The 2015 New York general sire rankings could signal a changing of the guard in the Empire State – or, at the very least, serious competition at the top in the stallion ranks moving forward. Newcomer Big Brown, who stood his first New York season in 2015, is the state’s leading returning or incoming sire by total progeny earnings, edging out state stalwarts Freud and Posse, both prior leading general sires, by a fairly narrow margin.

Grade 1 winner Mshawish will enter stud at Taylor Made Stallions in Nicholasville, Ky., for the 2017 breeding season.

Mshawish, a  6-year-old son of Medaglia d’Oro, will continue to race through the 2016 season seeking to add to his eight wins in 23 career starts and earnings of $2,221,351 for Al Shaqab Racing and trainer Todd Pletcher. He is scheduled to compete in the Group 1 Dubai World Cup on March 26.

Mor Spirit

Eskendereya – Im a Dixie Girl, by Dixie Union

($650,000 purchase by Bernard Schiappa and M. Petersen at 2015 Fasig-Tipton Florida sale of 2-year-olds in training)

Mor Spirit will attempt to stretch his winning streak to three graded stakes in California on Saturday in the Grade 2 San Felipe Stakes at Santa Anita. A Grade 1-winning juvenile who has won three times at a mile or longer, the Pennsylvania-bred ridgling has already outrun most of his immediate family in terms of class and distance.

A catalog of 85 juveniles will be on offer during a 2-year-olds in training sale April 4 at Lone Star Park near Dallas. The track is putting on the auction in conjunction with the Texas Thoroughbred Association. The breeze show is scheduled for 11 a.m. on April 2.

Following the 2-year-old portion of the auction, horses of racing age will be sold.

“We have a lot of solid pedigrees this year, top to bottom,” sales director Tim Boyce said in release from the TTA. “What we may lack in overall numbers we have gotten back in quality.”

Grade 2 winner Bern Identity has been retired from racing and will begin his stallion career at PJK Team Jamaica in Jamaica.

The 6-year-old son of Bernstein retired with 6 wins in 13 starts over three seasons of racing for earnings of $877,200. He ran his entire career for owners George and Lori Hall and trainer Kelly Breen, last racing in November 2014 when finishing second in the Fabulous Strike Handicap at Penn National. He last breezed Feb. 10, 2015, at the Palm Meadows Training Center.

Nearly a decade after the death of prominent California owner, breeder, and racing-industry philanthropist Trudy McCaffery, her legacy lives on – both on the track and off.

The undefeated California-bred Smokey Image hails from a female family cultivated by McCaffery, who died at age 62 in 2007 following a battle with cancer. The colt will take his first shot against open company Saturday in the Grade 2 San Felipe Stakes at Santa Anita – the same race that his grandsire, Free House, McCaffery’s favorite runner, won nearly two decades ago.

Just Talkin, a full sister to multiple stakes winner Lady Shipman, won her debut Sunday in a 7 1/2-furlong maiden special weight race on the Gulfstream Park turf, closing with a rush in the field of 10 3-year-old fillies.

The Midshipman filly became the third winner from as many starters out of the winning Mutakddim mare Sumthingtotalkabt. She is trained by Chad Brown for Michael Dubb, Bethlehem Stables, and Gary Aisquith, who privately purchased her last year from breeder Randall Lowe.

Seven-figure purchase Aldrin finally broke through with the first win of his career in a maiden special weight race Friday on the Tampa Bay Downs turf, making the pace and then holding off a rallying Extreme Justice to win in his seventh start.

Aldrin, by Malibu Moon, topped the 2014 Keeneland April sale of 2-year-olds in training at $1 million, selling to the partnership of Gainesway, Mt. Brilliant Farm, and Robert LaPenta. The ridgling is a half-brother to Grade 1 winner and two-time leading sire Tapit and is bred on the same A.P. Indy-line cross.

Quality Road had a solid Saturday, siring three winners, including Blofeld, who got back to his winning ways in the Grade 2 Gulfstream Park Handicap.

Blofeld, a member of Quality Road's first crop, earned Grade 2 victories in the Belmont Futurity and Nashua Stakes as a juvenile in 2014. The Gulfstream Park Handicap marked his first win since then.

The champion filly Songbird remained undefeated and unchallenged with her victory in the Grade 3 Santa Ysabel Stakes at Santa Anita on Saturday and continues to lead sire Medaglia d’Oro’s quest for his third Kentucky Oaks winner.

Medaglia d’Oro, based at Darley’s Jonabell Farm in Lexington, Ky., is the sire of six of the 112 early nominees to the Kentucky Oaks, which will be run May 6 at Churchill Downs, but Songbird is the only stakes winner in his group.