Throughout the spring prep season, DRF Breeding will publish pedigree profiles of Kentucky Derby contenders. Our current profiles are archived below, in alphabetical order.
DRF Past Performances
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A fire at Chanteclair Farm in Versailles, Ky., best known as the birthplace of champion Royal Delta, killed six horses Wednesday morning.
The fire was reported around 6 a.m. Eastern, according to the Lexington Herald-Leader, and destroyed two barns on the 260-acre property. The farm was once owned by the late Prince Saud bin Khaled of Saudi Arabia. It is currently owned by John Moores - former owner of Major League Baseball’s San Diego Padres - and Charles Noell, who bought the property in 2013.
Distorted Humor, a perennial leader among the sire ranks, is already off to a stellar start in 2015. According to Daily Racing Form’s SirePowered Results, runners by the WinStar Farm stallion have already won 19 races in North America since the start of the season. That number got a big boost the weekend of Feb. 21-22 with five victories, led by repeat winners House Rules and Khozan.
The book of mares set to meet Tapit during the 2015 breeding season will be among the strongest in the world.
However, it was the mares Tapit bred in 2010 that helped vault the 14-year-old son of Pulpit to the unforgettable season he had last year.
The resident of Gainesway in Lexington, Ky., finished the year with 156 winners from 323 runners and earnings of $16,812,111, a North American progeny earnings record for a single year. Tapit had three Grade 1 winners, all 3-year-olds, including his first U.S. classic winner, Tonalist, in the Belmont Stakes.
Donald Sucher, who bred Hall of Fame racemares Chris Evert and Winning Colors, died Feb. 15 in Georgetown, Ky., at age 89.
Sucher, along with his wife, Shirley, owned Echo Valley Horse Farm in Georgetown. Among their top runners was stakes winner Miss Carmie, named for their daughter. Miss Carmie went on to become their foundation mare, producing Chris Evert, and multiple stakes winner All Rainbows, the dam of Winning Colors.
Horse Chestnut, South Africa’s 1999 Horse of the Year and a U.S. Grade 3 winner and sire, died Feb. 20 from heart failure at Drakenstein Stud Farm in South Africa.
The 19-year-old, from the first crop of Fort Wood, had resided at Drakenstein since 2009 after beginning his stud career at Claiborne Farm in Paris, Ky.
After a fairly mild start to winter, the season arrived with a vengeance in Lexington, Ky., the heart of the nation's Thoroughbred industry, this week.
Some areas of Lexington received more than a foot of snow on Monday, Feb. 16, and the region is now bracing for record cold. The forecast in Lexington predicted temperatures of minus 14 overnight on Wednesday, and wind chills as low as minus 29 on Thursday.
The record low air temperature - not counting wind chills - for Lexington is minus 21 on Jan. 21, 1963.
Henny Hughes’s top runner has not yet seen action in 2015, but it’s already been a productive year for the stallion.
According to DRF’s SirePowered Results, Henny Hughes, best known as the sire of two-time champion Beholder, registered three victories over the weekend, led by Merry Meadow’s score in the Grade 3 Hurricane Bertie Stakes at Gulfstream Park on Saturday.
Horse of the Year Havre de Grace delivered her second foal, a colt by popular young commercial sire War Front, early Feb. 14 at Timber Town Farm near Lexington, Ky.
The 8-year-old Saint Liam mare, whose first foal is a yearling Tapit filly, is boarded at Wayne and Cathy Sweezey’s facility for owner Mandy Pope’s Whisper Hill Farm.
News coverage
- Looking for the next generation of flagship sires - By Joe Nevills
- A.P. Indy carrying on for Bold Ruler line - By John P. Sparkman
Profiles - 2014 Kentucky stallion honors