Divining Rod, a Grade 3 winner and classic-placed runner, has been retired and will debut at stud in 2018 at Country Life Farm in Bel Air, Md., for an advertised fee of $5,000.
The 5-year-old Tapit horse will stand for a partnership of Roy and Gretchen Jackson, who campaigned him on the racetrack, along with Country Life Farm and Kentucky-based Gainesway Farm.
Tom’s Ready, a Grade 2 winner, has been retired from racing, and will stand at Spendthrift Farm in Lexington, Ky., for the 2018 breeding season.
The 4-year-old More Than Ready colt will stand for an advertised fee of $7,500 on a one-year commitment through the farm’s Share the Upside program, or for $6,000 under a standard “stands and nurses” agreement.
Although it is easy to demonstrate statistically that the schism between dirt and turf horses is somewhat overrated, it has seldom been more readily illustrated than by the results of Aqueduct’s two Grade 2 dirt features for juveniles last Saturday.
The Demoiselle Stakes went to Wonder Gadot, who had won her maiden on turf and run third in the Grade 1 Natalma on the grass before winning the Grade 3 Mazarine on Woodbine’s synthetic surface and finishing sixth in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies on dirt.
Signature Red, a Grade 2 winner and Canada’s leading freshman sire of 2016, will relocate to Adena Springs North in Aurora, Ontario, for the 2018 breeding season and will stand for an advertised fee of $3,000 Canadian.
The 11-year-old Bernstein horse previously resided at Colebrook Farms Stallion Station in Uxbridge, Ontario, and stood in 2017 for $2,500.
Signature Red has sired two crops of racing age, with 13 winners and progeny earnings of $780,695. His runners are led by stakes winners Signature Spring and Latonka and stakes-placed Red Cabernet.
Nicks Farm in Sellersburg, Ind., will add veteran stallions Quien and Mr. Mabee to its roster for the 2018 breeding season, each standing for $1,000.
Quien, a placed 13-year-old Pulpit horse, previously stood at Southern Indiana Equine Center. He has sired six crops of racing age, with 19 winners and combined progeny earnings of $937,829, led by stakes winners I’m Workin On It and Gliding Alone.
Thoroughbred auctions are typically once-a-year events, each holding its own specific place and purpose on the calendar. The Fasig-Tipton Midlantic December mixed sale does not buck that trend by name, but it does in spirit.
The Timonium, Md.-based auction moves back to its previous home on the calendar after holding its past two editions in January. Because of the schedule adjustment, the sale’s most recent renewal took place during the first month of this year as the Midlantic winter mixed sale, and the auctions will serve as bookends to Fasig-Tipton’s 2017 calendar.
Multiple graded stakes-winning multimillionaire Prayer for Relief will relocate to Indiana to stand the 2018 season at R Star Stallions.
Prayer for Relief's retirement was announced in March, and he entered stud at Pleasant Acres Stallions in Florida with the 2017 season already in progress. He covered 22 mares, according to The Jockey Club's Report of Mares Bred.
Union Jackson, a Grade 3-placed stakes-winning son of Curlin, has been retired from racing and will stand the 2018 breeding season at Sequel New York in Hudson for an advertised fee of $5,000.
The 5-year-old horse finished his ontrack career with six wins in 11 starts for earnings of $273,874. He won the Iowa Sprint Handicap and the Sam Houston Sprint Cup Stakes this year and turned in third-place efforts in the Grade 3 Aristides Stakes and the non-graded Thanksgiving Handicap.
Drefong, the Eclipse Award-winning male sprinter of 2016, the year he won the Breeders’ Cup Sprint, has been retired from racing and will be moving to Japan to take up stud duty at Shadai Stallion Station, it was announced late Wednesday by the Baoma Corporation of Susan and Charles Chu, who owned Drefong.
