Blue Prize

Celebrating 40 Years of the Breeders' Cup Can you imagine being a horse racing-crazy kid with a ringside seat to the creation of the Breeders' Cup? Mark Taylor can, because he was. Fast forward more than four decades and now he is president and CEO of the Central Kentucky farm that is believed to have raised and/or sold more Breeders' Cup winners than any other. There's also the matter of having stood the Breeders' Cup winner who currently holds the record for siring the most Breeders' Cup winners in turn....

Two Grade I winners inside an hour last Saturday: both sold as November weanlings at Keeneland, both through the same consignment. But while their shared provenance at least guarantees that you'll want to drop by the Bluegrass Thoroughbred Services draft this time round, as well, it is not as though Forte (Violence) and War Like Goddess (English Channel) can otherwise elucidate the vagaries of our business. Because while one made respectable money, the other was more or less given away. War Like Goddess, swept up in the kind of cull...

With the 2022 breeding season right around the corner, we will feature a series of breeders' mating plans over the coming weeks. Today we have Taylor Made's Katie Taylor Whalen on behalf of Larry Best, owner of OXO Equine. Best retired two stallions to Taylor Made--GISW Instilled Regard (Arch) and GSW/GISP Instagrand (Into Mischief)--for their first seasons last year, with both represented by their first foals in 2022. A majority of his broodmare band, over 50 strong, will go to one of the two and are expecting foals by either...

The fireworks at the annual Keeneland and Fasig-Tipton November sales are always a highlight of the year as seven-figure bids abound on some of racing's top broodmares and broodmare prospects. But after the dust settles, it can be years before words get out on the breeding careers of the sales' top offerings. We catch up with the connections of a few of these most recent million-dollar broodmares and learn of their mating plans for 2021 in our 'Million-Dollar Matings' series. [tdn_vimeo_embed title="Blue Prize at Taylor Made" admp4="https://player.vimeo.com/external/515489558.sd.mp4?s=c7e72749717e8d52cab5b5ce2ae192d51a7af636&profile_id=165" videomp4= "https://player.vimeo.com/external/522978900.sd.mp4?s=86df5ecc14e6d906dbebdf808f5c0ef9029e5cc0&profile_id=165" thumbnail=...

Three months after it was announced that Larry Best's OXO Equine would venture into the stallion business with 'TDN Rising Star' Instagrand (Into Mischief) at Taylor Made Stallions, a second addition was made to the farm's 2021 roster in Best's leading earner Instilled Regard (Arch). The 6-year-old will stand his first year at stud for a fee of $12,500 and Taylor Made's Frank Taylor said that demand has been high since his retirement was announced in December. "We are very excited about having Instilled Regard added to our roster at...