The Phipps family, owners of some of the world’s most productive and coveted bloodstock, will sell 16 of its mares and racing-age fillies at the Keeneland November breeding stock sale, Ogden Mills “Dinny” Phipps announced Thursday.
A Jacksonville, Fla., bankruptcy court judge’s order has cleared the way for Stonewall Farm stallion Da Stoops to be auctioned.
Lost Soldier, sire of 2005 sprint champion Lost in the Fog, died Tuesday at Buck Pond Farm in Versailles, Ky., apparently of a heart attack.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – The average and gross both sagged during the select session of the Canadian Thoroughbred Horse Society’s 2010 yearling sale at the Woodbine Sales Pavilion on Tuesday.
The yearlings in the first book are narrowed down first by pedigree, and then selected by an inspection team after being viewed in the spring. Without knowledge of the physical grades assigned, the following is an opinion of some of the leading pedigrees in Book 1. Obviously, however, it stands to reason that those sired by stallions standing for lesser fees within that catalog were impressive physically to the group of inspectors.
In 1986, Ben Walden Jr. was a young man in a hurry. At age 28, he had just opened the doors at Vinery. Within a decade, it would become one of Kentucky’s busiest stallion stations with a 30-horse roster.
A few stallions have already been put before the buyers this year at the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky July and Saratoga August sales, but shoppers will get a true first impression at the marathon Keeneland September sale. Because the Keeneland auction begins with the select stock − even more so this year with a small, select Book 1 − and progresses for two weeks, viewing the offspring of a stallion whose progeny is spread over the entire sale is akin to attending a Debutante Ball and two weeks later being invited to a YMCA sock hop.
Frankie Brothers was resigned to a quiet retirement when he decided to leave the racetrack after nearly 40 years of hard work. But a couple of things came up, and here he is, still involved in racing. And happily so.
For commercial Thoroughbred breeders, 2010 marks a turning point as the last of the yearlings bred on pre-crash 2008 stud fees head through the auction ring. The question for now is whether this year’s sale yearlings, particularly those headed to the Keeneland September auction – the world’s largest Thoroughbred yearling auction – will sell well enough to keep their breeders in the game until next year.
The 4-year-old Midshipman, a champion as a 2-year-old, has been retired.
