Aljabr, Europe’s champion 2-year-old male of 1998, died Tuesday of a heart attack at Shadwell Farm in Lexington, Ky. He was 22.
The son of Storm Cat had resided at Shadwell Farm as a pensioner since 2013, and he will be buried at the farm.
Bred in Kentucky by Shadwell, out of the French Group 1-winning Baillamong mare Sierra Madre, Aljabr raced for Sheikh Mohammed Al-Maktoum’s Godolphin operation and trainer Saeed bin Suroor.
Encryption and Anaximandros will enter stud at The Cherry Orchard in Lexington, Ky., for the 2018 breeding season after selling as stallion prospects at the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky winter mixed sale.
Peter Doth, owner of The Cherry Orchard, said both horses will stand privately.
Girolamo, a Grade 1 winner, has been exported to continue his stallion career in Korea for the 2018 breeding season. The 12-year-old son of A.P. Indy previously stood at Darley’s Jonabell Farm base in Lexington, Ky., for an advertised fee of $10,000. He began his stud career in New York.
Records from the Korean Racing Authority show Girolamo entered the country Jan. 29.
Since January 2017, North America’s four major auction houses have hosted 32 individual sales, and Medaglia d’Oro has sired the most expensive offering at five of them, more than any other stallion.
Rock Ridge Thoroughbreds’s $310,000 purchase of the stakes-placed mare Girl Talk at the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky winter mixed sale was the latest in a high-end run at auction for Medaglia d’Oro.
Good Magic
Curlin–Glinda the Good, by Hard Spun
Bred in Kentucky by Stonestreet Farm ($1 million Keeneland September yearling purchase by e Five Racing Thoroughbreds)
The opening session of the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky winter mixed sale went without the splashy prices that drove the top of the market last year, producing declines in gross and average with a slightly higher median, and spearheaded by the $260,000 broodmare prospect Bling On the Music.
Monday’s session finished with 181 horses sold for revenues of $4,134,200, down 12 percent from last year’s first day of trade when 164 horses changed hands for $4,702,300. The average sale price dipped 21 percent to $22,841 from $28,763, while the median rose 3 percent to $10,000 from $9,750.
Innkeeper, who was the final son of Secretariat standing in the United States, was euthanized on Feb. 2 following complications from colic. The 30-year-old stallion last stood as a sporthorse sire at Virginia Tech’s Middleburg Agricultural Research and Extension (MARE) Center in Middleburg, Va.
“He epitomized the diversity and greatness of the Thoroughbred breed,” Virginia Tech said in a statement about the stallion, whose barn name was ‘Howard.’
Grade 2 winner Ready’s Image will relocate to Midwest Equine and Veterinary Hospital in Trafalgar, Ind., for the 2018 breeding season, where he will stand for an advertised fee of $2,000.
The 13-year-old son of More Than Ready previously stood at Calumet Farm in Lexington, Ky., for an advertised fee of $5,000.
It is vanishingly rare for a horse who does not win his first stakes race until he is 6 years old to become a successful sire. The case of Speightstown, who fits that description, is a little different than most late developers, however.
As champion Gun Runner crossed the line in the $16 million Pegasus World Cup last Saturday, he not only concluded his career in style, but also gave Candy Ride a valuable head start in the 2018 sire race. A Lane’s End resident, Candy Ride has a bankroll that already stands at $7,559,793 entering February, more than triple his closest pursuer, Claiborne Farm’s Flatter at $1,940,711.
