Multiple Grade 1 winner Giant Oak was euthanized Wednesday due to complications from an acute onset severe neurological disease.
The 11-year-old son of Giant’s Causeway had resided his entire stallion career at Millennium Farms in Lexington, Ky., and had not covered any mares during the 2017 breeding season.
Anyone who’s ever attended a Thoroughbred racehorse auction will tell you that it’s an experience unlike any other. There’s an electricity in the air as anxious bidders gather to compete with one another, not merely for their claim to a particular animal, but for their purchase on the elusive dream of finding the next great horse.
Triple Crown winner American Pharoah will stand at Coolmore Australia during the 2017 Southern Hemisphere breeding season, which begins Sept. 1.
Irish War Cry
Curlin-Irish Sovereign, by Polish Numbers
(Bred in New Jersey by Isabelle de Tomaso)
Two-time Horse of the Year Curlin, who retired as North America’s leading money winner, was a force at classic distances throughout his racing career, winning the Preakness Stakes, Breeders’ Cup Classic, and Dubai World Cup. His offspring have followed closely in his footsteps.
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It would take some running for Uncle Mo’s second crop to catch up to his outstanding first crop, which currently includes 21 stakes winners, led by Kentucky Derby winner and champion Nyquist. But the young sire’s second crop is starting to come alive, with two more stakes-winning 3-year-olds over the weekend, including another Derby hopeful.
Conquest Mo Money won Sunday’s Mine That Bird Derby at Sunland Park in New Mexico; Mopotism captured the same track’s filly counterpart, the Island Fashion Stakes.
Bob Austin purchased the unraced mare Catch the Moon in foal for just $30,000 at the 2013 Keeneland January sale of horses of all ages. Less than three months later, she produced a Colonel John colt.
In November 2015, with that colt, Cocked and Loaded, a graded-stakes-winning juvenile, Catch the Moon took another trip through the Keeneland auction ring. Now, her value had risen, and she attracted the attention of top players, selling to Barbara Banke’s Stonestreet Farm for $240,000.
Although Storm Cat was a successful sire of sires, plentiful conduits to the future of his male line beyond his best son Giant’s Causeway are not currently obvious. His great-grandson Scat Daddy (by Johannesburg, by Hennessy, by Storm Cat) was a highly successful sire but died young, almost as soon as his opportunities improved due to his early success.
New Vocations has a major presence in Ohio and is celebrating a quarter-century of operations in the Buckeye State this year. The program recently announced that the Ohio Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association has donated $50,000 to support aftercare efforts at its Marysville facility.
In 2016, New Vocations took in more than 450 retired racehorses, 66 of whom came directly from an Ohio racetrack or farm.
Exclusive Quality, with 95 representatives on the track in 2016, finished 10th on Florida’s general sire list based on earnings. However, he factored prominently in Daily Racing Form’s Beyer Sire Performance Standings unveiled last month – an exclusive metric to examine stallion progeny performance in-depth, often highlighting under-the-radar sires.
