Speightstown

3rd-PIM, $52K, Msw, 3yo, 6f, 4:37 p.m. As Pimlico's meet tunes up before Preakness week, $450,000 KEESEP purchase REBELLIOUS STAGE (Justify) heads to post four in this maiden attempt. Trained by Brittany Russell and ridden by Sheldon Russell, the chestnut colt's second dam Mon Belle (Maria's Mon) is a full-sister to GI Kentucky Derby hero Monarchos and she produced GSP Supreme (Empire Maker), who is the dam of GI Met Mile champ Silver State (Hard Spun).  TJCIS PPS 4th-CD, $120K, Msw, 3yo/up, f, 1mT, 2:13 p.m. As the Triple Crown...

6th-KEE, $100k, Msw, 3yo, 6 1/2f, post time: 3:40 p.m. ET SOLEVO (City of Light) is the second foal to the races out of the stakes-placed Pleasant Mine (Mineshaft), who was acquired by Windylea Farm New York for $200,000 with this foal in utero at the 2019 Fasig-Tipton November Sale. The Kentucky-bred dark bay colt made a solid return on that investment when hammering for $170,000 at the 2021 Fasig-Tipton July Sale and fetched $685,000 from trainer Cherie DeVaux at last year's OBS April Sale after breezing a furlong in...

A filly by Speightstown (hip 618) zipped a quarter-mile in a track record-tying :20 1/5, while six horses shared the day's fastest furlong time, during the fourth session of the under-tack show for the Ocala Breeders' Sales Company's Spring Sale of 2-Year-Olds in Training in Central Florida Wednesday. Hip 618, who worked just after 11:30 a.m. and with temperatures approaching 80 degrees, is consigned by Juan Centeno's All Dreams Equine. "You never know if they can go that fast, but she prepped pretty fast," Centeno said. "I knew she could...

Since 2004, we've shined the spotlight on over 1,500 'TDN Rising Stars' worldwide, recognition given to a horse early on its career who has done something so impressive on the racetrack that our team believes they will go on to become graded stakes winners.  A horse is designated as a 'Rising Star' by the TDN staff after a careful and comprehensive review of many factors--including the quality of the field, margin and time of victory, pedigree, sales price and more. Over the years, it has become a badge of honor...

A debut winner at Churchill Downs in May 2022, Drew's Gold went to the sidelines for the next eight months before making a winning return to the races at Laurel Park Jan. 28. Favored at 8-5 for his first try against stakes company in New York, the colt pressed the pace, keeping things tight up front for early leader Kool Kathmandu (Frosted). Outside with plenty of run left, he drew alongside a new leader in Clubhouse and went right on by past the quarter pole, stretching his lead down the...

It tells you plenty about the business today that this final leg of our quest for value on Kentucky farms should compress together stallions whose various retirements from the racetrack spanned more than decade. In devoting nearly all the previous instalments to individual classes of younger stallions, we've simply mirrored the distribution of mares, which as we all know is massively loaded towards largely unproven sires. To me, then, those few survivors that do establish a viable niche in the Bluegrass are real heroes. While dozens of their original competitors...

It's not often that a runner-up effort translates into a key selling point for a new stallion, but when that second-place finish comes behind a horse like Flightline, people take notice. Such has been the case for Olympiad (Speightstown - Tokyo Time, by Medaglia d'Oro), whose career finale in the GI Breeders' Cup Classic made him a standout in the 2023 class of incoming stallions. Ryan Norton, who joined Gainesway as the farm's new stallion director a few weeks before the Breeders' Cup, explained how Olympiad's performance at Keeneland over...

Sponsored by Alex Nichols Agency 5th-GP, $84k, Msw, 3yo, f, 7 1/2fT, 2:10p.m. ET The powerhouse partnership of Repole and St Elias Stables will send out $450,000 FTKOCT purchase SASSINESS (Uncle Mo) in this turf maiden. A half to Canadian Horse of the Year and champion 3-year-old colt Up With the Birds (Stormy Atlantic) as well as 9-time winner, SW Speightsong (Speightstown), the filly also claims three other winning half-siblings. This is the female line of Canadian champion older mare, GISW Wilderness Song (Wild Again), whose own half-sister Sound the...

Lugan Knight (Goldencents) was not going to be denied as he matched strides down the lane with Arctic Arrogance (Frosted) in the $150,000 Jerome S. at Aqueduct Racetrack on Saturday afternoon. With 10-4-3-2-1 points available to the top 5 finishers on the Road to the 149th running of the Kentucky Derby, it was Lugan Knight's day to shine. Sent off as the second choice at 7-2, the colt set front-end fractions of :23.41 at the quarter-mile marker and :47.70 for the half-mile, all as the favorite Arctic Arrogance dogged his...

Sponsored by Alex Nichols Agency 6th-AQU, $85k, Msw, 2yo, f, 1m, 2:14p.m. ET Manzanita Stables LLC went to $300,000 at KEESEP in 2021 to acquire LUCKY COMBINATION (Ghostzapper), a price tag likely aided by her dam being out of a half-sister to GISW & MGISP Girolamo (A.P. Indy) and his full-siblings MGISP & MGSW Daydreaming and GISP Accelerator. Dam Lucky Number herself claims GISW Got Lucky (A.P. Indy)--responsible for MGSP Overtook (Curlin)--as a half-relation and has produced two other winning fillies. This is the female family of GISW Chocolate Gelato...

The Thoroughbred is certainly more versatile than we sometimes give it credit for. There is always the capacity to surprise, particularly when it comes to predicting stallion success. For instance, despite examples showing otherwise, it remains tempting to box sires as 'dirt' and 'turf' and 'American' and 'European' when actually some of them will prove capable of crossing the differing racing jurisdictions quite easily. Had all breeders and buyers remained on 'the straight and narrow', the chance to appreciate the likes of Scat Daddy, Medaglia d'Oro, More Than Ready and...

The Keeneland November Breeding Stock Sale ended its eighth session Monday with cumulative sales of $205 million, surpassing total sales of $203 million recorded for last year's entire 10-day auction. On Monday, 260 head sold for $4,313,300, down from the corresponding session in 2021 when 260 generated $4,363,200. Average dipped slightly from $16,782 to $16,590. The median of $11,000 decreased 8.33% from last year's $12,000. Late in Monday's session, a daughter of Mshawish led the way during the first day of Book. Offered as Hip 2975, Taylor Avenue was secured...