Claiborne Farm

The breeding community lost a friend and asset last week. Annette Covault died Friday, Dec. 13, from complications of ill health that she had dealt with for several years. As the booking secretary for Claiborne Farm first and then Gainesway Farm over several decades, Covault, known to her familiars as "Netto," provided common sense and good humor to breeders and farm managers working through the prickly process of getting mares booked to stallions in a timely manner. The stallion veterinarian at Gainesway from 2008 to 2019, Rocky Mason, DVM, noted...

When her many friends think of Ramona Bass, the first thing they picture is a smile as wide as all outdoors. And if you're used to the wide skies of South Texas, that is saying plenty. No country for old men, they call it, but from girlhood onward it has suited Bass just fine-and her own border story has instead been one that savors All The Pretty Horses. Its latest chapter concerns her "beautiful boy" Annapolis, who entered her life as the bonus in the package with the $4 million...

Dual-surface Grade I winner War of Will (War Front--Visions of Clarity {Ire}, by Sadler's Wells), the sire of 14 individual winners from his first crop to the races in 2024, will stand the 2025 breeding season for $20,000 LFSN, officials at Claiborne Farm announced Monday. Victorious in the GI Preakness Stakes on the dirt and the GI Maker's Mark Mile on the grass, War of Will is the second-leading freshman sire by turf winner and earnings and has been represented to date by three stakes horses She's Got Will, My...

Seemingly at home on both synthetic and turf courses, No Mo Candy (Uncle Mo) picked up her third win in a row and her first in stakes company in the GIII Pebbles Stakes at Aqueduct. Unveiled going 1m70 June 27 at Gulfstream Park, she missed by diminishing neck over that synthetic track and turned her luck around in that next start when she graduated July 26 by the same margin. Last seen putting up her best Beyer number to date, an 83 when she won against optional claiming company going...

With a strong turn of foot late in the game, Watchtower (Demarchelier (GB)--Zloty, by Exchange Rate) won the GIII Autumn Miss Stakes at Santa Anita, and in the process handed her second-crop sire his first black-type score. A two-time winner earlier this year when she was in the barn of Chad Brown, Watchtower moved west after changing hands for $310,000 at KEEAPR from owner Peter Brant to the partnership of Abbondanza Racing, LLC, Omar Aldabbagh and Michael Iavarone, who placed her into the Richard Baltas program. A back-to-back runner-up against...

Claiborne Farm will stand for $30,000 LFSN the newly-retired 'TDN Rising Star' and Grade I winner Prince of Monaco (by Speightstown), during the 2025 breeding season, the stud farm said in a Friday press release. "Prince of Monaco has sustained minor bone bruising, preventing him from competing in the Sprint and Malibu races," said co-owner Tom Ryan of SF Racing. "As a result, we have decided to retire him. He demonstrated brilliance almost every time he stepped onto the racetrack." The current 3-year-old colt, who will available for inspection at...

Claiborne Farm has announced the advertised fees for its 2025 stallion roster, led once again by the venerable War Front. War Front, a son of the mighty Danzig, will stand for an advertised fee of $75,000. He is North America's leading sire by lifetime percentage of stakes winners and graded stakes winners. This year, he added to his impressive list of top runners with GI E. P. Taylor Stakes winner Full Count Felicia, and Grade III winners Fort Washington, First World War, and Goliad, winner of the $2,000,000 Mint Millions...

Bright Future (Curlin), the winner of the GI Jockey Club Gold Cup at the Spa, has been retired to Claiborne Farm with a stud fee of $12,500 LFSN for the 2025 breeding season, the farm said via a press release on Wednesday. Currently available for inspection at Claiborne, the 5-year-old son of Curlin won five of 11 career starts and earned $947,940 for owners Repole Stable and St. Elias Stables. The Todd Pletcher trainee won the Gold Cup at four and took home the GIII Salvator Mile Stakes at Monmouth...

7th-SAR, $100K, Msw, 2yo, f, 7f, 3:25 p.m. ET. ALL THE FEELS (Into Mischief) was produced in-house at Spendthrift Farm and will make her first start for trainer Todd Pletcher. GSW Positive Spirit (Pioneerof the Nile) joined the farm's broodmare band after she was acquired for $1.5 million at the 2020 Fasig-Tipton Fall Mixed Sale and has handed All the Feels a pair of full-siblings. The Spa debut runner's GSW/GISP second dam is also responsible for GI Kentucky Derby hero Always Dreaming (Bodemeister) and GI Spinaway Stakes heroine Hot Dixie...

Once again American investors have shown an increasing receptivity to European bloodlines, this time at the big yearling sale in Deauville. For now, however, we're still only talking about a minority even among those with the resources required to import elite yearlings. But with a reciprocal curiosity also growing in Europe--thanks to Justify, in particular, but also to those breeze-up pinhookers now preparing their next raid on the September Sale--it does feel as though the overdue renewal of transatlantic traffic is beginning to gain commercial traction. We still have a...

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y.--Though the mission was to run her on grass, And One More Time (Omaha Beach) clearly relished the muddy sealed track she won over Thursday afternoon at Saratoga Race Course. The eight 2-year-old fillies were on their way to the paddock with light rain falling when New York Racing Association officials moved the 5 1/2 furlong maiden special weight contest to the main track. The switch did not bother the Live Oak Plantation filly, who stalked the early pace and scooted away to a 4 3/4 lengths victory...

Siena Farm, site of a boutique breeding operation which includes 262 acres located at 1651 Winchester Road outside of Lexington, Kentucky, is available for purchase according to a Thursday post on the Biederman Real Estate's website. As for Siena's racing partnerships, COO Ryan Smith confirmed that those will remain intact. Founded by Anthony Manganaro with Nacho Patino and David Pope, Siena was named after the commercial real estate business in the Baltimore-Washington area which Manganaro built. The founder, who purchased what would become Siena Farm in 2007, passed away last...