The 2013 Iowa Thoroughbred Breeders and Owners Association stallion season auction set a revenue record for the fourth straight year, with 101 seasons sold for $150,700.
Revenues posted a 22 percent increase over the 2012 edition, which brought in $122,746. A total of 178 seasons were offered during the 2013 auction, and the 101 sold came from stallions standing in 14 states, with buyers from 22 states and Canada.
Multiple Group 1 winner Moonlight Cloud has been retired and will be bred to Coolmore’s international titan Galileo this season, Racing Post reports.
The 6-year-old Invincible Spirit mare, bred and raced by George Strawbridge, finished sixth in the Group 1 Hong Kong Mile on Dec. 8, her final start. She concludes her career with 12 wins from 20 career starts for earnings of $2,250,214.
The 2013 Iowa Thoroughbred Breeders and Owners Association stallion season auction set a revenue record for the fourth straight year, with 101 seasons sold for $150,700.
Revenues posted a 23 percent increase compared with the 2012 edition, which brought in $122,746. A total of 178 seasons were offered during the 2013 auction, and the 101 sold came from stallions standing in 14 states, with buyers from 22 states and Canada.
Sunshine Forever, the champion turf male of 1988, died Tuesday at Old Friends Equine Retirement in Georgetown, Ky. He was 29.
The son of Roberto had been at Old Friends since November 2004, when he was retired from stallion duty at Nitta Farm in Japan and returned to the U.S.
Grade 3 winner Patton, a pensioned stallion at Old Friends in Georgetown, Ky., was euthanized Jan. 5 at Hagyard Equine Medical Institute following an illness. The son of Lord At War was 23.
Patton had been at Hagyard for several days undergoing diagnostic and medical care for a variety of medical issues that severely impacted his present and future quality of life.
"We're extremely grateful to Dr. Kathy MacGillivray and to Dr. Gina Tranquillo for their kind concern for Patton's welfare," Old Friends founder and president Michael Blowen said in a release.
Darby Dan Farm in Lexington, Ky., has hired Carl McEntee to be the farm’s director of sales and bloodstock.
A native of Kildare, Ireland, McEntee is a fifth generation horseman. He managed Idle Hour Farm and Paragon Farm in Kentucky before moving to the Mid-Atlantic region, where he helped develop Ghost Ridge Farm in Pennsylvania. He will leave his position as director at Northview Stallion Station in Maryland and Pennsylvania to join Darby Dan.
Champion Groupie Doll will be sent to Tapit for her initial mating following her imminent retirement, while 2011 Horse of the Year Havre de Grace, Kentucky Oaks winner Plum Pretty, and recent sale-topper Betterbetterbetter will be bred to War Front in 2014.
Mandy Pope of Whisper Hill Farm in Citra, Fla., acquired the quartet of mares through a series of high-profile purchases at fall breeding stock sales in 2012 and 2013. Her broodmares are boarded at Wayne and Cathy Sweezey’s Timber Town Stable in Lexington, Ky.
Wildcat Heir, a prominent sire in Florida over the past several years, was represented by his first Grade 1 winner Dec. 26, when then-3-year-old filly Heir Kitty scored a hard-fought upset win in the La Brea on Santa Anita’s opening-day card.
Wildcat Heir, a 14-year-old Grade 1- winning son of Forest Wildcat, was one of the fastest sprinters of the mid-2000s and has consistently passed on that speed to his progeny, the best of which excel at sprint and mile distances on both dirt and turf.
Grade 1 winner The Lumber Guy, New York's Horse of the Year in 2012, has been retired from racing and will stand the 2014 breeding season at Keane Stud in Amenia, N.Y. for an advertised fee of $5,000.
The 5-year-old Grand Slam horse will stand as property of Spendthrift Farm, and will be offered in the farm’s Share the Upside incentive program. He will be available for inspection at Spendthrift Farm in Lexington, Ky., during the Keeneland January horses of all ages sale, which begins Jan. 6, before shipping to New York.
If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there, does it make a sound? If a world record falls and no one notices, does it matter?
From 1923 (when Kentucky Derby winner Zev’s victory in the great international match race with Epsom Derby winner Papyrus propelled his earnings past those of 1893 English Triple Crown winner Isinglass) to 1990 (when Japan’s Oguri Cap sneaked past Alysheba to become the world’s leading money earner), Americans became accustomed to the idea that an American horse would naturally be the world’s leading money earner on the racetrack.
