Kevin McKathan

A filly by Bucchero (hip 999) became the first of the week to work a furlong in :9 3/5, while a colt by Vino Rosso (hip 1072) turned in the day's fastest quarter-mile breeze of :20 4/5 during the final session of the under-tack show for the Ocala Breeders' Sales Company's June Sale of 2-Year-Olds in Training Saturday in Ocala. Consigned by Britton Peak, hip 999 is out of stakes-placed Imperial Strike (Imperialism). The filly was bred in Florida by Wendy Lee Christ. Hip 1072, a supplement to the original...

Un Ojo (Laoban), upset winner of the GII Rebel S. earlier this year, will not be running in Saturday's GI Preakness S. as he continues to deal with a foot bruise which kept him out of the GI Kentucky Derby. "This morning his foot was a little warm again," trainer Ricky Courville told the Preakness media team. "The vets went over him, and he's not 100%. I'm dealing with the same thing. I guess the work [Saturday] kind of re-aggravated it." In addition to the defection of Un Ojo, Pimlico...

Kevin McKathan has many talents. One of the principals behind McKathan Bros. Training Center in Ocala, he's helped start the career of many a good horse, including 2015 Triple Crown winner American Pharoah (Pioneerof the Nile), and he's also a major force as a consignor at the 2-year-old sales. But he's ready for something different. Thirty-three years after starting his last horse, McKathan will return to the training ranks when he sends out long shot Fenwick (Curlin) in Saturday's GI Toyota Blue Grass S. at Keeneland. "I am very excited,"...

James Bryan "Luke" McKathan, Sr., the patriarch of one of Florida's most successful racing families and an accomplished horseman and pinhooker, died Feb. 14 at the age of 89. According to a lengthy profile on the McKathan family in a 2004 edition of the Florida Horse magazine, Luke McKathan was born and raised on a family farm in Alabama, where he picked cotton, and left home at 13 in search of a better life. He began his career in racing with Standardbreds and found a job with legendary harness racing...

A colt by Quality Road (hip 856) turned in the fastest furlong work of Sunday's final session of the under-tack show for next week's Ocala Breeders' Sales Company's June Sale of 2-Year-Olds when he became the third juvenile of the show to work in :9 4/5. The bay is consigned by McKathan Bros. Sales, agent, on behalf of breeders Fred Hertrich, III and John Fielding. "He's been fast all year and I thought he'd go fast today. He held up his end of the bargain," said consignor Kevin McKathan. The...

TIMONIUM, MD - The under-tack show ahead of next week's Fasig-Tipton Midlantic 2-Year-Olds in Training Sale kicked off under sunny skies and unseasonably cool temperatures in the mid-50s at the Maryland State Fairgrounds Tuesday. A colt by More Than Ready turned in the day's fastest quarter-mile work, while a colt by Malibu Moon and a filly by Empire Maker shared the fastest furlong time. Kip Elser's Kirkwood Stables sent out hip 166, a son of More Than Ready out of graded winner Separate Forest (Forestry) to work the quarter-mile bullet...

A reshuffled and rearranged juvenile sales season like no other came to a conclusion with the final session of the Ocala Breeders' Sales Company's July 2-Year-Olds and Horses of Racing Age Sale Thursday and, with a market left shaken by the fallout of the ongoing global pandemic, numbers were predictably down at the three-day auction. "Certainly the numbers were off comparatively, but it's hard to compare this to other years with so much that has gone on," said OBS Director of Sales Tod Wojciechowski said. "There were some bright spots...

A colt by Distorted Humor, supplemented to the OBS July sale, sold for $700,000 to bloodstock agent Jacob West late in Thursday's final session of the three-day auction. Out of Tizacity (Tizway), the juvenile was consigned by McKathan Bros. and was purchased by Kevin McKathan for $165,000 at last year's Fasig-Tipton October sale. Co-breeder Matt Lyons purchased Tizacity for $5,000 at the 2017 Fasig-Tipton February sale.