3-year-old, the chestnut struck twice at the highest level in the 2016 G1 Coral-Eclipse S. and G1 Longines Dubai Sheema Classic this March for trainer Charlie Appleby. A winner of 10 of his 24 starts and six group scores, the 5-year-old, who placed an additional five times at Group 1 level in Canada, England (2) and Germany (2), retires with earnings of $4,777,480. "He was a wonderful racehorse, who will be...

Lane's End's Quality Road (Elusive Quality), who ranks among the nation's leading general sires in 2018, will see his stud fee hiked from $70,000 to $150,000 in 2019, topping the storied farm's stallion roster for the coming year. On the heels of a wildly successful 2018, topped by Grade I winners Abel Tasman, Bellafina, City of Light, Salty and Spring Quality, Quality Road enters his eighth year at stud in 2019. Bellafina and Abel Tasman have won a pair of Grade Is each this term, with the former considered a...

NEWMARKET, UK--Newsells Park Stud's Shastye (Ire) (Danehill) has been a regular headline-maker at Book 1 of the Tattersalls October Yearling Sale since 2013, when her subsequent Group 3 winner Sir Isaac Newton (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) briefly set a record for a European yearling at public auction-which was eclipsed the following day-when bought by MV Magnier for 3.6-million gns. Five years later, Sir Isaac Newton's full-brother (lot 109) flirted with his elder brother's pricetag during the first of three Book 1 sessions on Tuesday, but fell just short, with MV Magnier...

When Colonial Downs reopens for 15 days of live Thoroughbred racing in 2019 for the first time in six years, its race meet will occupy a new slot on the calendar different from the June/July schedule that had been the norm prior to closure. Exactly when is currently being negotiated. But as the track's new owner, Revolutionary Racing, attempts to carve out a niche on the highly competitive mid-Atlantic circuit, Colonial intends to fully leverage its two most valuable assets in an attempt to become a regional--maybe even national--impact player:...

The Ocala Breeders Sales Company stages its major yearling sale in the month of October for the second time beginning at the noon hour Tuesday in Central Florida, with a total of 789 cataloged. The sale begins with a session of 213 selected yearlings followed by two open sessions Wednesday and Thursday. Given the results from the year's previous auctions, no one could blame sales officials for taking a bullish stance as it relates to their expectations. "We feel really good about the catalogue we've put together, the state of...

NEWMARKET, UK—It's no more than a ten-minute walk from Tattersalls to the heart of Newmarket's training grounds where the fillies who ran each other so close in the Arc, Enable (GB) and Sea Of Class (Ire), go about their daily exercise. They are just two of some 3,000 racehorses in the small Suffolk town and the thoroughbred numbers have been temporarily boosted by the arrival of around 500 yearlings for Book 1 of the October Yearling Sale, followed in the coming week by another 1,600 for Books 2, 3 and...

NEWMARKET, UK—For a consignor which has never had the numbers associated with some of the more major names in the business, it's hard to ignore the start made by Norris Bloodstock, which has consigned the top lot at Book 1 of the Tattersalls October Sale in each of its first two years of trading. The husband-and-wife team of Liam and Jenny Norris has of course had a long-running association with the sales circuit—Jenny as former manager of David Hardisty's Oaklands Farm and Clairemont Stud, and Liam as a former manager...