Connect

Longtime owner and breeder Paul Pompa, Jr., who campaigned dual Classic winner Big Brown (Boundary) in partnership, passed away suddenly Saturday, according to Jerry McClenin, Pompa's cousin-in-law and stable manager. He was 62. A highly respected businessman, Pompa was owner and President of the Brooklyn-based trucking company Truck-Rite Corp., which he recently sold. He got into Thoroughbreds in 2000 with the help of McClenin. "Paul was a tremendous businessman who ran his trucking business almost exclusively on his own," McClenin said. "He came to me saying he wanted to get...

Lane's End's Grade I-winning millionaire sire Connect is just weeks from seeing his first yearlings enter the sales ring. The son of top sire Curlin was recognized for his commercial appeal with his weanlings last year, and the farm hopes to emulate that success again this fall. Advertised at a $20,000 stud fee for the past three years, his first weanlings averaged $65,120 with 29 of 38 sold. "Connect was well supported last fall with his first crop of weanlings averaging nearly four times his stud fee," said Allaire Ryan,...

LEXINGTON, KY--The multiple graded stakes placed broodmare prospect Over Emphasize (Overanalyze) topped the opening session of the two-day Fasig-Tipton Winter Mixed Sale Monday with a final bid of $150,000 from bloodstock agent Andre Lynch. The day's top short yearling was a $140,000 son of Connect, purchased by Brian Graves on behalf of the Blue Sky Stable pinhooking partnership. "It is hit or miss at a smaller sale like this," Graves said. "February sales are up and down. There is not as much quality as November and January. I think there...

VERSAILLES, KY--With the foal crop of 2020 beginning to gradually dot the paddocks of the Bluegrass, excitement and anticipation are running high, perhaps even more so for a stud farm with a stallion celebrating its first arrivals. For Lane's End Farm, the feeling is threefold, with the farm set to welcome the first crops of Grade I winners Accelerate (Lookin At Lucky), City of Light (Quality Road) and West Coast (Flatter). In a media-only event at the farm's stallion complex Tuesday evening, Lane's End's Sales Director Allaire Ryan said she...

We've taken a breather in this series during the January Sale, where I shared many conversations on themes raised in its first two parts--notably the market's addiction to unproven stallions. Time after time, it was the same story. A shrug of the shoulders, a helpless spreading of the hands: "Yes, we know it's nuts. But we have to make the game pay." Fair enough. It's a bit like the individual who asks why he or she should make a massively inconvenient personal sacrifice, with regard to the climate crisis, when...