Mom's Command

Ned Allard will judge the upcoming Maryland Horse Breeders' Association's 89th Yearling Show. Open to all yearlings eligible for Maryland-bred registration, the show will be held July 23 at the Maryland State Fairgrounds' Horse Show Ring in Timonium. A native of Tenafly, N.J, Allard got his start in the business working for trainer George Handy in New England in the late 1950s. In 1970, he opened his own stable at the now-defunct Lincoln Downs in Rhode Island. Among the notable horses trained by Allard is racing Hall of Famer Mom's...

Jonesboro (Sefapiano--Mom's Command, by Top Command) has been pensioned from stallion duties and retired to Old Friends near Georgetown, Ky. The hard-knocking millionaire, who won 10 black-type events, including the GII Prairie Meadows Cornhusker H. and three other graded stakes, has stood since 2011 at Lake Hamilton Equine in Royal, Ark. His nine small crops of racing age include three stakes winners. Jonesboro is a son of Mom's Command, the 1985 Eclipse champion 3-year-old filly whose five Grade I wins included the Filly Triple Crown. Bred by Peter Fuller, who...

Champion fillies were rarely sold at public auction when owner/breeders dominated the sport for a good part of the last century. All of that changed from the 1980s onward when the industry became more commercialized and highly charged at the top end with international bidding wars for yearlings and breeding stock. Back then, folks like Robert Sangster and partners and Sheikh Mohammed and his brothers made the market, and in November of 1983--the same year that Sheikh Mohammed's Aston Upthorpe Stud outgunned Sangster at Keeneland July for the $10.2-million yearling...