ARCADIA, Calif. – Scouting for 2-year-old prospects last year, trainer Doug O’Neill and his team came up with more than a gem when they acquired Maggie McGowan, an unraced filly. They wound up with the half-sister to a champion.
Clear Mandate, a multiple Grade 1-winning mare whose first three foals sold for a total of $9 million, was euthanized on Feb. 19 at Hagyard Equine Medical Center outside of Lexington, Ky., following complications of foaling.
California owner and breeder Marty Wygod and the Kentucky breeding farm Lane’s End have purchased an undisclosed interest in top older horse Twirling Candy, winner of the Strub Stakes on Feb. 5.
Horse of the Year Zenyatta was bred to Bernardini on Wednesday at about 8 a.m., according to a notice posted on Zenyatta.com. According to the website, staff at Lane’s End Farm, where Zenyatta boards, pulled the Street Cry mare’s mane and polished her hooves Tuesday in advance of her first mating with Darley stallion and former 3-year-old champion Bernardini. Zenyatta was back on the van and returning to Lane’s End by 8:30 a.m., according to the website.
Tom Simon’s Vinery, which recently opened a division at Empire Stud in Hudson, N.Y., has expanded its New York presence by taking over operations at Susan and Howard Kaskel’s Sugar Maple Farm in Poughquag.
Two-time Grade 1 winner Thorn Song, whose severe case of laminitis prompted his former owner to file an insurance mortality claim on him, has recovered enough to enter stud this year at John Harris’s Harris Farms in California.
Giant Moon, a five-time stakes winner and the New York-bred juvenile champion of 2007, died last week at his owner Albert Fried Jr.’s farm in upstate New York, succumbing to a bout of lamintis. He was 6 years old.
Rachel Alexandra, the 2009 Horse of the Year and champion 3-year-old filly, was bred to two-time Horse of the Year Curlin on Monday morning, Stonestreet Thoroughbreds announced.
ARCADIA, Calif. – The annual California Cup program, which has undergone significant changes in purse values and races offered in recent years, may face further revisions this year and could be scaled back.
Najran, the 11-year-old sire of multiple graded winner Wasted Tears, was euthanized Feb. 9 as a result of injuries sustained in a paddock accident at Kentucky’s Hopewell Farm.
