The success the young stallion Square Eddie has with his first crop of runners this year has a homemade feel.
When Square Eddie went to stud in early 2010, there was nominal interest from outside breeders, owner Paul Reddam recalls. Reddam raced Square Eddie for most of his career and backed the stallion with his own mares that first year.
“The first crop is pretty much mine that I bred to him,” Reddam said in late June. “There are a couple of outside horses.”
Already, Reddam has been rewarded.
The victory of Trading Leather, by Teofilo, in the Group 1 Irish Derby on June 29 expanded the burgeoning reputation of Teofilo’s sire, Galileo, as a sire of sires. But the victory of Ambivalent, by Authorized, in the Group 1 Pretty Polly Stakes at The Curragh the following day may herald similar implications for Galileo’s chief rival, Montjeu, as the world’s best sire for the last decade.
Woodford County Animal Control and Kentucky Department of Agriculture officials have opened an animal neglect investigation at a portion of Hopewell Farm that brothers Duane and Wayne Murty have leased.
Hopewell Farm, a 587-acre property near Versailles, Ky., currently is in receivership and has been on the market for $14,675,000 through Justice Real Estate; more recently, the Woodford Circuit Court ordered it sold at absolute auction on July 16 through Swinebroad-Denton as part of PNC Bank’s bankruptcy case against Hopewell.
Americans John Moores and Charles Noell have purchased all of the bloodstock held by Ireland’s Kilfrush Stud, including dual Group 1 winner Immortal Verse, with a view toward breeding to race and sell, according to a report Wednesday in Racing Post.
The result of last week’s Grade 1 Triple Bend Handicap at Betfair Hollywood Park brought satisfaction to astute handicappers who selected 8-1 shot Centralinteligence and watched the 5-year-old gelding pull away to a 3 1/2-length victory.
The Humane Society of the United States and other animal-protection groups have filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture in an attempt to halt the opening of planned horse-slaughter facilities in New Mexico, Iowa, and three other states.
The lawsuit, filed Monday at the U.S. District Court in San Francisco, seeks an emergency injunction to overturn the USDA’s recent permit approvals for horsemeat plants in Roswell, N.M., and Sigourney, Iowa, according to the Associated Press. The lawsuit also named prospective plants in Missouri, Tennessee, and Oklahoma.
A state code provision diverting 17 percent of monies from Pennsylvania’s Race Horse Development Fund has lapsed with the adoption of the state budget for the 2013-14 fiscal year.
Over the past four years, the diversion took more than $200 million out of the development fund’s coffers and put it into the state’s general fund.
Additionally, the Pennsylvania Equine Coalition partially turned back a budget proposal to divert about $31 million from the fund this year, reducing it to $17.6 million.
The New York Thoroughbred Breeders (NYTB) will host its annual members meeting and cocktail party on Saturday, Aug. 10, at the Fasig-Tipton sales pavilion in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. The event coincides with the Fasig-Tipton New York-bred preferred yearling sale.
The members meeting will be held in the upstairs buyers' lounge at 10:30 a.m., and will be preceded by a presentation by Equineline.
Mecke, an Indiana-based stallion and multiple Grade 1 winner whose résumé includes the 1996 Arlington Million, was euthanized June 26 due to the infirmities of old age. He was 21 years old.
The son of Maudlin had been pensioned at Hidden Springs Farm in Palmyra, Ind., earlier this spring, after neurological issues began to affect his balance and stability. He got two mares in foal during this year’s breeding season before the problem was identified and the stallion was relieved of his duties.
Chief White Fox, one of only a small handful of Thoroughbreds to be registered as “white” by The Jockey Club, broke his maiden on July 1 at Mountaineer Park in his ninth career start.
The 3-year-old son of The White Fox bested the runner-up by 5 ¼ lengths in the one-mile race under jockey Marco Ccamaque. He covered the distance in 1:42.92 over a track rated fast as the favorite.
With the victory, Chief White Fox increased his earnings to $16,091 from nine career starts in Kentucky and West Virginia. This marked the first time that he finished in the money.
