Black Fighter’s victory in a maiden claiming race on Sunday at Turfway Park was a historic first on multiple levels.
The 3-year-old colt became the first Thoroughbred to win a race in the U.S. bred in Azerbaijan, a country straddling southwestern Europe and the Middle East. Black Fighter raced as a homebred for Mammad Huseynov’s Royal Pegasus operation.
Grade 2 winner Lewis Michael is relocating to Questroyal North in Stillwater, N.Y., to stand the 2014 breeding season. The 11-year-old Rahy horse previously stood at Three Chimneys Farm in Midway, Ky. He will stand at Questroyal for a $3,000 fee, payable when the foal stands and nurses.
Kathleen Womack, a Battle Creek, Mich.-based breeder, died Jan. 16 following a prolonged battle with cancer. She was 72.
Womack was a longtime director of the Michigan Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association, recently serving as the group’s secretary and treasurer.
Womack, with her husband Charles, bred stakes winners including Speak of Kings, Eve’s Trick, and Lite Legacy, as well as stakes-placed runners Lite Shadows, Trip Litely, Tillie the Hunn, and Lite Delighter.
Grade 1 winner Dance Card has been retired from racing and will be bred to Medaglia d’Oro, her connections announced Friday.
According to trainer Kiaran McLaughlin, the 5-year-old Dance Card had issues with her ankles that would have prevented her from having a full 2014 campaign. She was owned by Sheikh Mohammed al-Maktoum’s Godolphin Racing.
“Her ankle flared up,” McLaughlin said. “Just wear and tear. [Dr. Larry Bramlage] felt like it would be hard to race all year. She’s a Grade 1 winner, we felt like it was best to stop. She was one of the best I trained talent-wise.”
Betterbetterbetter, who Mandy Pope purchased for a sale-topping $5.2 million at the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky winter mixed sale, delivered a War Front filly Thursday night at Timber Town Stable near Lexington, Ky.
The filly is the first foal out of the 5-year-old Galileo mare, who is booked back to popular Claiborne Farm sire War Front for 2014.
Tiger Ridge, a South African stallion and sibling to A.P. Indy and Summer Squall, died from a heart attack on Jan. 16, reports Wilgerbosdrift Stud Farm. He was 18.
The son of Storm Cat began stallion duty in 2001 at Hartley/De Renzo Thoroughbreds in Ocala, Fla., following an on-track career where he went winless in five starts. He was sold in 2006 to Mary Slack’s Wilgerbosdrift Stud Farm in South Africa, where he stood for the remainder of his career.
The Thoroughbred Breeders’ Association of New Jersey will conduct its annual stallion season auction beginning at noon on Friday, January 17, and ending at noon on Monday, January 20.
The auction will be held online through the Starquine bidding platform at www.starquine.com.
The Michigan Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders’ Association will host its annual stallion season auction on Jan. 27-28.
The roster of stallions with seasons offered in the auction number more than 75, with donations still being accepted. In addition to many of Michigan’s leading sires, the auction also features seasons from stallions in Kentucky, New York, Florida, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Arkansas, California, Louisiana, Texas, Ohio, and Oklahoma.
The first foal by unbeaten two-time European Horse of the Year Frankel, a colt out of Group 3 winner Chrysanthemum, was born at 8:30 p.m. local time Jan. 11 at Coolmore Stud in Co. Tipperary, Ireland.
The bay colt is also the first foal out of Chrysanthemum, a 6-year-old Danehill Dancer mare who captured the Group 3 C.L Weld Park Stakes as a juvenile and took the Group 3 Lodge Park Stud E.B.F. Park Express Stakes the following year. She was also Group 1-placed.
In the latest development from an ongoing legal case involving the resumption of horse slaughter in the U.S., a state judge in New Mexico upheld a temporary ban on the opening of a slaughter facility in Roswell after the state’s attorney general issued a preliminary injunction against the facility’s owners.
District Judge Matthew J. Wilson of Santa Fe announced Tuesday that he would decide by Friday whether to issue the injunction against Valley Meat Co. of Roswell sought by Attorney General Gary King’s office, reports the Albuquerque Journal.
