Majesto, a half-brother to two Grade 1 winners, will be jumping into the deep end when he runs in the Grade 1, $1 million Florida Derby at Gulfstream Park next Saturday.
The Tiznow colt, who is coming off a maiden win Feb. 27 at Gulfstream, is expected to be part of a short field facing unbeaten Kentucky Derby favorites Mohaymen and Nyquist.
Santa Anita will feature the Dream of Summer Stakes on Sunday, a race honoring a California-bred mare who rose from humble beginnings to become a Grade 1-winning millionaire and, more recently, a productive broodmare.
Dream of Summer had already achieved elite status as the dam of a Grade 1 winner in Creative Cause, who finished third in the 2012 Preakness Stakes. His full brother Destin is currently pointing to the Kentucky Derby after a pair of graded stakes victories.
Gun Runner
Candy Ride – Quiet Giant, by Giant’s Causeway
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Uncle Mo is the next great sire. While some may think that making that statement so early in a stud career is premature, foolish, outlandish, or all of the above, history suggests that you can reach some educated conclusions about a sire’s future arc based on his first crop of foals.
Early evidence for Uncle Mo, whose debut crop raced in 2015, is compelling. He’s off to a fast start that mirrors some who went on to become leading general sires, and there are parallels between Uncle Mo and the likes of Street Cry and Tapit.
Artie Schiller, who is based at WinStar Farm in Versailles, Ky., was represented in the world’s richest 2-year-old race, Australia’s Group 1, $3.5 million Golden Slipper, by Flying Artie, who finished a creditable third.
Capitalist won the race by a half-length over Yankee Rose, who was 1 3/4 lengths clear of Flying Artie.
Flying Artie won his maiden in the Group 3 Ladbrokes Blue Diamond Prelude, then finished second in the Group 1 Blue Diamond itself before going in the Golden Slipper.
Horse of the Year Havre de Grace delivered her third foal, a filly by two-time leading sire Tapit, on Saturday night at Timber Town Farm near Lexington, Ky.
The mare is boarded at Wayne and Cathy Sweezey’s facility for owner Mandy Pope’s Whisper Hill Farm. The mare delivered her first foal, a Tapit filly now named Heavenly Grace, in 2014 and had a War Front colt last year.
On the surface, California Chrome and Mshawish are quite different. California Chrome is a flashy, appropriately named chestnut who became beloved by the nation after winning America’s most famous race. Mshawish is a dark bay who has done his best work outside of the glamour division.
One is a West Coast-based homebred for previously little-known connections, by a modest California stallion and out of a claiming mare; the other, by a leading sire, is based in the East with the country’s leading trainer.
Few stallions as successful as the late Unbridled’s Song have endured as much criticism from breeders and pedigree pundits. Despite the fact that Tara’s Tango is one of his 114 stakes winners and became his 20th Grade 1 winner in Saturday’s Santa Margarita, Unbridled’s Song, who died in 2013, went relatively out of fashion toward the end of his illustrious stud career.
Silken Cat, a Canadian champion and the dam of champion sprinter and top sire Speightstown, died Tuesday in her paddock at Taylor Made Farm in Nicholasville, Ky. The farm confirmed the mare’s death Friday on its Facebook page.
The 23-year-old daughter of Storm Cat was bred in Quebec by Ferme Du Bois-Vert and was purchased by Sam-Son Farm for $95,000 at the 1994 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga select yearling sale.
