LEXINGTON, Ky. - Grade 1 winner City Zip has been purchased for stud duty by Gus Schoenborn and partners, who have retired the 3-year-old Carson City colt from racing.
City Zip, who finished ninth in the Oct. 27 Breeders' Cup Mile at Belmont Park, will stand at Schoenborn's Contemporary Stallions in Coxsackie, N.Y. No stud fee has been set for the colt, who will be syndicated.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - Legendary sire Nureyev, sire of more than 125 stakes-winners, died Monday following a battle against a recurring tumor in his hoof. He was 24.
Walmac owner John T. L. Jones, Jr., owner of Walmac, the western Kentucky farm where Nureyev stood, confirmed the stallion's death but provided no details other than that the stallion died after lunch on Monday.
"Everything that exists comes to its time," Jones said. "Nureyev was a pleasure and a friend. He was unique."
LEXINGTON, Ky. - Lexington-based auction house Fasig-Tipton Company has signed a two-year agreement with Woodbine Entertainment Group and the Canadian Thoroughbred Horse Society to manage the annual yearling auctions at Canada's Woodbine racecourse.
Marylanders Howard and Sondra Bender and their trainer, Larry Murray, achieved a rare daily double on Oct. 19 at The Meadowlands. They won two $100,000 stakes races, each with a homebred 3-year-old filly getting her first added-money victory. What's more, both were longshots at odds of more than 20-1.
Leading the charge was Cruise Along ($50.80), a gray/roan daughter of Runaway Groom who came from off the pace and drove to a three-quarter length victory in the 1 3/8-mile Navajo Princess Stakes, the fifth race on the card.
Finding a future stakes winner at a yearling sale is tough enough, but picking one up for only $27,000 is extremely rare.
Rare Friends, a gelding from the first crop of Strub Stakes winner Helmsman, is undefeated in four starts heading into Sunday's $250,000 Coronation Futurity, the most important race for Canadian-bred juveniles in the country.
The medium-sized chestnut reeled off wins in the Vandal, Simcoe, and Swynford stakes after his maiden score for owners Frank DiGiulio Jr. and Bob Tiller. Tiller also trains Rare Friends.
Florida's roster of resident stallions for the 2002 breeding season will list some old faces in new places, some new faces in old places, and the return of some stallions. This is an ongoing process, and the subject will again be addressed in the coming months. For starters:
With a late summer setback behind him, Figlio Mio is ready for the richest race of his career, the $250,000 Wells Fargo Bank California Cup Classic at Santa Anita next Saturday.
The Cal Cup Classic is the top event on a 10-race program for statebreds that features races for horses of all ages. There are seven stakes and three starter handicaps.
For the last two months, trainer Ben Cecil has had the Classic as a goal for Figlio Mio.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - Richard Simon's Sez Who Thoroughbreds, the Florida stallion operation that opened a facility in upstate New York this summer, will transfer popular stallion Rizzi to the Empire State.
Rizzi, sire of the dual Grade 3 winner Richly Blended, will stand in 2002 for a $10,000 fee, up from his $7,000 fee in Florida this year.