Girvin

Tale of Ekati-Catch the Moon, by Malibu Moon

(Bred in Kentucky by Bob Austin and John White; $130,000 purchase at Fasig-Tipton Kentucky fall yearling sale by Grand Oaks)

Over the last two decades, the two largest racing and breeding operations on the planet have taken distinctly separate tacks. The Coolmore partnership has been all about the Northern Dancer line horses Sadler’s Wells and Danehill, with those two or their sons Danehill Dancer and Galileo leading the English sire list every year since 1992. Godolphin, meanwhile, has been much more eclectic, sprinkling ample doses of Mr. Prospector, Seattle Slew, and even the exotic Monsun into their global stallion rosters.

Ivan Dalos’s Tall Oaks Farm was poised to have a big evening Thursday at the Sovereign Awards, with 11 horses he owns or bred being finalists for awards and him being up for individual honors.

The category in which he held the hottest hand was Canada’s Broodmare of the Year. Dalos had two of the four finalists, both Tall Oaks Farm homebreds, and took home the hardware with Galloping Ami.

The consistent Amis Gizmo helped propel his sire, Giant Gizmo, near the top of Canada’s general sire list in 2016 by winning three stakes, including the Prince of Wales Stakes, the middle leg of the Canadian Triple Crown. The colt will keep his sire in the headlines this week as he was a finalist for a Sovereign Award as Canada’s outstanding 3-year-old male of 2016.

Multiple Grade 1 winner Flat Out was the first of this year’s freshman sires off the mark with a winner at a major U.S. racetrack, as Flat Drunk captured her career debut on Thursday at Keeneland.

Nominations will open on Monday, May 8 for the 2017 Thoroughbred Industry Employee Awards, presented in America for the first time last year.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum’s Godolphin is the principal sponsor of the awards, in association with The Jockey Club, the National Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protection Association, and the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association. Godolphin also sponsors the equivalent Stud and Stable Staff Awards in Ireland, Australia, Britain, and France.

Super Saver, the winner of the 2010 Kentucky Derby, will shuttle to Haras Firmamento in Buenos Aires, Argentina, for the Southern Hemisphere breeding season.

The news was originally reported by the South American publication Turf Diario.

Super Saver, a 10-year-old son of Maria’s Mon, stands in the Northern Hemisphere at WinStar Farm in Versailles, Ky., for an advertised fee of $50,000.

Equestricon LLC, which is hosting its inaugural horse racing convention, fan festival, and trade show this summer in Saratoga, has partnered with Horse Country, Inc, to showcase the latter’s member farms at the event.

Irap

Tiznow-Silken Cat, by Storm Cat

(Bred in Kentucky by Aaron and Marie Jones; $300,000 purchase by Dennis O’Neill at 2016 OBS March sale of 2-year-olds in training)

Tiznow is the most prominent stallion continuing the Man o’ War line at stud, tracing his male line directly back to the great racehorse. This year, which marks the centennial anniversary of Man o’ War’s birth, Tiznow will represent the line in the Kentucky Derby with Irap.

George Krikorian had more riding on the finish of Keeneland’s Grade 3 Transylvania Stakes than the purse money his runner, Big Score, stood to gain.

The colt’s grinding victory over top-flight runners Oscar Performance and Ticonderoga helped make good on a bet Krikorian made seven years earlier on a towering allowance winner he started at stud himself and built into a graded stakes-caliber sire from a miniscule roster of runners.