Ahead of a season of juvenile racing in which a strong class of freshman sires will be featured, B. Wayne Hughes’ Spendthrift Farm has introduced the “Safe Bet” program, designed to incentivize breeders to support the farm’s current freshmen in their fourth seasons at stud in 2019.

Code of Honor
Noble Mission – Reunited, by Dixie Union
Bred in Kentucky by W.S. Farish

Vekoma

Candy Ride-Mona de Momma, by Speightstown

Bred in Kentucky by Alpha Delta Stables ($135,000 Keeneland September yearling purchase by R.A. Hill Stable)

World Approval, the Eclipse Award champion turf male of 2017, has been retired. The 7-year-old Northern Afleet gelding will reside at owner-breeder Charlotte Weber's Live Oak Stud in Ocala, Fla.

Spiced Perfection, winner of the Grade 1 La Brea Stakes on Dec. 26, was named the 2018 California-bred horse of the year in a ceremony Monday in San Gabriel, Calif.

Spiced Perfection also was honored as the champion 3-year-old filly and champion sprinter.

Owned by Dare to Dream Stables and trained by Brian Koriner in 2018, Spiced Perfection won 4 of 8 starts and earned $455,125 in her championship season.

Galilean
Uncle Mo – Fresia, by El Prado
(Bred in California by Bar C Racing Stables ($60,000 Barretts August yearling purchase by Quarter Pole Enterprises; $600,000 Barretts spring juvenile purchase by West Point Thoroughbreds)

The stallions are new, but the bloodlines aren’t. Fittingly in its 40th anniversary season, Lane’s End Farm has welcomed three newcomers from sirelines prominent in the farm’s history.

Game WinnerCandy Ride-Indyan Giving, by A.P. Indy

Bred in Kentucky by Summer Wind Farm ($110,000 Keeneland September yearling purchase by Ben Glass, agent)

On Monday, Claiborne Farm opens the doors to its historic breeding shed, where six Triple Crown winners, among dozens of other classic winners, have been conceived. War Front will walk into that breeding shed as the most expensive stallion in North America for this breeding season.

The first of what will be just a handful of foals by Battle of Midway, the 2017 Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile winner with fertility obstacles, is a filly born Feb. 7 at Chesapeake Farm in Lexington, Ky.

The filly is out of the Giant's Causeway mare La Boheme, who is a half-sister to graded stakes winners Electrify and Rothko, as well as stakes producers Cream Only, Kinsey, Brilliancy, and Cuckoo Sue. Both La Boheme and her new foal are boarded at Chesapeake for owner Thor-Bred Stables LLC, which bred Battle of Midway.