One year after winning her fourth Eclipse Award, the great racemare Beholder has delivered her first foal.
The 8-year-old mare delivered a colt by Uncle Mo at Spendthrift Farm in Lexington, Ky. B. Wayne Hughes’s operation, which raced Beholder, announced the new arrival Wednesday on social media.
“True to form, Beholder has taken motherhood in stride perfectly,” Spendthrift wrote. “Last night, she foaled a beautiful strong bay colt by Uncle Mo. We couldn’t be happier!”
Real Solution, a Grade 1 winner, will move to Dex Comardelle’s Blue Star Racing in Scott, La., for the 2018 breeding season, where he will stand for an advertised fee of $5,000, with discounts for multiple and quality mares.
The 9-year-old Kitten’s Joy horse stands at Blue Star Racing on lease from owner Calumet Farm. He stood at Calumet in Lexington, Ky., last season for $5,000, and his first foals will be 2-year-olds of 2018.
High Cotton, a prominent sire in Florida, has been pensioned from stallion duty due to declining fertility.
The 15-year-old son of Dixie Union spent his entire career at Ocala Stud in Ocala, Fla., and he will continue to reside there as a pensioner. He stood the 2017 breeding season for a fee of $4,000.
There are few downsides to having a seasoned champion walk into a trainer’s barn in racing form. But trainer Chad Brown has just one regret about his association with Stellar Wind.
“The most disappointing thing is only having her for one start,” Brown told Gulfstream Park publicity. “We’ll try to make the most of that one start.”
Gun Runner’s name is expected to be in the Horse of the Year envelope opened onstage Thursday night at the Eclipse Awards ceremony, and less than 48 hours later, he will walk onto the track as the heavy favorite for the $16 million Pegasus World Cup at Gulfstream Park. Win or lose, he will depart shortly afterward for Three Chimneys Farm in Kentucky, where he will begin his stud career the second week of February.
Grade 2 winner Pleuven has been retired from racing and is available for adoption via aftercare organization New Vocations.
The 7-year-old Turtle Bowl gelding, who last raced in August for owner Nelson McMakin, concluded his career with a record of 20-7-3-4 and earnings of $370,097.
It has been a year since California Chrome, one of the most popular runners of recent years, made his final start in the inaugural Pegasus World Cup. But the two-time Horse of the Year’s family continues to cause conversation in the Thoroughbred industry, with the recent arrival of his first foal, his dam being booked to a successful young sire, and his full brother eyeing stakes company.
The University of Kentucky men’s basketball team tips-off at fellow nationally ranked West Virginia on Saturday night. But less than two hours prior, students will have another rooting interest when homebred Fear the Cowboy starts in the $16 million Pegasus World Cup.
Fear the Cowboy was bred and raised by the University of Kentucky’s Maine Chance Farm, which employs students as part of the curriculum. Fear the Cowboy is 6-4-1-1 lifetime on the main track at Pegasus host Gulfstream Park, and won two Grade 3 events there last year.
Great racemares who also become great broodmares have exerted an outsized influence on the ranks of great stallions, most recently 1992 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe winner Urban Sea, by Miswaki, dam of nine-time leading English and Irish sire Galileo, by Sadler’s Wells, and top-five European sire Sea The Stars, by Cape Cross, both winners of the Epsom Derby as well.
The first foal by two-time Horse of the Year California Chrome was born Saturday night at Calumet Farm in Lexington, Ky., when the Bernstein mare Pay the Man produced a colt.
Pay the Man is the highest-earning Ohio-bred filly in history, and she is one of three horses bred in the Buckeye State to have earned seven figures on the racetrack, joining Harlan’s Holiday and Catlaunch. She won 27 of 76 starts over nine seasons of racing for $1,058,511, highlighted by 21 statebred stakes victories and 14 additional stakes placings.
