SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Roger King, who grew up within a roll of the dice of Atlantic City and now owns the entertainment company King World Productions, is a player.
"Yeah, I gamble," he said Tuesday night. Sitting on a green wooden bench outside the Humphrey S. Finney Pavilion, he gestured with a lit cigarette as he counted off his favorite forms of gambling. "Casinos, racetracks, stock market."
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Kentucky sire Phone Trick and Virginia stallion Thunder Rumble will stand in New York next year.
Phone Trick, sire of 1997 Horse of the Year Favorite Trick, has been sold by his Kentucky-based syndicate and will relocate to Dr. and Mrs. Jonathan Davis's Milfer Farm in Unadilla, N.Y. Davis, Dr. E. Paul Robsham of Massachusetts, and Barbara Brewer of New York
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Sheikh Mohammed al Maktoum's Darley Stud has announced that it will buy Jonabell Farm near Lexington, Ky.
The four stallions who currently stand at Jonabell - Holy Bull, Gold Legend, Cherokee Run, and Old Trieste - will remain at the farm under the management of Jimmy Bell. Bell is the son of the farm's founders, Mr. And Mrs. John A. Bell III, who established the farm in 1954.
A half-brother to last year's $575,000 sale-topping Quarter Horse colt highlights the Vessels Schvaneveldt Sale at the Vessels Stallion Farm in Bonsall, Calif., on Tuesday at 10 a.m.
The Vessels Schvaneveldt Sale annually produces a number of high-priced yearlings and is owned-managed by Frank "Scoop" Vessels III of the Vessels Stallion Farm and Hall of Fame trainer Blane Schvaneveldt.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - The Fasig-Tipton Company's Saratoga selected yearling sale, which runs from Aug. 7-9 at the Humphrey S. Finney Pavilion across from Saratoga Racecourse, is as much about atmosphere as it is about selling horses. In fact, some buyers and sellers believe the vaunted Saratoga sporting life helps create a better horse sale by pumping up owners' enthusiasm for the sport.
Cloverleaf Farm ranks high among the upscale Thoroughbred farms and training facilities in Florida. Robert Brennan built it and spared no expense.
It was named Due Process Farm in the days when Brennan was riding high as president of International Thoroughbred Breeders. Nowadays, Brennan is in prison and the farm belongs to the Tampa computer entrepreneur, John Sykes, who renamed it Cloverleaf Farm. Due Process was originally 800 acres; Sykes has added 200 more.
There are not many things in racing that surpass the thrill of winning a stakes race. One is winning a stakes race with a horse you bred yourself.
Through the spring and summer months of the Woodbine meet, more than 60 percent of the stakes races on the track's schedule have been won by homebreds, proving that the Ontario breeding industry is becoming healthy again.
The dam of the undefeated stakes winner Highland Mood could have been scooped up for $5,000 in 1985 when she won her maiden race for that claiming price at Fort Erie.
DEL MAR, Calif. - Some yearling consignors have all the luck.
With the Del Mar yearling sale a little more than a week away, four consignors have watched with enthusiasm as relatives of their sale yearlings have excelled on the racetrack this year.
Among those selling at the Del Mar yearling sale, to be held Aug. 13-14 at the Del Mar HorsePark, are yearlings from the families of Cover Gal, Go Go, Gourmet Girl, and Kitty on the Track.
Thirteen Maryland-breds (from an original 15 cataloged) will sell at the Saratoga yearling sale on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evenings.
A number of Maryland breeding farms are hoping to repeat history with Saratoga consignments, including Country Life Farm in Bel Air, Md. Back in 1947, Country Life sold a homebred filly named Raise You at Saratoga for $7,400. A multiple stakes winner, Raise You gained immortality as the dam of influential sire Raise a Native, whose name can be found in the pedigrees of many horses selling at Saratoga and elsewhere.
Eleven New York-breds are among 237 yearlings cataloged in Fasig-Tipton's select sale on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday at the Humphrey S. Finney pavilion in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.
The New York-breds - six colts and five fillies - represent a diverse group of sires.
State-bred yearlings by established sires Dixieland Band (Hip No. 8), Holy Bull (Hip No. 90), Polish Numbers (Hip No. 42), and Silver Deputy (Hip No. 205) are among the lots for the sale.