Captain Steve, winner of the 2001 Dubai World Cup, died in Japan on April 21 of acute heart failure, reports Kate Hunter, communications manager of Paca Paca Farm.
The 16-year-old son of Fly So Free had been standing at stud in Japan since 2002, most recently at Schichinohe Stallion Station in northern Japan.
Saturday’s Illinois Derby at Hawthorne Race Course, a Grade 3 event and the signature race on the track’s calendar, was not included in Churchill Downs’ new Road to the Kentucky Derby qualifying series this spring, a dismissal that generated much debate among Triple Crown followers. This caused Hawthorne officials to reschedule and re-market the 1 1/8-mile Illinois Derby as a prep for the May 18 Preakness Stakes, and based on Saturday’s result, that plan seemed ingenious in hindsight.
Champion Kodiak Kowboy was represented by his first winner as a sire by his first foal to race, when Bear Facts won a 4 1/2-furlong trial race for the Arizona Thoroughbred Breeders Association Spring Sales Stakes on April 19 at Turf Paradise.
Street Cry will stand for a fee of about $112,794 ($110,000 Australian) at Darley’s Kelvinside Stud in New South Wales, Australia, this Southern Hemisphere breeding season, highlighting the 23 stallions the international breeding operation will stand between two farms.
When Winning Cause crossed the finish on Saturday in the Coolmore Lexington Stakes, he extended his career record over Keeneland’s synthetic Polytrack to a perfect three-for-three.
Studying the Giant’s Causeway colt’s pedigree, it becomes clear that Winning Cause was groomed for success on the all-weather surface.
Homebred Departing carried the famed gold silks of Claiborne Farm to victory in the Grade 3 Illinois Derby Saturday at Hawthorne, becoming the latest graded stakes winner for the farm and partner Adele B. Dilschneider.
Grindstone showed his class in winning the 1996 Kentucky Derby, rallying in the final strides to prevail by a nose in what would be his final career start.
He showed his class again on another Derby Day some 14 years later, when veterinarian Jack Root vanned the stallion from his Oakhurst Thoroughbreds in Newberg, Ore., to parade him before the crowd at Portland Meadows in Portland, Ore.
After edging up on the mark on Friday, Kentucky owner-breeders Ken and Sarah Ramsey wasted no time in breaking the record for wins by an owner at a Keeneland Race Course meet Saturday afternoon, sending out Scealeile to win the first race of the day, a maiden claiming event for fillies and mares.
It was the 13th win of the meet for the Ramseys, who had shared the previous record of 12 wins at a meet with Calumet Farm, which established the mark in spring 1941, and Mr. and Mrs. Robert Roberts, set in fall 1968.
The Lumber Guy and his connections claimed six awards, including the evening’s most coveted trophy, as the New York Thoroughbred Breeders honored its standout performers of 2012.
The Lumber Guy was named New York-bred Horse of the Year as well as champion 3-year-old male and champion male sprinter at the organization’s annual awards banquet in Saratoga Springs last Monday. The colt races as a homebred for Barry K. Schwartz, whose Stonewall Farm was honored as the state’s outstanding breeder. The Lumber Guy’s dam, Boltono, was named Broodmare of the Year.
