stallions

   Two-time Breeders' Cup Champion and newly-crowned 2021 Horse of the Year Knicks Go is already well underway in his first year at stud at Taylor Made Stallions. It's been a whirlwind stretch for the five-time grade I winner over the past few weeks after his final career start in the GI Pegasus World Cup Invitational S. as he traveled from Florida to Kentucky and had just a few days to prepare for the upcoming breeding season before the shed doors officially opened. "He ran in the Pegasus on Jan....

Fred Hertrich III, along with partners John Fielding and Rob Tribbett, celebrated an exceptional year after their breeding program produced six Grade I winners in 2021: Americanrevolution (Constitution), Beyond Brilliant (Twirling Candy), Hit The Road (More Than Ready), Juju's Map (Liam's Map), Maxim Rate (Exchange Rate) and Pinehurst (Twirling Candy). Such an achievement has led to many asking Hertrich the warranted question, 'What's your secret?' He doesn't have one good answer other than this: "There's no magic to it, but there is a secret sauce and that sauce is luck,"...

In this edition of our ongoing mating plans series, we spoke with Robert Tillyer, farm manager of Dixiana Farm. "Right now we have about 50 broodmares at Dixiana Farm," Tillyer said. "This year we are going to have around 38 foals. We usually put over 30 yearlings through the sale each year and then Mr. Shively is always happy to retain a few for his own racing stable."   BRIELLE'S APPEAL (m, 8, English Channel - Court of Appeal, by Deputy Minister) to be bred to Gun Runner This year...

In this edition of our ongoing mating plans series, we spoke with Marie Jones with additional notes from Katie Taylor and Doug Cauthen. Marie Jones is carrying on the successful breeding program that she first started with her late husband Aaron. Their program is responsible for Grade I winners and champions including Ashado, Speightstown, Drosselmeyer and Mrs. McDougal, as well as the dam of Life is Good. Today, her high-end, boutique operation focuses on acquiring accomplished, well-bred mares and maintaining a portfolio of shares and breeding rights in proven commercial...

Two new stallions, both debut winners as juveniles who went on to become Grade I winners, have joined the Lane's End roster for 2022. Code of Honor (Noble Mission {GB} - Reunited, by Dixie Union) and Lexitonian (Speightstown - Riviera Romper, by Tapit) will stand for a fee of $10,000 in their first year at stud. "Code of Honor and Lexitonian are sound, consistent young horses and they both give breeders a chance to breed to Grade I-winning sires with fair, introductory prices and super pedigrees," Lane's End Farm's Bill...

The young stallion Eastwood (Speightstown--Fifth Avenue Ball, by Deputy Minister), whose first foals are 2-year-olds of 2022, has been relocated from Pennsylvania's Diamond B Farm to Gary Broad's Walmac Farm in Kentucky. Walmac recently announced Core Beliefs (Quality Road) would be the first stallion to stand at the historic farm since Broad bought it in 2018. Eastwood closed out his racing career for Louise and Kiki Courtelis's Town and Country Farms, who bought him for $800,000 at the 2013 Fasig-Tipton Summer Selected Horses of Racing Age Sale, with a record...

The European breeze-up sector prides itself as a source of quality, a notion that held particular weight in 2021 as graduates Native Trail (Fr) (Oasis Dream {GB}) and Perfect Power (Ire) (Ardad {Ire}) signed off their juvenile campaigns with victories in the G1 Dewhurst S. and G1 Middle Park S. Added to that, various graduates are currently more than holding their own at stud. This isn't a new development--older representatives such as Society Rock (Ire) (Rock Of Gibraltar {Ire}) and Paco Boy (Ire) (Desert Style {Ire}) each sired Group 1...

The Keeneland January Horses of All Ages Sale gets underway at 10 a.m. Tuesday with the first of four sessions. The sale was originally scheduled to kick off Monday, but was delayed due to a winter snow storm in Lexington, which also pushed back the ship in date. The 1,631-horse catalogue is comprised of broodmares, racing/broodmare prospects, newly turned yearlings, horses of racing ages and stallions/stallion prospects. "It is a very solid catalogue with a lot of depth," said Cormac Breathnach, Keeneland's Director of Sales Operations. "The January Sale catalogue...

As a year of unprecedented achievement draws to a close, the distribution of laurels among our champion stallions must first and foremost celebrate their sheer potency. For while we already know Into Mischief to be a phenomenon, he demands fresh admiration in sealing his third consecutive general sires' championship with a prizemoney haul just shy of $25 million, shattering the $22,507,940 record he set in his second; the work of 260 winners, similarly raising the bar giddily on the 221 who compiled his first. As the revelation of the year,...

In reaching the penultimate instalment of our series, once again we are obliged by the steepening commercial gradient to combine different intakes--this time, those who have now launched between four and six juvenile crops--to ensure a suitably competitive podium. For by this stage of their career the majority of Kentucky start-ups will already have packed their bags for regional or overseas programs. One or two are still barely clinging on, their books plummeting, but overall we're now looking at those few who have bravely consolidated to the brink of inclusion...

This can be a terrifying business. Here we are, for the first time in this series, assessing stallions that have at least put some sophomores through the starting gate. And already, commercially, the game appears to be up for many. So much so, in fact, that to give adequate competitive depth to our value podium, we're going to combine the consecutive intakes who were in 2021 respectively contesting the second- and third-crop championships. Here's just one example of how ruthless the market is. I won't name the stallion, because he...

The Washington Thoroughbred Breeders and Owners Association's annual online stallion season auction began Dec. 15 and runs through Dec. 22. In addition to stallion premiums, this year the WTBOA has added a chance for bidders to receive a bonus. All winning bidders will now be eligible for one of two bonus level amounts, as they will be entered into a drawing to receive a credit of up to $1,000 or the actual bid amount, whichever is less, on their stallion season purchase. The second drawing will be for a $400...