The Florida Thoroughbred Farm Managers’ “Horsemen Helping Horsemen” annual charity stallion season auction will be held Jan. 21-23.
Proceeds from the auction will go toward Florida horsemen in need by providing emergency assistance with rent, utilities, and food. The organization also provides scholarships for the children of Florida horse industry employees.
The online auction will begin Wednesday, Jan. 21, and will end on Friday, Jan. 23 at 8 p.m. Eastern.
Escapedfromnewyork, a resident of Old Friends Equine Retirement in Georgetown, Ky., died Sunday from a heart attack brought on by colic at Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital in nearby Lexington.
The 10-year-old son of Aristotle had been one of 117 Thoroughbreds in various states of neglect discovered in 2009 at Ernie Paragallo’s Center Brook Farm in upstate New York. The horses were seized by the state and Paragallo was eventually charged with 33 counts of animal cruelty and sentenced to two years in jail and a $33,000 fine.
Grade 1 winner and sire Spring At Last has been purchased by H.H. Prince Sultan bin Mohammed Saud Al Kabeer and will stand in Saudi Arabia.
Spring At Last, a 12-year-old son of Silver Deputy, had stood his entire stallion career at WinStar Farm in Versailles, Ky., where he debuted in 2009. He was advertised for a fee of $10,000 during the upcoming breeding season.
From his first three crops of racing age – the fourth is newly-turned juveniles – Spring At Last has sired 79 winners for combined progeny earnings of more than $5.6 million.
Champion Shanghai Bobby sired his first foal on Jan. 16 when Opulence, an unraced daughter of champion Rags to Riches, produced a dark bay colt at Coolmore’s Creekview Farm in Paris, Ky.
The colt is the second foal out of Opulence, a Giant’s Causeway mare, who is booked to Coolmore stallion Declaration of War for the 2015 breeding season. The mare’s first foal was a colt from the first crop of Stay Thirsty, also a Coolmore sire.
Shanghai Bobby, a 5-year-old son of Harlan’s Holiday, stands at Coolmore’s Ashford Stud in Versailles, Ky., for an advertised fee of $15,000.
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.
