Tacitus

Taylor Made Stallions' MGSW Tacitus (Tapit) out of MGISW Close Hatches, sired his first reported foals in New York on Monday, Jan. 16. The arrivals were a colt born at Waldorf Farm out of the Bustin Stones mare Super Stone who was bred by Jerry Bilinski, DVM, and a filly produced from SW Courageous Cat mare Lady Joan who was bred by Irish Hill Century Farm and foaled there. "She is what I was expecting a Tacitus foal would look like," said Rick Burke of Irish Hill Century Farm. "She...

The group we consider today for now retains a convenient gloss, still in the happy position of offering "all talk, no action." But they will actually have got as far as delivering their first flesh-and-bone foals into the straw by the time they start receiving their second book of mares. And many of the people who exploited their novelty value last year will automatically have moved on to the next intake of rookies, rather than expose themselves to the peril that the market won't like a debut crop. Foals conceived...

Runaway leading third-crop sire Not This Time (Giant's Causeway) will stand for $135,000 S&N in 2023 as the headliner of the Taylor Made Stallions roster, the farm announced Monday. The leading freshman sire of 2020 by number of winners and black-type winners, and the leading second-crop sire of 2021 in all key statistical categories, Not This Time once again finds himself at the top of the heap this season. In 2022, he boasts a crop-best 12 stakes winners, 25 black-type horses, five graded stakes winners, a pair of Grade I...

9th-Belmont The Big A, $77,000, (S), Msw, 9-29, 2yo, 6f, 1:13.75, ft, 3/4 length. SHADOW DRAGON (c, 2, Army Mule--Fire Assay {GSP, $127,946}, by Medaglia d'Oro), dispatched at a tepid 7-1 in his first start since bringing $375,000 at OBSAPR off a :21 1/5 breeze, was forced towards the rail at the break and quickly found himself trailing the field with only one rival beat. Kept just off the rail into the far turn, he angled out at the top of the stretch and began picking off horses under a...

The first mares bred to Horse of the Year Knicks Go (Paynter) and MGSW Tacitus (Tapit) have been confirmed in foal, Taylor Made announced today. Suchada, a daughter of Frosted, has been scanned in foal to Knicks Go, and stakes winner Lady Joan, a daughter of Courageous Cat, has been confirmed in foal to Tacitus.

With the 2022 breeding season right around the corner, we will feature a series of breeders' mating plans over the coming weeks. Today we have George Adams of Housatonic Bloodstock, who serves as the Director of Stallions and Breeding for Wasabi Ventures Stables. "With a relatively young group of mares, ideally we'd like to send them to a proven stallion at least once or twice in their first few years, just to get a better handle on their ability as producers," said Adams. "At a lower stud fee price point...

Beginning his stud career at Taylor Made Stallions with a $10,000 initial fee, Tacitus (Tapit -Close Hatches, by First Defence) earned medalist status on Chris McGrath's 'Value Podium' of new stallions in 2022. Now, with the breeding shed door opening soon, the blue-blooded multi-millionaire has seen an enthusiastic response from breeders and has amassed a solid first book of mares. "He is booked to over 160 mares now," reported Taylor Made's Duncan Taylor. "We've been really satisfied with the reception from breeders. We're not taking every mare he gets offered....

Welcome to our annual winter survey of Kentucky stallion options--with the difference, this time round, that the emphasis will be far more strictly and succinctly on value. Over the past couple of years, acknowledging of the brevity of commercial momentum for so many sires once losing their freshman luster, we've got into the habit of granting some attention (more or less courteous!) to just about every stallion in the Bluegrass. But such an exhaustive approach has doubtless proved still more exhausting for the reader than for the compiler. So, we've...

Back in March of 2009, in the Werk Thoroughbred Consultants blog, the late Jack Werk recounted a wager we'd made years earlier. This is what he wrote: "The year that Elusive Quality went to stud, pedigree expert Sid Fernando and I had a small side bet: Who was the best sleeper or long shot from that crop? Sid picked Distorted Humor, standing for $12,500, a pretty astute choice at the time. I, of course, picked Elusive Quality, who also went to stud very cheap--$10,000. "As it turns out, we both picked wisely! The top two...

Knicks Go (Paynter), who capped what is likely to be a Horse of the Year campaign with a front-running victory in the GI Longines Breeders' Cup Classic at Del Mar Nov. 6, will enter stud at Taylor Made Stallions in 2022 for an introductory fee of $30,000, the farm announced Wednesday. The Maryland-bred, owned by the Korea Racing Authority and trained by Brad Cox, finished his 5-year-old season on four-race winning streak and won five of his seven starts overall, including the prestigious GI Whitney S. at Saratoga by 4...

Multiple graded stakes winner Tacitus (Tapit), an earner of more than $3.7 million and a son of champion older female and five-time Grade I winner Close Hatches (First Defence), will stand stud duty at Taylor Made Stallions at the conclusion of his racing career, the farm announced Monday. Owned in partnership by Don Alberto, Juddmonte Farms, and Taylor Made Stallions, Tacitus will stand for a fee of $10,000 S&N terms and a breeding right program will also be offered. "I knew he had to be a champion when I first...

The inaugural running of the GIII Lukas Classic in 2013, contested as the Homecoming Classic, was won handily by the previous year's GI Breeders' Cup Classic hero Fort Larned (E Dubai), who would go on to finish a hard-trying fourth in defense of his Classic title five weeks later. This year's renewal goes through Korea Racing Authority's Knicks Go (Paynter), who is expected to cement his status as the favorite for the championship day feature Saturday afternoon. An imperious winner of last year's GI Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile over a...