Ashford Stud

When regally-bred Grade I winner Mendelssohn (Scat Daddy-Leslie's Lady, by Tricky Creek) joined the stallion roster at Ashford Stud in 2019, his half-brother Into Mischief had just received a bump in stud fee from $100,000 to $150,000 at nearby Spendthrift Farm. The next year, as Mendelssohn's first foals were hitting the ground, Into Mischief was represented by GI Kentucky Derby hero and eventual Horse of the Year Authentic. Today, as Into Mischief is now widely regarded as the leading stallion in the world, Mendelssohn awaits the day when his first...

Let's get one thing straight, right off the bat. Even setting aside the fact that our industry--with the complicity of the media--devotes disproportionate attention and resources to freshman sires, July is way too early to be deciding which few will ultimately build a sustainable career in Kentucky. True, it can only be auspicious to see Gun Runner already perched at the top of their prizemoney table. Though he put together his Horse of the Year campaign as a 4-year-old, he has already had eight winners from 18 starters. But other...

Joseph O'Brien trainee Agartha (Ire) (Caravaggio) was winless in four prior outings and went postward for Thursday evening's G3 Frank Conroy Silver Flash S. at Leopardstown as an almost unconsidered 16-1 outsider coming back off a two-length second to the 'TDN Rising Star' performance of Homeless Songs (Ire) (Frankel {GB}) tackling this seven-furlong strip at the Foxrock venue earlier in the month. The February-foaled bay had placed behind decent sorts in all races contested to date, including a third to the reopposing G3 Albany S. fourth Prettiest (Dubawi {Ire}) in...

Peter Savill's 2-year-old filly Dizzy Bizu (Ire) (Caravaggio) posted a May 11 debut score tackling five furlongs at Chantilly and returned over the same strip to remain perfect in Sunday's Listed Prix La Fleche, providing her freshman sire (by Scat Daddy) with a first black-type success. Breaking sharply to race in a prominent second from flagfall, the 21-5 chance came under pressure on all sides passing the quarter-mile marker and was driven out inside the final furlong to assert by an ultimately comfortable 1 3/4 lengths from Anterselva (Fr) (Fast...

Freshman sire Practical Joke got off the mark with his first winner Saturday at Lone Star Park. Under a ride and outsprinted in fifth through an opening quarter in :22.59, Tom Durant homebred Catchusifyoucan (Practical Joke), off at odds of 5-1, rode the rail into the stretch and snuck up the fence in the late stages to secure a half-length decision over Free Like a Girl (El Deal). The winner's stakes-winning dam Legal Mind (Bellamy Road) is also represented by a Sky Kingdom colt of 2020. She was bred to...

No matter how ugly racing can get over here on our dirt tracks, most recently highlighted by the Gl Kentucky Derby betamethasone positive of the Bob Baffert-trained Medina Spirit (Protonico), North American pedigrees have to be reckoned with wherever racing is conducted at the highest levels, and that includes on turf in Japan (Sunday Silence) and Australasia (Danehill) in addition to Europe (Sadler's Wells). No one knows this better than the Coolmore partners, headed by maestro John Magnier, who learned this lesson decades ago on American buying sprees as the...

Tiz the Law (Constitution--Tizfiz, by Tiznow), a four-time Grade I winner who is finishing up his first year of covering duties at Coolmore's Ashford Stud in Versailles, Kentucky, will shuttle to Haras Paso Nevado in Chile for the upcoming Southern Hemisphere breeding season, Turf Diario reported Thursday. A $110,000 graduate of the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga New York-Bred Sale in 2018, Tiz the Law raced in the maroon-and-gray colors of Sackatoga Stable and was trained by Barclay Tagg to a four-length victory in the GI Champagne S. in just his second career...

Alleging that a lawsuit by three Kentucky stud farms over the 140-mare stallion cap is "based on groundless and contradictory fortune telling," The Jockey Club (TJC) filed a motion in federal court Mar. 29 asking the judge to dismiss the complaint, which seeks to have the breeding limit repealed and to award an unspecified amount of damages that the plaintiffs want paid in triplicate. According to Monday's filing in United States District Court, Eastern District of Kentucky (Central Division), Spendthrift Farm, Ashford Stud and Three Chimneys Farm are suing TJC...

By the time a stallion's fourth book opens, the team behind him is usually pulling out all their stops to fill those pages. But perhaps no marketing technique in their repertoire can have quite the same effect as just one big price tag when the stallion's first crop of juveniles go to market. At last week's OBS March Sale, three first-crop juvenile sires were represented by youngsters that surpassed the $500,000 mark in the sales ring, and representatives from each of their respective farms said the phone has been ringing...

With the 2-year-old sales right around the corner, the TDN reached out to consignors with juveniles heading to the sales rings at the Mar. 16 and 17 Ocala Breeders' Sales Company's March Sale of 2-Year-Olds in Training and the Mar. 31 Fasig-Tipton Gulfstream Sale to discuss which of their offerings by first-crop sires have impressed them. This is the second installment of the series (click here to view the first section which was published in Tuesday's TDN). CIARAN DUNNE (Wavertree Stables) Among the 26 juveniles Ciaran Dunne's Wavertree Stables has...

Spendthrift Farm, Ashford Stud and Three Chimneys Farm are suing The Jockey Club in federal court over the "stallion cap" rule that went into effect in 2020, alleging that the 140-mare breeding limit now being phased in amounts to a "blatant abuse of power" that acts as an "anti-competitive restraint" and threatens to disrupt the free-market nature of the bloodstock business. The plaintiffs contend that the stallion cap "serves no legitimate purpose and has no scientific basis" while alleging that the nine stewards of The Jockey Club who voted to...

As the calendar inches inexorably towards March and a spring-long series of 2-year-olds in training sales, consignors are putting the finishing touches on juveniles heading to auction, paying particular attention to youngsters representing their stallions first crop to hit the track. The TDN is reaching out to consignors with 2-year-olds heading to the sales rings at OBS and Gulfstream Park next month to find out which freshman sires have impressed them. EDDIE WOODS Prolific consignor Eddie Woods has 24 juveniles catalogued for the Ocala Breeders' Sales Company's March 2-Year-Olds in...