Breeding

OCALA, FL - The Ocala Breeders' Sales Company's June Sale of 2-Year-Olds in Training got a late boost from its supplemental section when a colt by Uncle Mo brought the top price of $375,000 during Friday's final session of the three-day auction. The 2024 June sale concluded with numbers just a tick off the sale's 2023 renewal. A total of 582 2-year-olds grossed $21,386,800 during the three-day auction, with the average of $36,747 down 2.2% from last year's figure and the median held at $20,000. Ramon Morales purchased Friday's session...

"A man of my kidney." All the way back to Falstaff, this curious expression has tokened a particular kinship in temperament or personality. In the case of Adrian Regan of Hunter Valley Farm, however, it has an uncommon resonance--both literal and figurative. In the former sense, he was fortunate that his brother should have turned out to possess not only a matching kidney when Regan needed a transplant, but also the big fraternal heart to go willingly under the knife. Regan will never forget Dr. Erickson at the Mayo Clinic...

Last year's GI Arkansas Derby winner Angel of Empire (Classic Empire) was honored as the 2023 PA-Bred Horse of the Year and Champion 3-year-old Male at the Pennsylvania Horse Breeders Association's 45th annual Iroquois Awards held May 10. Racing in 2023 for Albaugh Family Stables LLC and trained by Brad Cox, Angel of Empire won two of six starts during his 3-year-old season. He was Pennsylvania's richest state-bred of the year, with earnings of $1,446,375. The complete list of divisional champions is below: 2-year-old Female: Carmelina (Maximus Mischief) 2-year-old Male:...

Having long served as Champion Bore regarding the schism between gene pools either side of the Atlantic, I always find it curious that Europeans so readily shed their inhibitions about American stallions once a 2-year-old is introduced to their domestic market by a compatriot pinhooker. That's presumably because they are nowadays so enslaved by the clock--whatever their contrary claims--that pedigree has almost been neutralized at 2-year-old sales. Functionality is all. Admittedly an elite sire will put a premium on a bullet time. But just as unfashionable local stallions have achieved...

Wyoming-based Cowboy Racing will partner with 1/ST to boost racing, breeding and wagering opportunities in the state, the organizations announced in a joint statement Monday. The newly-planned Thunder Plains Park, a racing and training facility planned for Cheyenne, will welcome 1/ST as its exclusive racing operator through a planned 16 day live-racing meet. "We are excited to expand upon our success and continued support of racing and HHR in Wyoming to lend 1/ST's industry-leading operational experience and passion to Cowboy Racing as they work to develop a new racing and...

Keeneland has supplemented the 2-year-old Cheval de Guerre (Caravaggio) to Friday evening's April Selected Horses of Racing Age Sale, which will begin at 6:30 p.m. ET., the auction house said in a release early Friday morning. Consigned by Kenneally Racing, agent, the colt will sell as Hip 135 from Barn 18. The first foal out of Champagne Diet, a winning daughter of Declaration of War, the gray is from the family of multiple Grade I winners Winter Memories (El Prado {Ire}) and Memories of Silver (Silver Hawk). On the turf...

The start of the Ocala Breeders' Sales Company's June 2024 Two-Year-Olds in Training & Horses of Racing Age Sale will now start at 10:00 a.m. Wednesday, June 12 and run through Friday, June 14, the auction company said in a release Wednesday afternoon. The Under Tack Show will be Tuesday, June 4 and continue through Sunday, June 9 with each session beginning at 7:30 a.m. The June Sale was shifted forward one day to allow additional travel and inspection time for those attending Belmont Stakes weekend held at Saratoga this...

Florida House of Representatives Stan McClain will receive the inaugural Matt Bryan Distinguished Advocacy Award from the Florida Thoroughbred Breeders' and Owners' Association at their annual Gala Monday. In a press release Friday, the FTBOA acknowledged McClain as helping to extend House Bill 7063, an incentives package for Florida breeding and racing interests. "We were excited to be able to expand Florida's investment supporting the Florida Thoroughbred industry on a long-term basis," said McClain. "I'm looking forward to watching how this investment helps the industry thrive in upcoming years." Rep....

Several farms in and around Lexington, KY will be represented as part of a two-day breeding clinic hosted by the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association. The event, which will be held June 7-8, will take attendees to Lane's End, Mulholland Springs, Crestwood Farm and Pin Oak Stud and also includes a tour of Hagyard Equine Medical Institute. Educational opportunities will touch on all aspects of breeding including mating plans, foaling procedures and veterinary perspectives. Registration for this event is open to the public and available here.

For a stallion farm, it's the equivalent of the "difficult second album" so notorious in the music industry. You've launched a new sire, and profited from the customary stampede of commercial mares. But the vogue proves to be cruelly fleeting. When he returns to the covering shed, the following spring, he offers exactly the same performance history, chromosomes and conformation as before. But suddenly the phone is cold. Precisely the factors that drove his debut book--novelty, plus security from imminent exposure of his competence (or otherwise) to replicate ability--have meanwhile...

Eskendereya (Giant's Causeway--Aldebaran Light, by Seattle Slew), whose son Mitole was the leading freshman sire of 2023 by winners and progeny earnings, died of heart failure Mar. 2 at Shichinohe Stallion Station in Japan, where he had been standing since 2016. He was 17 years of age. Bred in Kentucky by Sanford Robertson, Eskendereya was purchased by Zayat Stables for $250,000 at the 2008 Keeneland September sale. Turned over to Todd Pletcher, the chestnut broke his maiden in a rained-off renewal of the 2009 Pilgrim S. and switched to the...

The 2024 All American Thoroughbred Stallion Sale put on by Jockeys and Jeans raised a total of $95,550, the organization announced Friday. The proceeds, which will benefit the Permanently Disabled Jockeys Fund (PDJF), are a record for the sale which also included a record 48 seasons sold. Donations came from 32 farms across seven states and included 73 no-guarantee seasons purchased by 25 individual breeders. "It was truly a community effort and one whose response proves racing is indeed a community; one that cares," said Interim Jockeys and Jeans President...