Heavenly Love

Who can forget the pulsating finish of this year's GI Kentucky Derby, when three noses hit the wire together in one of the tightest photo finishes we've seen in years? Other than the immediate connections of those three colts, it's hard to imagine anyone more invested in the result than Debby Oxley, whose beloved mare, Darling My Darling (Deputy Minister), is the granddam of two-thirds of that trifecta. While Mystik Dan (Goldencents) got his nose on the wire first, it was the Oxley-bred 'TDN Rising Star' and GI Toyota Blue...

Among the winners at the last Breeders' Cup, what was it that separated White Abarrio (Race Day), Goodnight Olive (Ghostzapper) and Nobals (Noble Mission {GB}) from the rest? Answer: they were the only ones that had changed hands at an American yearling auction, respectively for $7,500, $170,000 and $3,500. Even that lavish investor in the yearling market, Mike Repole, won the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile with a homebred. Except for a couple of European turf juveniles, the rest of the show was a parade of champions raised by "end users":...

Hip 202 had been well advertised leading up to the sale, and clearly the team at Gainesway Farm knew what they had, as the son of burgeoning super sire Gun Runner garnered $2.3 million from Peter Brant's White Birch Farm in partnership with Coolmore's M.V. Magnier. Magnier had just finished signing a $1.4-million ticket for another son of the Horse of the Year and Three Chimneys resident. Hip 202 was bred by Debby Oxley out of GI Darley Alcibiades S. winner Heavenly Love (Malibu Moon).