Mike Fox had no business winning the 2007 Queen’s Plate.
The blood-bay colt was sputtering at the top of the Woodbine stretch and looked ready to settle for a minor award while pacesetter Alezzandro and heavy favorite Jiggs Coz pulled away to be the only horses with a shot to win the Canadian classic.
Defining a textbook horse who is likely to succeed on dirt or turf can be as simple as glancing at the specimen’s physical makeup and pedigree page. Horsemen, however, remain divided over determining an archetype for synthetic-surface runners.
Grade 1 winners Tizway and Archarcharch have been sold to stand in Korea and will debut there for the 2018 breeding season.
Both stallions previously resided at Spendthrift Farm in Lexington, Ky., with Tizway standing for an advertised fee of $7,500 in 2017 and Archarcharch for $6,000. They both debuted at stud in 2012.
Kevin Dickson, formerly the farm manager at Vessels Stallion Farm in Bonsall, Calif., will take the job of farm manager at Barton Thoroughbreds in Santa Ynez, Calif., in August, the farm announced on Wednesday.
Barton Thoroughbreds, owned by Southern California businessman Richard Barton, is finalizing the purchase of Magali Farm, a deal currently in escrow that is expected to close July 31.
The Queen’s Plate is restricted to Canadian-bred runners, but their sires can reside anywhere in the world. The sires of this year’s contenders have a decidedly U.S. leaning, but a trio of hopefuls are by current or former Ontario residents.
The only stallion in that group still active in Canada is 2007 Queen’s Plate winner Mike Fox, sire of maiden winner Spirit of Caledon.
As the calendar moves into the summer months, juvenile races will become more plentiful at Ontario’s racetracks, and the province’s freshman stallions will begin to sort out who will be the stars of the class.
At least eight Ontario stallions are represented by their first crop of 2-year-olds in 2017.
John G. Sikura’s Hill ‘n’ Dale Farm has acquired a 50 percent interest in Bubbler, the dam of champion Arrogate.
The 11-year-old Distorted Humor mare is in foal to perennial leading sire Tapit for what would be her fifth foal. She was previously owned entriely by Clearsky Farms.
Lord Nelson retired to Spendthrift Farm as one of the hottest stallion prospects of the 2017 class, but things didn’t go as planned.
The Grade 1-winning son of Pulpit was the morning-line second favorite behind Masochistic for last year’s Breeders’ Cup Sprint, but was scratched and subsequently retired after a cut in his right front foreleg developed an ill-timed infection.
In a racing milieu dominated by Europe’s two best sires Galileo and Dubawi, the undoubted star sire of last week’s Royal Ascot meeting was the late, much lamented Scat Daddy. Winner of the 2007 Grade 1 Florida Derby, Scat Daddy died Dec. 15, 2015, at Ashford Stud, only 11 years old, just as his stud career was hitting high gear on the international stage.
Benchmark, a multiple Grade 2 winner and California sire, was euthanized Friday due to the infirmities of old age. He was 26.
The son of Alydar resided as a pensioner at Ballena Vista Farm in Ramona, Calif., and covered his final book of mares in 2014.
Bred in Kentucky by North Central Bloodstock, Benchmark was a $475,000 weanling purchase by Pam and Martin Wygod at the 1991 Keeneland November breeding stock sale, and was later put into training with Ron Ellis.
