Two-time reigning leading sire Tapit recorded a rare feat on Saturday at Saratoga when his daughters Pretty City Dancer and Sweet Loretta finished in a dead heat for the win in the Grade 1 Spinaway Stakes.
Adena Springs has put a premium on breeding classic-distance horses, as evidenced by the four Breeders' Cup Classic winners on its stallion roster. Owned by Frank Stronach, Adena Springs appears to have a homebred contender for this year's renewal in Shaman Ghost.
The premier summer race meets at Saratoga and Del Mar, featuring a robust slate of maiden special weights and 2-year-old stakes, annually provide a chance for freshman sires to step up and make their names known.
Throughout its 149-year history, the Belmont Stakes has been labeled “the test of champions.” For most of that revered history the Belmont also was regarded as the classic race most likely to produce great sires, and with good reason.
Gio Ponti, three-time Eclipse Award winner, got off to a slow start as a sire when his first foals reached the racetrack last year. He failed to get a stakes winner and had just eight winners from 46 starters and progeny earnings of $452,601. As could be expected for a horse who himself got better with age and distance, Gio Ponti’s progeny are performing far better as 3-year-olds – and he has a chance for two of his runners to be champions by year-end.
Samantha Siegel's Jay Em Ess Stable enjoyed coast-to-coast success last weekend.
Record-setting Travers Stakes winner Arrogate continued a banner year for his breeder, Clearsky Farm, giving the Lexington, Ky., operation yet another high-level performer this season.
Hall of Fame jockey Mike Smith's thoughts turned to another big, gray colt as he sat astride Arrogate for the first time. “I rode his father – he looks so much like his father,” Smith said of the Unbridled's Song colt, who demolished the Travers Stakes field Saturday at Saratoga by 13 1/2 lengths in a track-record 1:59.36.
Doug Scharbauer purchased Valor Farm, located in the North Texas town of Pilot Point, from the estate of his late father, Clarence Scharbauer Jr., earlier this month, according to farm general manager Ken Carson.
It took some time for Washington state freshman sire Atta Boy Roy to get his first winner, that coming on August 13 when first-time starter Risque’s Legacy won by nine lengths at Emerald Downs. That filly also turned out to be his first stakes winner. Risque’s Legacy, a Washington homebred of Karl Krieg, came back on August 28 to win the $50,000 Washington Cup Two Year Old Filly Stakes at Emerald Downs.
