Not This Time

You have to hand it to Liam's Map. Besides all his other merits, as a racehorse and now as a stallion, he has an unerring instinct for publicity. As a freshman, in 2019, the son of Unbridled's Song mustered only two stakes winners. Nothing wrong with that, from 46 starters. Champion American Pharoah had four, from 72. But when he struck the target at all, Liam's Map made sure he hit the bull's-eye. Both those stakes scores came in Grade I races, Basin taking the Hopeful and Wicked Whisper the...

Excellent Timing rewarded his new connections with a dominant front-running score in the Damon Runyon S. for New York-breds Sunday. Second on debut at Belmont as the chalk Oct. 18, the dark bay ran up the score to 7 1/4 lengths and earned an 81 Beyer Speed Figure going a sixteenth shorter here Dec. 10 for Happy Face Racing Stable and Charlton Baker. He subsequently changed hands privately, and was heavily favored to handle the next test. Right to the front, Excellent Timing doled out soft splits of :24.49 and...

The stallions we reach today are the first actually to have given some initial clue as to their ability to replicate those assets that earned them a place at stud. True, only their most precocious stock have so far tested the water and it should be obvious that limited conclusions can be drawn from so small a sample of their work. But we know the apathy of commercial breeders about producing racehorses. So long as they maximize their value as yearlings, the rest is gravy. That's why they get behind...

Felicita (More Than Ready), an unraced 4-year-old half-sister to Grade I-winning juvenile and Dayoutoftheoffice (Into Mischief), topped Tuesday's Keeneland December Digital Sale when hammering for $250,000 to Jon Clay's Alpha Delta Stables. The auction, Keeneland's third foray into the nascent online sale marketplace after its June Online Select Horses of Racing Age Sale and October Digital Sale, was seen by leading consignors as a clear improvement while still having kinks that need ironing out as the sector evolves. The one-day sale grossed $508,000 for 15 lots, for an average of...

Keeneland has cataloged 79 lots, including mares in foal to such noteworthy stallions as Not This Time, Nyquist, Practical Joke and Yoshida (Jpn), for its December Digital Sale, to be held Tuesday, Dec. 15 as part of Keeneland's Digital Sales Ring platform. The December Sale catalog is available at keenelanddigital.com. The catalog features 41 broodmares or broodmare prospects, 12 yearlings, eight weanlings, six racing or broodmare prospects, two racing or stallion prospects, one stallion prospect, six stallions, two shares and one breeding right. Online bidding opens at 10 a.m. ET...

Dual Grade I winner Princess Noor (Not This Time--Sheza Smoke Show, by Wilko) has been retired from racing with a soft tissue injury after being pulled up as the heavy favorite in Saturday's GI Starlet S. at Los Alamitos, owner Zedan Racing Stables reported Sunday morning. "She's a star and a very talented filly," said Amr Zedan. "She had the race and most probably a few more Grade Is to her name. Our focus now is to get her healthy and off to Kentucky to be the best mom she...

An undefeated Mark Casse pair and a well-bet first-out winner from the Kevin Attard barn headline a nine-horse renewal of the GIII Grey S. Sunday at Woodbine. D J Stable's Helium (Ironicus) debuted an impressive 3 1/4-length victor going seven furlongs on the local Tapeta Sept. 27 and validated that try with a 4 1/4-length score as the favorite in the Display S. here Oct. 18. The other half of the Casse contingent is Breeze Easy's Easy Time (Not This Time). Backed to 7-5 in his unveiling over seven main-track...

Over the past eight months, there have been very few jobs more demanding, more exhausting, more defeating, than that of an ER nurse. Malia Hopkins can attest to that. She's the ER nurse manager for not one, but two ERs in Stuttgart, Arkansas. It's been an unimaginable year for the well-practiced RN, but she said one event last week made the ongoing battle against the pandemic more than worth it. In the fourth session of the Keeneland November Sale, her first-ever horse to go through a sales ring hammered down...

Vacay dominated in her stakes debut Sunday to become her fast-starting freshman sire (by Giant's Causeway)'s third black-type winner. A 1 3/4-length first up winner in the Belmont slop Oct. 16, she was backed down to favoritism and soon showed why. The dark bay broke with the pack from her outside five post and settled in second last while always off the fence. Scrubbed on to hold her position into the bend, she mounted a wide bid into a :45.89 half and bounded past rivals over the top en route...

The bloodstock industry in Kentucky is heavily weighted to the commercial marketplace, and when the first yearlings of a stallion sell well, sometimes even experienced commercial breeders can get momentarily caught up in the euphoria. A breeder called me after the Fasig-Tipton October Sale to say that he was going to breed to such a stallion next year. That's great, I told him, if he had a strong opinion on the horse, but I reminded him that he breeds to sell and he'd be breeding to a fourth-year sire, meaning...

You can't really resent someone hoarding the ammunition, if he only needs it because he's being forced to play Russian roulette. That's pretty much how things are for all those new, unproven stallions who corral such huge books of mares. Yes, I remain ever aggrieved on behalf of those quiet achievers who never get commercial traction, despite results that will almost invariably prove beyond their emerging rivals. But I do feel increasing sympathy for the young guns, because their margin for error is zero. They have to land running, or...

LEXINGTON, KY - While Into Mischief secured the top lots during Monday's first session of the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky October Yearlings Sale, it was Quality Road in charge during Tuesday's second session as Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners went to a session-topping $560,000 to secure a son of the Lane's End stallion. The day kicked off with a daughter of Quality Road bringing what was ultimately the session's co-second-highest price of $230,000. Through two sessions, Fasig-Tipton has sold 489 yearlings for a gross of $16,390,500. The two-day average is $33,518, down 12.7% from...