LEXINGTON, Ky. - Richly Blended, winner of the Grade 3 Gotham and Withers stakes last year before retiring with an injury, may return to training.
The colt, a 3-year-old by Rizzi, was to have gone to stud after surgery to repair a stress fracture in his right front cannon bone. He has recuperated well from surgery, according to owner Raymond Dweck's bloodstock manager Buzz Chace, but Dweck has not been able to come to terms with a buyer who would send the colt to stud.
When Magic Smoke sold for $3,500 as a yearling at the Barretts October sale last fall, breeders Steve and Penny Seeder were disappointed. After all, the stud fee to Smokester cost $10,000.
"We were not too happy after letting her go for that," Penny Seeder remembers.
Over the last three months, Magic Smoke has made it up to them. Last weekend at Hollywood Park, Magic Smoke won the Cinderella Stakes for 2-year-old fillies at Hollywood Park, providing the Seeders with their first stakes win as breeders.
ELMONT, N.Y. - Mellow Roll, a New York-bred champion standing his second year at stud at Anstu Farm, was euthanized in April from complications of a leg fracture.
Mellow Roll, a 7-year-old son of the popular New York sire Distinctive Pro, shattered the pastern bone in his left foreleg in a paddock accident at Anstu Farm in February. Surgery was performed at Cornell University to stabilize the break and Mellow Roll was expected to recover. Mellow Roll, however, foundered in his opposite foreleg, a common complication after a broken leg, and had to be euthanized.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - Sunday Break, one of the favorites for the Belmont, completes an odyssey begun by his sire, Forty Niner. The Belmont was the only race of the 1988 Triple Crown that Forty Niner didn't run in, and he now stands in Japan. But here in 2002, his Japanese-bred son Sunday Break has perhaps the best chance of upsetting heavy favorite War Emblem.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Mr Purple, the winner of the $1 million Santa Anita Handicap at Santa Anita in 1996 and a sire in California in recent years, was euthanized last week at age 10 after suffering complications related to heart disease.
At the time of his death, Mr Purple was standing at Victory Rose Thoroughbreds in Vacaville, Calif., for a $10,000 fee.
It was a Maryland classic coup. As War Emblem and Magic Weisner sought the finish line of the 127th running of the Preakness Stakes, local breeders could revel in that the sires of the top two finishers of Maryland's greatest race both stood this past spring in Maryland.
The voyage of War Emblem's sire, Our Emblem, to Murmur Farm in Maryland is well documented and his stay has been all too brief, and after one breeding season he will return to Kentucky.
Family bonding has been the theme recently at John Hettinger's Akindale Farm in Pawling, N.Y.
Likean Angel Looks, Hettinger's 14-year-old Foolish Pleasure mare, gave birth to a colt by New York sire Millions on Valentine's Day this year. The mare died on May 20 from what is believed to be an allergic reaction, leaving her foal without a mother.
The father-and-son team of Mike and Nick Nosowenko each have their own racing and breeding businesses, but they hope that a homebred filly that they race together, Tacky Affair, will be a force in the $500,000 Labatt Woodbine Oaks on Saturday.
"To have a horse run in a half a million dollar race, it's great," Nick Nosowenko said. "I mean, my Dad's been in this business for 27 years, so to get to this dance is something special."
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - The California Thoroughbred Breeders Association has extended invitations to 166 yearling owners for the upcoming Del Mar yearling sale on Aug. 11-12.
According to CTBA executive director Doug Burge, the CTBA expects to catalog 159 yearlings for the sale, which is 10 more than last year's record number.
Earlier this year, the CTBA received nearly 600 nominations and inspected 500 yearlings on pedigree and conformation standards. Invitations went out in early May.
"We basically got the ones we wanted," Burge said.
For the fourth consecutive year, a Sunshine State-bred has won the prestigious Metropolitan Handicap. The streak began with Sir Bear (by Sir Leon) in 1999. Then followed Yankee Victor (by Saint Ballado) in 2000, Exciting Story (by Diablo) last year, and Swept Overboard (by End Sweep) this year.
Exciting Story and Swept Overboard were bred by Harry T. Mangurian Jr.'s Mockingbird Farm.