The OBS June sale of 2-year-olds in training, on Tuesday and Wednesday, was the best ever.
There were 440 horses cataloged, and after the outs and a relatively low buy-back rate of 24 percent (it was 31 percent a year ago), 241 were listed as sold for an average price of $18,961. Last year's June sale recorded 226 selling for an average of $16,857. The median price this year of $9,700 was within a few dollars of the 2001 median.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Know this about Our Main Man, the California-bred gelding who finished second in the $250,000 Dallas Turf Cup at Lone Star Park on June 15: He is his own boss.
Our Main Man was claimed for $32,000 as a 2-year-old in the fall of 2000. Since then, he has been successful for the partnership that owns him and trainer Grant Hofmans.
But at times, he has been a puzzle in the mornings and a frustration in the afternoons.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - For the first time, a Thoroughbred organization will seek to determine how many horses end up at slaughterhouses and where those horses come from.
The Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation, which operates 22 retirement farms for more than 600 Thoroughbreds, will commission the study.
Foundation president John Stuart, a Lexington bloodstock agent, said the TRF has allocated up to $25,000 for the research project.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - Street Cry was just as dominating with his victory in the Stephen Foster at Churchill Downs as he had been three months earlier with a smashing success in the Dubai World Cup. In each race, Street Cry kicked clear of his opposition with a big run in the stretch and won going away.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - Topped by a sale-record $310,000 Double Honor colt, the Ocala Breeders' Sales Company's June sale of 2-year-olds and horses of racing age ended Wednesday with significant improvements over last year's returns.
The two-day auction at the OBS facility in Ocala, Fla., sold 241 juveniles for gross receipts of $4,569,500, up 20 percent from last year, when 226 juveniles brought a total of $3,809,700. The average price rose 13 percent, from $16,857 last year to $18,961.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - Less than five months after hiring former New York Thoroughbred Breeders official Michael Flynn as its executive vice-president, the Maryland Horse Breeders Association has dismissed him.
The group announced the change in a brief statement Tuesday, saying that Flynn's resignation was effective on June 11.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - Wingsea, 21-year-old dam of millionaire and multiple Grade 2 winner Polar Expedition, will be the subject of an unusual auction in Lexington on Wednesday.
Hilary Boone's Wimbledon Farm will auction the mare Wednesday in the lobby of the Fayette Circuit Courthouse in Lexington, because her owner apparently has abandoned her at the farm, according to Brian O'Rourke, Wimbledon's manager.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - Grade 3 winner and broodmare Weekend Madness died June 8 while foaling a Swain colt at Frank Stronach's Adena Springs Farm near Versailles, Ky. The mare was 12.
The colt survived and is on a nurse mare at the farm, a farm official said Friday.
Weekend Madness, a daughter of Dance of Life and the Cure the Blues mare Spring Break, began her career in Ireland. In 1993, after finishing second in the Irish 1000 Guineas Trial, she shipped to the United States.
Frank Stella, a renowned painter and sculptor, has spread his talents beyond the canvas.
New York-bred Too Scarlet, the winner of the $66,150 WNBC Stakes on the Belmont Stakes undercard, was bred by Stella, the owner of Delehanty Stock Farm, a 100-acre farm in Amenia, N.Y.
Too Scarlet, racing for the first time since January, won the WNBC by 1 3/4 lengths and returned $18.40. The filly, a 4-year-old daughter of Colonial Affair, has an outstanding record of 7-2-0 from nine starts and $223,090 in earnings.