It’s hardly breaking news to say that Frank Stronach has invested heavily in the Florida Thoroughbred program.

The head and namesake of The Stronach Group owns Florida’s marquee racetrack, Gulfstream Park, and last year he leased a spiraling Calder Race Course from Churchill Downs Inc., re-christened it Gulfstream Park West, and opened it to positive reviews.

On the bloodstock side, Stronach is a frequent business partner of Fasig-Tipton Sales Co., most recently hosting the company’s boutique sale of 2-year-olds in training at Gulfstream for the first time in 2015.

Leading general sire, leading turf sire

The death of perennial leading Florida sire Wildcat Heir in January left a vacancy at the top of the state’s sire list, and the spot has been ably filled by With Distinction.

The 14-year-old son of Storm Cat’s ascension to the top of Florida’s returning sire list had been a few years in the making.

Leading freshman sire, leading juvenile sire

Change is in the air in the Florida market, and Kantharos could be among the young stallions poised to benefit.

The unbeaten Kantharos, who is currently based at Ocala Stud, finished 2014 as Florida’s leading freshman sire, with 18 winners from 31 starters for total progeny earnings of $868,968. That bankroll far outpaced Journeyman Stud-based freshman sire Cool Coal Man, whose nine winners from 30 starters earned $317,639. No other Florida first-year stallion had more than four starters.

Leading broodmare sire

Although Florida sire Notebook has been gone for more than a decade, his influence continues to burn in the Sunshine State.

The former Ocala Stud sire who died in 2003 led the Florida broodmare sire list for 2014, marking the seventh consecutive year he has been first or second on that list. The son of Well Decorated again edged two familiar rivals, Montbrook and Marquetry, to lead the category.

ARCADIA, Calif. - Clubhouse Ride, a three-time stakes winner and millionaire, will enter stud at Harris Farms in Coalinga, Calif., this spring, the farm and the Santa Anita publicity department announced.

Clubhouse Ride will stand for $2,500. A 7-year-old by Candy Ride, Clubhouse Ride sustained a suspensory injury when ninth in the San Antonio Stakes on Feb. 7, leading to discussions about whether to launch a stud career this year or attempt a racing comeback later this year.

Twenty prominent commercial breeding farms have signed on to support the Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance (TAA) by donating a portion of stud fees to support Thoroughbred aftercare in 2015.

Champion and Hall of Fame racehorse Tiznow posted a stakes double on Saturday evening, as his aptly named Royal Son captured the John Battaglia Memorial Stakes at Turfway Park and Rebranded won the Curribot Handicap at Sunland Park.

Both stakes competitors represent a productive cross. According to Daily Racing Form’s SirePowered Results, runners by Tiznow won four races in the month of February. Three are out of mares by the pensioned A.P. Indy, a breed-shaping sire and prominent broodmare sire.

Group 1 winner Creator was euthanized Feb. 28 at Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital in Lexington, Ky., due to complications from colic. The Mill Reef horse was 29.

Creator had been pensioned at Old Friends Equine Retirement in Georgetown, Ky., since 2004, when he was retired from stud duty in Japan and shipped to the U.S. He and the champion Sunshine Forever – who died in January 2014 – were the first stallions the prominent Thoroughbred aftercare organization returned from stud duty overseas.

The late Stavros Niarchos made his first big splash in the international Thoroughbred industry at the 1956 Keeneland January sale when he purchased 1955 Horse of the Year Nashua’s dam, Segula, for $126,000, then a world-record price for a broodmare. About 20 years later, Niarchos began a serious expansion of his Thoroughbred holdings, notably through the purchase of 1978 Keeneland July sale-topper Nureyev, by Northern Dancer.

Graded stakes winner Williamstown, a resident of the Old Friends Thoroughbred retirement farm in Georgetown, Ky., was euthanized on Feb. 25 due to complications from the neurological disease equine protozoal myeloencephalitis (EPM). The son of Seattle Slew was 25.

Williamstown won five of 24 career starts for earnings of $360,884. He posted his biggest victory in the Grade 2 Withers Stakes at Belmont Park in 1993, recording a track-record time of 1:32.79 for the mile. He won or placed in nine other stakes, including a runner-up effort in the Grade 1 Jerome Handicap.