Flightline

With the breeding season underway, the TDN staff is continuing the '2023 Mating Plans' series, presented by Spendthrift Farm, to find out what stallions breeders have chosen for their mares this year, and why. Here Woodford Thoroughbreds shares their plans for the breeding season. As a commercial breeding farm, Woodford Thoroughbreds operates with two principles in mind when choosing our matings. 1) We are producing racehorses. In 2023, Woodford is the breeder of Mimi Kakushi (City of Light), a Group 3 winner on the Oaks trail; Rocket Can (Into Mischief),...

The 2022 Horse of the Year and World's Best Racehorse Flightline (Tapit) is represented by his first in-foal mare, four-year-old Lady Scarlet (Union Rags--Exclude {GB} by Include). Winner of last season's Cicada S. and GIII Miss Preakness S. for owners Paradise Farms Corp and David Staudacher. She was a recent purchase by Glendalough Farm at the Keeneland January sale. Flightline stands for $200,000. Flightline raced by Summer Wind in partnership with Hronis Racing, Siena Farm, West Point Thoroughbreds and Woodford Racing. Trained by John Sadler, he won the GI Breeders'...

RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA--Country Grammer (Tonalist) brings rock-solid credentials to the G1 Saudi Cup at Riyadh, according to his legendary rider Frankie Dettori, who says the Bob Baffert-trained 6-year-old can go one better than last year in Saturday's showpiece. Dettori also described Baffert's other runner in the race, the unexposed Taiba (Gun Runner), as a force to be reckoned with as the 52-year-old spoke alongside fellow luminary in the saddle, Joao Moreira, in the build-up to the world's richest race. "Country Grammer is very solid and never runs a bad race--touch...

It has been a poignant year for his mother's family, who last summer grieved not only their own venerable patriarch but the founder of many parallel equine dynasties. Within months of Alec Head's death, their Haras du Quesnay was being dismantled and, as a reflective young man, Fernando Laffon could not fail to sense the end of a cycle as his grandmother Criquette Head-Maarek was joined in retirement by her brother Freddy. But just as Freddy's children Christopher and Victoria meanwhile continue in training careers of their own, so Laffon...

The most exciting and highest-priced horse to go to stud in 2023, at a fee of $200,000, Flightline has amassed a book of mares as deep as any in recent memory for a first-season sire. We sat down with Lane's End Bloodstock's David Ingordo to hear about just 10 of those famous mares--a tough number to narrow down in a book so full of riches. "We've got a ton of great support for the horse, from Eclipse Award-winning owner-breeders to successful commercial breeders," said Ingordo. "We went out and bought...

Having just last week been crowned the Longines World's Best Racehorse in London, 'TDN Rising Star' Flightline (Tapit) was named America's no-doubt-about-it Horse of the Year and champion dirt male at the Eclipse Awards, held Thursday evening at The Breakers in Palm Beach, Florida. Bred in Kentucky by Jane Lyon's Summer Wind Equine, Flightline was a $1-million purchase out of the 2019 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Sale, didn't start as a juvenile and didn't get to a starting gate until April of his 3-year-old season. The negatives end right about there. In...

Flightline not only garnered the Older Dirt Male Eclipse Award, but his impressive performances throughout 2022 earned him the right at this coveted prize—Horse of the Year. FLIGHTLINE We may never see another one quite like him again. Crowned as Longines World's Best Racehorse in London last week, Flightline, to absolutely no one's surprise, added Horse of the Year and champion older dirt male honors at Thursday evening's Eclipse Awards. The unbeaten 'TDN Rising Star' ran to his unworldly reputation and then some by concluding his six-for-six career with a...

Malathaat and Flightline finished their careers in style at the Breeders' Cup that led to their crowning as the most-talented older female and male in North America. MALATHAAT A star every step of the way, Malathaat hails from Barbara Banke's stellar Stonestreet program out of a second-generation Grade I winner by a two-time Horse of the Year turned elite sire. In a feat for the ages, Stonestreet bred all three finalists in this division, while Godolphin did the same in the male turf division. Malathaat brought seven figures as a...

Flightline (Tapit) has been rated as Frankel's equal in the 2022 Longines World's Best Racehorse rankings on Tuesday with the GI Breeders' Cup Classic winner handed 140, while the brilliant Baaeed (GB) (Sea The Stars {Ire}) ended the year as the world's top-rated turf horse and the second-highest-rated horse in the world after achieving a mark of 135. Baaeed, who lost his unbeaten record on his final start in the G1 Champion S. at Ascot, secured his rating of 135 when beating Mishriff (Ire) (Make Believe {GB}) in the G1...

LONDON, UK--It was perhaps not as apt a setting for a coronation as its sumptuous Palladian aspect suggests, bearing in mind that it was on a scaffold outside the Banqueting House in Whitehall that the first King Charles was executed in 1649. But the accession of a third version will instead leave all contention to those historians of the Turf who must determine where the most regal American Thoroughbred of recent times may stand in the pantheon of the modern breed. Flightline (Tapit) is about to start his second career...

As we approach the opening of the 2023 breeding season, the TDN staff is once again sitting down with leading breeders to find out what stallions they have chosen for their mares, and why. Today we caught up with Robert Tillyer, farm manager of William and Donna Shively's Dixiana Farm. HAVANA DREAM (m, 10, Quality Road - Mayo On the Side, by French Deputy) to be bred to Constitution This stakes-placed mare is carrying her third foal by Yaupon. She is from the family of MGSW Midcourt (Midnight Lute) and...

The 2022 Longines World Racing Awards ceremony will be live-streamed on the social media accounts of Longines and the International Federation of Horse Racing Authorities, the IFHA announced Friday. The ceremony is scheduled to be Tuesday, Jan. 17 January 2023 at 2:15 British time, and 9:15 a.m. EST. The event will honor the Longines World's Best Racehorse and the Longines World's Best Horse Race of the 2022 season. The in-person event will take place at Banqueting House in London. This year marked the 400th anniversary of the building, which is...