Hill 'n' Dale Farm

Three-time Grade I winner Bast (Uncle Mo), in foal to Triple Crown winner Justify (Scat Daddy), will be offered at this year's Fasig-Tipton November Sale through Hill 'n' Dale Sales Agency, who will consign the 3-year-old bay on behalf of owner Charles Chu's Baoma Corporation. The only three-time Grade I winning filly of her crop in the U.S., she is also the only Grade I-winning juvenile filly of that crop to add a graded stakes victory at three. Trained throughout her career by Hall of Famer Bob Baffert, she established...

Overlooked at long odds here and one of two unraced juvenile fillies in the line up, El Bayern became her GI Breeders' Cup Classic-winning sire's first black-type winner in the Muskoka S. on Sunday. Awkwardly away, she looked like she was spinning her wheels while dead last by several lengths for the first few furlongs. Asked for her bid with 2 ½ furlongs left to travel, she looped the field very wide out in the center of the track. Finding more as favored For My Elbi began to run out...

With the smoking hot sire Violence picking up another Grade I win, with Volatile in the Alfred G. Vanderbilt H. at Saratoga, John Sikura has a lot to talk about and a lot to be happy about. The President of Hill 'n' Dale Farms, where Violence stands, has seen that stallion's career get off to a fast start, slow down and now take off again. Sikura joined the TDN Writers' Room podcast presented by Keeneland to discuss Violence's recent accomplishments, the decision to bring in Kantharos and his thoughts on...

As his name suggests, there appear to be no half measures with Violence. He had, let's face it, suddenly been under a bit of pressure. It was only last year that Hill 'n' Dale had been able to hoist his fee from $25,000 to $40,000, his first sophomores having confirmed him as the most glamorous stallion in his intake: clear top of the class in 2018 by earnings, winners, stakes winners/performers, graded stakes horses. Having started out at $15,000, he had just processed his third crop of yearlings for an...

There was a real buzz surrounding Qatar Racing's Kameko (Kitten's Joy) as the delayed G1 QIPCO 2,000 Guineas approached and the G1 Futurity Trophy winner justified all the expectation as he swooped to conquer the Newmarket Classic on Saturday. Arriving at the forefront of his generation with an emphatic win in Doncaster's traditional juvenile feature which was re-arranged on Newcastle's Tapeta in November, the bay had earned rave reviews from Andrew Balding's Kingsclere base during this year's prolonged waiting period. In mid-division on the rail as the pace proved strong...

A "headline" horse will cover a multitude of sins for a stallion; very often, too many. If a single flag-bearer gets too far ahead, however, people tend to start asking what might have happened to the rest of the army. In the case of Midnight Lute, there's no doubt that Midnight Bisou has helped to keep him in the game. On the other hand, her $7.25 million in earnings might seem to rebuke her sire for his failure, thus far, to come up with a second millionaire. His two previous...

The breeding rights to undefeated Grade I winner and 'TDN Rising Star' Charlatan (Speightstown--Authenticity, by Quiet American) have been purchased by Hill 'n' Dale Farm, according to a press release issued by the farm Wednesday morning. No price was given in the release. "Horses with Charlatan's immense ability combined with superior pedigree, conformation, depth of female family and star-quality appeal are a very rare commodity," said John G. Sikura, President of Hill 'n' Dale. Charlatan's perfect three-for-three career has made him the `wow' horse of the Triple Crown trail this...

Hailing from the same shedrow of Hall of Fame trainer Steve Asmussen isn't the only thing that recent, ultra-impressive Oaklawn Park winners Casual (f, 3, by Curlin) and Volatile (c, 4, by Violence) have in common. The promising duo--both bred in Kentucky by Hill 'n' Dale Equine Holdings, Inc. and Stretch Run Ventures, LLC--trace their lineage back to the millionaire and brilliant two-time Saratoga Grade I winner and the Asmussen-trained Lady Tak (Mutakddim). After acquiring an interest privately in the GI Test S. and GI Ballerina H. heroine from owners...

5th-Oaklawn, $60,000, Msw, 4-11, 3yo, f, 6f, 1:09.24, ft. CASUAL (f, 3, Curlin--Lady Tak {MGISW, $1,160,782}, by Mutakddim), off at 9-2 following a string of sharp morning drills, settled just behind the leading draft led by Millennium Force (Declaration of War) through a quick :21.60 quarter. Still cruising through a half mile in :44.85, Casual was locked and loaded entering the home turn, but was still blocked behind a wall of horses. Finally finding the sliver of daylight she needed, she cut her way through rivals in the stretch, and...

The number-one sophomore sire of 2018, Violence took a step backward last year. It happens. The problem is that the marketplace can be unforgiving and ready to move on from any stallion that isn't the hottest of commodities. So Hill 'n' Dale was proactive, dropping Violence's stud fee from $40,000 to $25,000. At that price, he may go down as one of the best bargains among all stallions this year. "Last year, we had some bad luck on the racetrack," said Hill 'n' Dale President John Sikura. "A few horses...

LEXINGTON, KY--John G. Sikura is not afraid to think outside the box when it comes to his stallion roster at Hill 'n' Dale Farm in Kentucky, and indeed he is not prone to allowing such fickle factors as marketplace fashion to sway his belief in the long-term potential of an animal. These traits are apparent in his own pedigree-his father, the late great Canadian breeder and stallion master John Sikura Jr., had a tendency of shaking up the status quo during the Windfields Farm reign of the 1960s and 70s...

World of Trouble (Kantharos--Meets Expectations, by Valid Expectations), a Grade I winner on turf and dirt and who stands his first season at stud in 2020 at John Sikura's Hill 'n' Dale Farm in Lexington, will shuttle to Cornerstone Stud in South Australia for the Southern Hemisphere breeding season. The deal, brokered by de Burgh Equine, will see World of Trouble command a fee of A$22,000 (including 10% GST). A first-out graduate by 14 lengths as a summer 2-year-old, World of Trouble set a Tampa track record in making the...