Old Friends Equine Retirement has announced a partnership with Kentucky Downs to establish a satellite facility at the Franklin, Ky., racetrack.

Old Friends at Kentucky Downs is expected to launch in May 2015 and will be open to the public for the summer season. Located on the Kentucky-Tennessee border, the track’s branch will house 10 horses, including some with a history of running at Kentucky Downs. An adjoining visitor’s center and Old Friends gift shop will be housed in a newly renovated structure in the track’s stable area.

Fiftyshadesofgold, a Grade 3 winner last spring at Churchill Downs, has been retired and is to be bred to Tapit, said Ken Carson, a representative of the horse’s owner, Doug Scharbauer. Fiftyshadesofgold, whose most prestigious win came in the Eight Belles last May, is now based at Hidden Brook Farm in Paris, Ky.

“She’s booked to Tapit,” said Carson, general manager of Valor Farm, the Texas operation of the Scharbauer family. “Doug is crazy about him. We watched Untapable all season. And it’s a good fit pedigree-wise.”

Grade 1 winner Monba will relocate to Nicks Farm in Sellersburg, Ind. for the 2015 breeding season, where he will stand for an advertised fee of $2,000.

The 10-year-old son of Maria’s Mon previously stood at Penn Ridge Farms in Harrisburg, Pa., where he was advertised last year for $4,000.

Monba is represented by three crops of racing age, led by stakes-placed Mondor, as well as Super Mon and Monba Mia, who have each earned more than $50,000.

DRF Breeding’s Joe Nevills makes his selections for the 2014 Eclipse Awards in the form of haiku; a Japanese poem of 17 syllables, in three lines of five, seven and five.

2-year-old male
In an even group
Hootenanny went global
And held the home front

2-year-old female
From well-bred longshot
To champion in two months
Hail Take Charge Brandi

3-year-old male
Bayern’s better late
But Chrome had a dream campaign
And can’t be denied

Americain, a champion in Europe and Australia, will stand the 2015 breeding season at the Irish National Stud in Co. Kildare, Ireland after beginning his stallion career at Calumet Farm in Lexington, Ky., Racing Post reports.

The 10-year-old son of Dynaformer stood his first two Northern Hemisphere seasons at Brad Kelley’s Calumet Farm while also shuttling to Swettenham Stud in Australia. According to Jockey Club statistics, his first Northern Hemisphere crop, now yearlings of 2015, consists of 42 foals.

The male line of the best American racehorse of the first half of the 20th century refuses to die.

Oblivion seemed possible, if not likely, when 1948 champion 2-year-old male Blue Peter, the best son of Man o’ War’s best son, War Admiral, died before making it to stud. Instead, the male line of “Big Red” persevered through his temperamental but talented son War Relic through Intent, Intentionally, and In Reality, the latter the third-best colt behind Damascus and Dr. Fager in the great crop of 1964.

Recently retired announcer Tom Durkin will join the team at the West Point Thoroughbreds partnership, as an owner and in other roles.

Durkin will work directly with West Point founder and president Terry Finley and chief operating officer Tom Bellhouse in business development and partnership relations. Durkin, a longtime Standardbred owner, will also be an equity partner on West Point runners. 

Atreides, a multiple stakes-winner and son of multiple Grade 1-winning mare Dream Rush, has been retired from racing due to a tendon injury and will stand the 2015 breeding season at Hill ‘n’ Dale Farm in Lexington, Ky., for an advertised fee of $6,500.

The 4-year-old son of Medaglia d’Oro finishes his on-track career with four wins in five career starts for earnings of $120,176, highlighted by victories in the Monarchos Stakes and Aventura Handicap, both at Gulfstream Park. He was campaigned as a Kentucky homebred by Stonestreet Stables and was trained by Martin Wolfson.

Grade 2-placed stakes winner Uptowncharlybrown will relocate to Diamond B Farm in Mohrsville, Pa., for the 2015 breeding season, where he will stand for an advertised fee of $1,500.

The 8-year-old son of Limehouse previously stood at Penn Ridge Farm in Harrisburg, Pa., where he was advertised for the same fee. His first foals are yearlings of 2015.

Trinniberg, the champion sprinter of 2012, was represented by his first foal Sunday night when Princesspatseattle delivered a filly at Rockridge Stud in Hudson, N.Y.

The filly is the second foal out of Princesspatseattle, an unraced Airdrie Apache mare. The mare’s first foal, the Bluegrass Cat colt Artic Storm Cat, is a registered white Thoroughbred.

Trinniberg stands at Rockridge Stud for an advertised fee of $7,500.