Princess of Sylmar, who ran down last year’s champion juvenile filly Beholder in the final sixteenth to score a 38.80-to-1 upset win in the 139th running of the Kentucky Oaks, is the first Grade 1 winner for second-crop sire Majestic Warrior, an 8-year-old son of A.P. Indy who stands at Coolmore’s Ashford Stud in Versailles, Ky.
Sometimes in horse racing, it's better to be lucky than good.
In the spring of 2009, owner-breeder Ed Stanco's mare Storm Dixie, a winning daughter of Catienus who had been retired the fall before, was on her way to be bred for the first time. After extensive analysis and consulting bloodstock experts, Stanco had selected Grand Slam at Coolmore's Ashford Stud in Versailles, Ky., for Storm Dixie’s first mating. However, with one phone call his plans changed abruptly.
Princess of Sylmar’s upset victory in the Kentucky Oaks added yet another feather to the cap of the Pennsylvania-bred program on a national stage.
The Majestic Warrior filly became the second Pennsylvania-bred to win the Oaks in the past three years, following in the footsteps of Plum Pretty in 2011. Princess of Sylmar is the fourth Oaks winner in the race’s 139-year history to hail from the Keystone State, also joining 1922 winner Startle, and Cream in 1913.
The horses in this year’s Kentucky Derby will be racing for more than just the purse money and a gold trophy. They’ll also be racing to build résumés for their stallion careers and add to the legacies of their sire lines.
Joseph B. Hickey Jr., the longtime general manager of Windfields Farm in Maryland, died Tuesday in Easton, Md. He was 86.
Hickey was with Windfields for about 25 years but had a varied career in the Thoroughbred sport. He also served as a publicist at Pimlico, a Maryland racing commissioner, a turf writer, and a historian of the sport. The latter was especially fitting, as Hickey had spent much time in close proximity to history-making horses, races, and breeders.
Bertolini, a leading European first-crop sire and the broodmare sire of 2012 Japanese Horse of the Year Gentildonna, has died at age 17, according to Racing Post.
The Danizg horse was 17 and reportedly died of a heart attack after covering a mare at Haras des Faunes in France, where he was standing his first season after starting his career in England.
Red Rocks, the Irish-bred winner of the 2006 Breeders’ Cup Turf and a freshman sire at Centro Equino Arcadia in Italy, was represented by his first winner in that country on Wednesday, when Crissolo took a 1,000-meter (about five furlong) maiden event at Milan.
Trained by the Grizzetti Galoppo stable, the 2-year-old bay colt romped by 15 lengths in his career debut. He is out of the winning Indian Danehill mare Pesach.
DRF Breeding staff writer Joe Nevills analyzes the Kentucky Derby field, in post position order, in the form of Haiku; a Japanese poem of 17 syllables, in three lines of five, seven, and five.
Black Onyx
Clicks with Breen, Bravo
His best might not be enough
With that brutal post
Oxbow
Calumet reborn
A legacy to uphold
He ain’t Alydar
Revolutionary
Hard-nosed, gritty colt
Gets Churchill’s gutsiest jock
Post three’s no problem
Miner’s Mark, who beat Colonial Affair by a nose to win the 1993 Jockey Club Gold Cup, was euthanized on April 30 at Blue Ridge Farm in Upperville, Va., his caretaker Patricia Ramey confirmed Thursday.
The Mr. Prospector horse was 23 and had been at Blue Ridge since 2004. Before that, he stood at Lane’s End in Kentucky, Dunhill Stud in Florida, and Pin Oak Lane in Pennsylvania.
During the month of April, chaos reigned in the Simon household as we prepared to move from Lexington, Ky., to New York City. For weeks, we’d existed in a surreal explosion of cardboard boxes, up to our eyeballs in the bittersweet detritus of 26 years of life in a well-loved home.
