Today's Edition

Only a couple of weeks now to the St Leger, truly part of the Turf's family silver. It will do well, mind, to match the 2017 running. Let's hope Capri (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) can soon get back on track and remind us how he was too good for Crystal Ocean (Sea The Stars {Ire}), Stradivarius (Ire) (Sea The Stars {Ire}), Rekindling (High Chaparral {Ire}) et al. Whatever has been ailing him, in particular, it's been a tough summer at Ballydoyle. A lot of water has passed under the bridge, certainly,...

SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY--A just 29, trainer Ray Handal has come a long way since attending the races with his father as child at their home track of Caymanas Park in Jamaica. He's up to almost 30 head, and is wrapping up a very strong Saratoga meet that has so far seen his 18 starters win four times (22%) with a particularly stellar in-the-money rate of 61%. Among his wins at the Spa was a victory in last Friday's Fleet Indian S. with New York-bred sophomore filly English Soul (English Channel)....

DONCASTER, UK—On the eve of the Goffs UK Premier Sale, Managing Director Tony Williams had spoken with cautious optimism of his hope that the company's leading yearling auction would take another step forward this year. Bettering the previous sale record by £100,000 can be seen as a leap rather than a mere step and in the £380,000 session-leading first-crop son of Gleneagles (Ire) there was widespread anticipation that this would be a colt to lead the flagship Doncaster sale into new territory. The Goffs UK team didn't have long to...

The story of 2-year-old colt Classy John (Songandaprayer) looks like a pretty interesting one on paper, but is even more so than meets the eye. A $12,000 Equine Sales of Louisiana purchase in May off of just a gallop, the Valene Farms-owned Dallas Stewart trainee shipped up to Saratoga last Saturday to romp by six lengths at 12-1 odds in a typically tough GI Travers S. day maiden special weight (video replay). The Louisiana-bred beat a pricey group in the process, defeating the likes of an $850,000 2-year-old acquisition and...

Caledonia Road (Quality Road--Come a Callin, by Dixie Union), last year's champion juvenile filly, will be offered at the 2018 Fasig-Tipton November Sale by Blake-Albina Thoroughbred Services, the consignor announced Tuesday morning. The 2017 GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Filly victress will go under the hammer on behalf of Zoom and Fish Stable Inc., Charlie Spiring and Newtown Anner Stud as a racing/broodmare prospect in Lexington, Sunday, Nov. 4. "It is very rare that a filly with Caledonia Road's credentials comes to public auction," said consignor Hanzly Albina of Blake-Albina Thoroughbred...

Skitter Scatter (Scat Daddy) proved herself the top 2-year-old filly so far in Ireland this year when winning the G2 Debutante S. at The Curragh last Sunday. She is co-owned and co-bred by Anthony Rogers and his mother Sonia of Airlie Stud, a farm that has bred a long roll call of Classic and Group 1 winners since its establishment by the late Captain Tim Rogers and his wife Sonia in the 1960s. TDN's Daithi Harvey caught up with Anthony Rogers about the exciting times of being involved with such...

John Asher, widely considered the face of Churchill Downs and the Kentucky Derby through his roles as the track's vice president of racing communications, passed away Monday morning after suffering a heart attack while on vacation with his family in Florida. The iconic and beloved spokesman was 62 years old. Asher joined Churchill Downs in January 1997 and had served in his communications role since March 1999. "To say that racing has lost one of its giants with the passing of John Asher does not begin to capture the impact...

It's been a week of landmark achievements, most of them having taken place at one of England's finest racecourses, York. Mark Johnston's assault on Richard Hannon, Sr.'s record of 4,193 winners may have seemed hesitant in the week leading up to the momentous achievement, but once out in front, Johnston has kept pulling away in typical fashion, with another four winners in the bag since then. Plenty of tributes have been paid to the trainer, and rightly so, but I'm sure he'd be the first to acknowledge the part played...

Young trainer Jack Sisterson, a former assistant to prominent names in racing such as Doug O'Neill and Todd Pletcher, set out on his own with a Keeneland-based string earlier this year and won his first race Aug. 12 when Calumet Farm homebred Next Dance (Oxbow) won her debut in a Belterra Park maiden race. As Sisterson becomes more of a regular name in the entry box across the Midwest, the trainer sat down with the TDN's Lucas Marquardt to discuss his time working with O'Neill as well as his new...

DONCASTER, UK—The reputation of the 'Donny' yearling has long been cast in physique over pedigree: an up-and-at-'em type beloved of breeze-up pinhookers and a certain brand of trainer. To an extent that still holds true but as the popularity and success of the sale has grown—fairly significantly over the last five years—it's now fair to say that the type of yearling on offer has morphed into a 'Donny-Plus' model. Of course not all graduates of the sale will go on to win a Classic but if Laurens (Fr) (Siyouni {Fr})...

Although Storm Cat's superstar son Giant's Causeway spent only one season in Ireland, when he launched his stallion career at Coolmore at a fee of IR100,000gns, his efforts that year have left a substantial and hopefully long-lasting legacy in Europe. His impact was seen in three of last week's 2-year-old group winners. The link to Giant's Causeway was provided by Shamardal, who ranked alongside Footstepsinthesand as one of two Classic winners from that outstanding Irish crop, which produced a total of five Group 1 winners. In proving himself the champion...

Saturday's slate of graded stakes at Saratoga Race Course yielded entertaining and intriguing races whose results very likely include pertinent clues that could go a long way toward solving the non-2-year-old divisions of the Breeders' Cup. Hopefully you got your fill out of the GI Runhappy Travers S. and its undercard though, because in this era of longer-spaced and lightly raced game plans, the notion of an "autumn campaign" for elite-level horses is slipping by the wayside. We're now inside the 10-week mark for Thoroughbred racing's world championships, and it...