Claiborne

Season 5 of the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame's live webcam series Foal Patrol will debut online at www.foalpatrol.com Wednesday, Jan. 5, 2022. Season 5 will feature in-foal mares at Claiborne Farm, Gainesway Farm, Safari North at Pauls Mill Farm, Three Chimneys Farm and Old Tavern Farm in New York. The participants are MGISW Elate (Medaglia d'Oro) at Claiborne, who is carrying her second foal by Speightstown; Gainesway's Spanish Bunny (Unusual Heat), who is in foal to Uncle Mo; Traveling Tiger (Candy Ride {Arg}), in foal to...

The sales action moves across town Wednesday with bidding on the first session of Keeneland November starting at 1 p.m. The 10-day auction, which runs through Nov. 19, opens with a single-session Book 1 comprised of 229 mares and weanlings, five of which were late supplements. The sale has five books in total and the last half of the final day will be dedicated to 285 Horses of Racing Age. "We have a lot of optimism," said Cormac Breathnach, Keeneland's Director of Sales. "We had an electric atmosphere starting in...

And so we come to the group standing on the brink. The group facing the moment of truth, when their most precocious stock enters the gate and offers some initial indication as to their competence for the task for which, ostensibly at least, they were bred. As such, this should perhaps be the moment we double down. That's what we would do, at any rate, if we had real faith in the choices we have made for our mares. If we have selected their mates well, then people will be...

As we approach the end of the calendar, we turn our attention to the incoming sire class of 2021. We asked several judges who their favorite incoming sire is for next year and if there are any other stallions, new or otherwise, that have caught their eye as under-the-radar picks. JUSTIN CASSE Authentic (Into Mischief), $75,000, Spendthrift Farm  The easy answer to this is Authentic, based on the obvious. His connections, his accomplishments in the summer and fall, as well as his sire. He's the leader of the pack in...

As a yearling, Exploding Star (Exploit) showed all the early potential to become a successful racehorse. Her dam Star Minister (Deputy Minister) won the 1992 GII Cotillion H. at Philadelphia Park and claimed six additional stakes races over her three-year career. Her half-brother, Concerned Minister (Concern), also won several black-type races. Exploding Star was purchased as a yearling at the 2002 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Select Sale by the late F. Eugene Dixon Jr. for $450,000. After three career starts where she ran in the money twice, Exploding Star retired under the...

All week in this ongoing series, we have been talking to stallion managers and others about the difficulties in filling books for stallions other than first-year and premier stallions. In terms of the difficulties of filling books for third- and fourth-year stallions, I would say that we have been lucky this hasn't really been a problem at Claiborne. However, I have seen it be tricky for some of our less-expensive stallions. The different incentive programs that other farms offer have probably hurt us because breeders can breed elsewhere for deep...

By Andrea Branchini Meritaten, f, 3, War Front--Queen Nefertiti (Ire) (GSP), by   Galileo (Ire). Sam Houston Race, 1-29, 1m (off turf), 1:41.38.   B-Claiborne Farm (KY). A winner of a maiden in Texas has a curious name. MERITATEN is a daughter of QUEEN NEFERTITI, in very ancient history--and also in the Jockey Club Register three millennia later. The original Nefertiti (1370-1330 BC) was an Egyptian queen and the Great Royal Wife of Akhenaten, the Pharaoh who started a religious revolution by worshipping one god only, the sun (named Aten). Meritaten was...

With Claiborne's announcement that War Front would remain at $250,000 in 2019, the 16-year-old sire becomes the top-priced U.S.-based stallion, along with Medaglia d'Oro. Tapit will stand for $225,000, Gainesway Farm announced Wednesday. The leading sire by percentage of lifetime graded stakes winners, War Front has sired 29 black-type horses in 2018, and four Grade or Group 1 stakes winners, including U S Navy Flag, Fog of War, and Lancaster Bomber. War Front's yearlings have brought prices up to $2.4 million. The stud fee for Claiborne's Blame--sire of two GI...