The Jockey Club has filed a motion to dismiss a lawsuit that challenges the organization’s decision to impose a cap on the number of mares a stallion can cover, calling the suit a “hodgepodge of speculative claims.”
Performer, a multiple Grade 3 stakes winner, has been retired from racing, his connections said this week. Walker Hancock, president of Claiborne Farm, which co-owned Performer with the Phipps Stable, said Performer came out of a third-place finish in the Gulfstream Park Mile on Feb. 27 with an ankle injury, similar to the injury that sidelined him for a good part of 2020.
Grade 1 winner Unbridled Forever died earlier this month, following foaling complications after delivering a surviving colt by Medaglia d'Oro on March 15.
The international Godolphin operation enjoyed an outstanding day with multiple stakes winners on Saturday, highlighted by homebred Mystic Guide's dominant victory in the Group 1, $12 million Dubai World Cup. In a fitting note, Godolphin welcomed a new arrival earlier in the day, as that runner's dam, multiple Grade 1 winner Music Note, delivered a Medaglia d'Oro colt in Kentucky, just hours before her son's smashing performance.
Two-time Royal Ascot winner Caravaggio became the first Northern Hemisphere freshman sire of 2021 to record a winner, as his daughter Tenebrism won on debut at Naas in Ireland on Sunday.
Liam's Map, one of the accomplished runners in a stellar class of third-crop sires, showcased his versatility with a fantastic Saturday of three stakes winners at Gulfsteam Park.
Kentucky Derby pedigree profile: Greatest Honour
Larry Best, who buys, breeds, and races as OXO Equine, has been a Thoroughbred owner since 2017. In less than five years, he has raced a bevy of graded stakes winners, and is now drawing a bead on the Kentucky Oaks with one of those. He also will have a rooting interest in the Kentucky Derby, thanks to the progress of his broodmare band.
A quarter-century ago, America’s reigning Horse of the Year, Cigar, shipped halfway around the globe for a game victory in the then-$4 million Dubai World Cup, granting instant credibility to the race inaugurated in 1996.
Robert “Gus” Koch, the manager of Claiborne Farm during a golden age for the farm’s stallion business who commanded respect throughout Central Kentucky, died on Saturday at his home in Paris, Ky., of complications from cancer, according to his family. Koch was 74.
