Financially embattled Australian mining tycoon Nathan Tinkler has decided to put his entire Patinack Farm operation on the market, including more than 1,000 Thoroughbreds and farms in New South Wales and Queensland.

Test your ability to select the top freshman sires of the season. The Grand Prize winner will receive an annual DRF.com Formulator Past Performance plan valued at $1500. 

Select one stallion from each group below and follow your stable as it accumulates points throughout the year. Entry is open through April 6.

For complete rules, scoring information, and regulations, click here.

Champion Zenyatta delivered her second foal, a colt by popular commercial sire Tapit, late the night of Monday, April 1 at Lane's End Farm in Versailles, Ky.

The chestnut colt was foaled at 11:47 p.m. Eastern time. He shares a birthday with his dam, who was foaled April 1, 2004.

The colt, estimated at 145 pounds, was on his feet by 12:18 a.m. and was nursing within the hour, according to information posted on Zenyatta's official website. 

Faltaat, a leading sire in New Zealand and a champion sprinter in the United Arab Emirates, died at Westbury Stud in Karaka, N.Z., on March 30 at age 23.

“He was 23 years old so we all understand these things do happen, but it’s very sad to see him go,” Westbury Stud general manager Russell Warwick said in a statement posted on the farm’s website. 


“The boys went out to get him in on Saturday afternoon and he was dead in his paddock. It couldn’t have happened more quickly or unexpectedly. If it has to happen, then it’s best to go out that way and he didn’t suffer.”

March 30 brought forth an embarrassment of riches for U.S. racing fans, as the Dubai World Cup card at Meydan Racecourse in the United Arab Emirates drew several accomplished American-based horses and the final leg of Churchill Downs’ Road to the Kentucky Derby series of 3-year-old prep races kicked off with the Group 2 U.A.E. Derby at Meydan, the Grade 1 Florida Derby at Gulfstream, and the Grade 2 Louisiana Derby at Fair Grounds.

The Turfway Aftercare Program (TAP), a joint effort funded by Turfway Park and owners who race their horses at the Florence, Ky., track, awarded $13,740 to four aftercare organizations that work to rehabilitate and retrain Thoroughbred ex-racehorses and transition them into second careers.

The funds were split between the Kentucky Equine Humane Center, New Vocations, Second Stride, and CANTER Kentucky. The checks were presented on Turfway Park's marquee day, as the track held the Grade 3 Spiral Stakes, a Kentucky Derby points qualifying race, on Saturday, March 23.

If you want to catch up with Ted Bassett, you have to move at a brisk trot. The former Keeneland Association chairman, now trustee emeritus at age 91, has a full schedule, starting with an important morning ritual: feeding the family pets at Lanark Farm, the Midway, Ky., property that Bassett’s wife, Lucy, inherited from her father in 1983.

Artificial racing surfaces at North American racetracks trace to 1966, when Tropical Park in Dade County, Fla., introduced a rubberized surface called “Tartan Turf,” developed by Hall of Fame trainer John Nerud and Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Co. (3M), whose chairman, William L. McKnight, owned Tartan Farm. One race per card was held on the Tartan Turf, but the vast majority of horsemen and jockeys refused to compete on the hard surface, even after tweaks were made to soften the ground.

When the first major racetracks began converting their dirt main tracks to synthetic surfaces in the mid-2000s, it added a new element to the sport. While it seemed as if synthetic was just a substitute for dirt, that was not the case, as all observers of racing quickly found out, and it put every stallion in North America at the same starting point: Who would be a good sire of runners on synthetic surfaces?

The best all-around American sire of the first decade of the 21st century, especially on dirt, was 1992 Santa Anita Derby winner A.P. Indy. Seattle Slew’s best son led the North American sire list twice (2003 and 2006), sired two classic winners and nine champions, and established a thriving sire line.