Ashford Stud

Ashford Stud's three-time Grade I winner Jack Christopher (Munnings) was represented by his first reported foal when a filly was born Jan. 11 at River Valley Farm in New York. The filly is the first produce from the unraced She's a Go Go Girl (Union Rags), who was acquired by Whitecloud Bloodstock for $30,000 at last year's Keeneland November. The deeper female family includes Grade II-winning juvenile filly Magicalmysterycat (Storm Cat). "We couldn't be happier with this filly," said Dr. Scott Ahschwede who bred her along with his wife Dr....

Early Voting (Gun Runner), who got 120 mares in foal during his first season at stud last season before a rare condition led to his being removed from stud duties on the advice of veterinary experts, has been cured and will continue his stud career at Taylor Made Stallions in 2024. He covered his first book of mares in 2023 at Ashford Stud. Winner of the 2022 GI Preakness S. for Klaravich Stables and Chad Brown, Early Voting retired with three wins from six starts and earnings in excess of...

The first foal for champion 2-year-old and GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile winner Corniche (Quality Road) arrived at Denali Stud on Monday when Faith And Honor (Honor Code) produced a filly, Coolmore America said in a release Wednesday. "Our Corniche out of Faith and Honor started off our foaling season at Denali in good order," said Conrad Bandoroff. "The filly has plenty of quality about her with good leg and bone. Very pleased with our start!" A $1.5 million sale topper after breezing a furlong in :10 flat at OBS April,...

Now we're really entering nosebleed altitudes for most breeders, between $30,000 and $50,000: a zone where you should feel that you're improving the odds of coming up with an elite horse. It tells you a lot about our business that the majority of the two dozen stallions operating at this level can only do so because they have yet to send a single runner into the starting gate. A quarter of these we immediately set to one side, as absolute beginners, because those received separate consideration in the opening instalment...

Champion 2-year-old male Classic Empire (Pioneerof the Nile) was purchased by the Korea Racing Authority and arrived Dec. 18 to continue his stud career for the 2024 breeding season, as first reported by The Paulick Report and confirmed by Ashford Stud. The 9-year-old stood at the farm in Versailles, Kentucky, where he was shuttled to Chile on multiple occasions. As of 2023, his oldest foals are 4-year-olds, and his progeny have won 113 races with earnings of more than $13.5 million. Angel of Empire is his most successful offspring, who...

Last year's Eclipse Champion 3-Year-Old Epicenter is the first stallion that Coolmore's Ashford Stud has stood for Winchell Thoroughbreds and the partnership got off to a blazing start as the son of Not This Time was one of the most popular stallions in Kentucky this year, covering 262 mares in his debut season. Now, Coolmore has teamed up with the same racing and breeding operation to debut another Grade I-winning stallion--this time a homebred son of Winchell's own Gun Runner. Gunite, who claimed the GI Hopeful S. as a juvenile...

Gunite (Gun Runner--Simple Surprise, by Cowboy Cal), a two-time Grade I winner and runner-up behind champion Elite Power (Curlin) in Saturday's GI Breeders' Cup Sprint at Santa Anita, has been retired from racing and will stand at Coolmore America's Ashford Stud for 2024. His fee has been set at $35,000. Trained by Steve Asmussen, the Winchell Thoroughbreds homebred defeated the aforementioned two-time Breeders' Cup Sprint winner in this summer's GI Forego S. at Saratoga. Gunite also won the GI Hopeful S. during his 2-year-old season and the GII Amsterdam S....

The sport's first Triple Crown winner since 1978, American Pharoah famously went through Fasig-Tipton's Select Saratoga Yearling Sale in 2013 only to be bought back by his breeder to race as a homebred. He spent eight months at Taylor Made Farm before the sale; Mark Taylor, who has had his hands on a lot of nice horses, distinctly remembers him. "It's kind of a microcosm of this industry: when you think you have it figured out, you don't have it figured out. He was born at Vinery, then went to...

Long-time Ashford Stud sire Lookin At Lucky (Smart Strike--Private Feeling, by Belong to Me) will be staying in Chile at Haras Don Alberto for the next season and will not be available to cover mares in Kentucky in 2024, officials at Coolmore America confirmed Thursday. A champion at two and three, as well as winner of the GI Preakness S. and four other Grade I events, Lookin At Lucky's first foals were born in 2012. Among his 74 black-type winners and 49 graded winners worldwide are champion and GI Breeders'...

Coolmore's late super sire, Galileo, added his sixth Breeders' Cup winner with Tuesday just last year. He is a joint second by winners, but stands alone as the leading Breeders' Cup sire by money won with nearly $16 million in purses--more than $4.5 million more than his closest pursuer. Tuesday, who also captured the G1 Cazoo Oaks in 2022 and now holds the 1 3/16-mile course record at Keeneland after her Breeders' Cup win, was retired shortly after the race and bred to Into Mischief this spring. "She was such...

Early Voting, who was not on the roster of stud fees when Coolmore America announced their 2024 lineup Tuesday, has been "removed from covering duties at Ashford Stud for the 2024 breeding season due to an inability to breed, according to veterinary experts," Coolmore said Wednesday. The farm said that the stallion, a son of Gun Runner, was subject to an ongoing insurance claim. Early Voting got off to a successful start at stud in 2023, and did get mares in foal, but experienced problems midway through the season. Those...

Triple Crown winner Justify (Scat Daddy), currently North America's leading second-crop sire in stakes horses, will stand for a fee of $200,000, live foal, at Ashford Stud in Kentucky in 2024, Coolmore America announced on Tuesday. The 9-year-old's fee represents a jump of $100,000 from the figure of $100,000 that he stood for in 2023. Justify's 2024 fee is the fourth-highest of the stallions announced so far for 2024, placing him behind perennial leading sires Into Mischief (Harlan's Holiday) and Curlin (Smart Strike), and third-crop standout Gun Runner (Candy Ride...