Carrie Brogden

LEXINGTON, KY - The Fasig-Tipton October Yearlings Sale reached its halfway mark with a vibrant day of trade topped by a $550,000 son of Curlin who was one of the last horses through the ring Tuesday. "It was tremendous second session of the 2024 Kentucky October Yearling sale," said Fasig-Tipton President Boyd Browning, Jr. "There was really spirited bidding from the very beginning of the sale to the very end of the sale. The level and consistency of the bidding throughout the day was truly encouraging." Through two sessions of...

Tom Mullikin, who runs Mullikin Farm with his wife Michelle, admits he doesn't have the assets to compete at the highest level of the breeding business. "I'm the son of a Washington DC deputy fire chief and Michelle is the daughter of a retired air force pilot," Mullikin said. "We are not working off a trust fund. We're mom and pop. We do everything ourselves, from foaling mares to mucking stalls. A lot of the mares we get are handed down or gifted to us." That's not the easiest way...

Edited Press Release The Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association (TOBA) is hosting a Pedigree & Conformation Clinic at Fasig-Tipton on Monday, Oct. 21, in Lexington, KY, during the auction house's Kentucky October Yearlings sale. The topics and speakers at the clinic include: Pedigrees/Conformation/Horse Selection, presented by David Ingordo (Bloodstock Agent) The Role of an Auction House and the Auction Process, presented by Anna Seitz Ciannello (Fasig-Tipton) and Leif Aaron (Fasig-Tipton) Yearling Prep for the Sales, presented by Carrie Brogden (Machmer Hall) Equine Nutrition, presented by Anthony Koch (Hallway Feeds) The...

Brook Smith and Carrie Brogden have been appointed to the board of directors of Thoroughbred Charities of America, the organization announced Wednesday. Current directors Marette Farrell and Marshall Gramm were named secretary and treasurer, respectively. Smith is a resident of Louisville, Kentucky. After graduating from Clemson University with a degree in finance, he returned to Kentucky and launched a career in the insurance industry, as a broker with his agency Smith Manus (now Acrisure) and as a partner in Lexon Insurance Group. He is a serial entrepreneur and big supporter...

The Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association elected David O'Farrell as chairman and new Board of Trustees members who will be serving three-year terms are Jake Ballis, Ben Bernhard, Tina Marie Bond and Brook Smith, the organization said in a release Wednesday. Also, re-elected to three-year terms were current trustees Carrie Brogden and Tim Cohen. Following its annual members meeting, the TOBA Board of Trustees met to elect officers for the association.  Officers named for 2024-2025 are: O'Farrell, chairman, Everett Dobson, vice-chairman, Dan Metzger, president; Doug Cauthen, secretary; and Garrett O'Rourke,...

Special Me has been the gift that keeps on giving for breeders Carrie and Craig Brogden and Dr. Sandra Fubini of Machmer Hall. Now that the outstanding broodmare is 18 years old, you'd think that her best days are behind her. But with a Grade I winner competing at the top level of the filly and mare turf division this year and an impressive fleet of well-bred, unraced progeny in the pipeline, the mare's fairytale story just keeps getting better. Carrie Brogden famously purchased Special Me, a Maryland-bred daughter of...

So I think this kind of sums up our industry, this attached photo. This weekend my daughter and I went to show her warmblood at WEC Ohio. It was a very successful weekend and we were lucky enough to stay at an Air BnB on a horse farm. They had a book there with the check-in instructions and the history of the horse farm. I was reading the history of it, and I just wanted to share what to them is insignificant as just facts, but to me, it just...

The TDN's popular annual series 'Mating Plans, presented by Spendthrift,' continues today in a conversation with Machmer Hall's Carrie Brogden. Becca's Rocket, 6, (Orb-Idoitmyway, by Unbridled's Song). To be bred to Elite Power. Becca's Rocket is currently in foal to Jackie's Warrior. We bred this Orb filly and after the untimely death of her Unbridled's Song dam in a paddock accident, I vowed to buy this beautiful stakes mare back after her racing career. When she was born, I had such high hopes for her because she was just a...

Today we reach quite a crossroads in the market, between $20,000 and $29,999. It takes a degree of affluence to roll the dice at this level, but you'd do so hoping to reach blood of genuine elite potential. As usual, we've sieved out the new sires, having given them a separate treatment at the outset. Instructively, however, it's a tier dominated by stallions still in the early stages of their careers. And there is an auspicious flux here. One or two, if building on a promising start on the track,...

As 2023 draws to a close, the TDN is asking industry members to name their favorite moment of the year. Send yours to suefinley@thetdn.com My favorite memory of 2023 (other than me bawling my eyes out standing there watching Cody's Wish enter the winner's circle with Cody Dorman waiting for him at Santa Anita, which still makes me cry) was being at Keeneland with Liz Crow to watch our homebred and Liz's purchase Gina Romantica win her second Grade I there at 11-1 odds (I bet her, too!) AND then...

Breeding plans was the topic for the 10th and final panel of the 2023 OwnerView Virtual Thoroughbred Owner Conference, which was held Tuesday, Dec. 5, The Jockey Club said in a release Thursday. Panelists were Carrie Brogden, owner of Machmer Hall Farm; Alan Porter, founder of TrueNicks; and Mark Toothaker, director of stallions at Spendthrift Farm. The panel was hosted by OwnerView's project manager, Gary Falter. Topics for the breeding panel included matings, nicking, conformation traits, inbreeding, broodmare preferences and stallion selection. The first question to the panelists referred to...

When The Jockey Club announced last week that the estimated North American foal crop for 2024 was 18,000, a 2.7% decline from the projected 2023 foal crop, the news was hardly a surprise. By the time the final numbers are in for 2024,the foal crop will have declined in 18 of the last 19 years and this will be the smallest foal crop since 1964. Since 2005, when there were 38,365 foals, the crop has declined by more than half. How big of a problem is this. Why is it...