DRF Breeding staff writer Joe Nevills analyzes the Kentucky Derby field, in post position order, in the form of Haiku; a Japanese poem of 17 syllables, in three lines of five, seven, and five.
Destination Europe, the strategic partnership between horsemen’s groups in England, Ireland, and France has added the European Breeders’ Fund and German Thoroughbred Marketing to its roster.
Four of the top five horses in the 2014 Kentucky Derby field, as measured by Derby qualifying points, were foaled outside of Kentucky.
Coolmore Australia in Jerrys Plains, New South Wales has revealed its advertised stud fees for the 2014 Southern Hemisphere breeding season.
For the second consecutive year, Richard Bremer and Cheryl Sprick captured the breeder awards at the Minnesota Thoroughbred Association’s annual awards dinner. The dinner was hosted Friday night to honor the champions of 2013.
Ten years ago this week, Ashado won the Kentucky Oaks, giving high-profile ownership group Starlight Stables and trainer Todd Pletcher their first victory in the filly classic. Later that year, Ashado became Pletcher’s first Breeders’ Cup winner, scoring in the Distaff to secure the first of her two divisional Eclipse Awards. Ashado now gives her connections another first, as she is among this year’s inductees into the National Museum of Racing’s Hall of Fame.
Northern Dancer went onto the books as the Kentucky Derby’s 90th winner, but what happened in subsequent years ultimately mattered far more. During the next half-century, defying all reasonable odds, this tiny stallion, of lion heart and cheeky attitude, became the most pervasive genetic influence known to modern Thoroughbred breeding, leaving his stamp profoundly, indelibly, irrevocably imprinted in every nook and cranny of the globe where horse racing was – and continues to be – conducted.
Among the many nuggets of perceived wisdom about Thoroughbred breeding is that to be a really good sire, the horse must have been precocious enough to be a good 2-year-old. Precocity certainly remains a desirable quality in a stallion prospect – although, 2-year-old racing is far less important and extensive than it once was, perhaps less so than at any time in American Thoroughbred history.
Kafwain made his name as a racehorse in some of California’s most prestigious races for 2-year-olds and 3-year-olds a little more than a decade ago. Now settled in at Tom and Debi Stull’s Tommy Town Thoroughbreds in Santa Ynez for his fifth year of stud duty since returning to the Golden State, the 14-year-old Kafwain is beginning to have an impact on the state’s breeding sector as well.
Soi Phet had been with trainer Leonard Powell for a month last summer when the trainer realized a change in the gelding, a $16,000 claim last May.
