Apollo, a stakes-producing Thoroughbred sire and a champion-producing Quarter Horse sire, has been pensioned at Vessels Stallion Farm in Bonsall, Calif.
The 25-year-old son of Falstaff most recently stood at Joneson Ranch in Shawnee, Okla., as property of Vessels Stallion Farm and Diane and Harold Keith.
Excelebration, a multiple Group 1 winner, will shuttle from Coolmore’s Irish base to its Australian operation in Jerry’s Plains, New South Wales, for the 2013 Southern Hemisphere season.
February saw two promising runners from Hill ‘n’ Dale Farm stallion and Eclipse Award winner Midnight Lute emerge on the West Coast, when Midnight Lucky and Govenor Charlie each scored impressive maiden wins at Santa Anita Park.
The outstanding lineup of mares set to visit unbeaten Frankel in 2013 may get another addition, as unbeaten two-time Australian Horse of the Year Black Caviar could visit the stallion upon the conclusion of her career.
The owners of the racemare are planning to discuss her upcoming campaign through mid-2013, and co-owner Gary Wilkie told the Australian outlet Racing Network that they are strongly considering a return trip to England’s prestigious Royal Ascot meeting this June followed by a mating with Frankel.
Snow Fall, who won the minor Paseana Handicap in January but was pulled up in the Grade 1 Santa Margarita Stakes on March 16, has been sent to Kentucky and will be bred this spring, trainer Jerry Hollendorfer said.
Snow Fall is a 5-year-old daughter of War Front out of the Irish-bred Caerleon mare Snowflake. Snow Fall is a half-sister to multiple Grade 3 winner Upperline, who earned more than $770,000.
The first reported foal by Grade 1 winner J P's Gusto is a colt born Feb. 23 at Journeyman Bloodstock in Ocala, Fla.
The colt is out of the winning Belong to Me mare Golden Horseshoe, a half-sister to stakes-placed Helen's Startax. Their dam, the stakes-winning Strike the Gold mare Striking Profile, is a half-sister to Grade 3 winner Boom Towner, stakes winner and producer Kryptonic, and stakes-placed Frank Lark.
When laminitis contributed to Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro’s death at the University of Pennsylvania’s New Bolton Center in 2007, the dreaded disease – an often-fatal complication of catastrophic limb injury – commanded enormous public attention. So did the fundraising efforts to cure this age-old veterinary problem.
Six years later, clinicians and researchers say, the veterinary profession is gaining ground in the battle, thanks to research and improvements in areas from digital radiography to glue-on horseshoes to cryotherapy, also known as cold therapy.
Twenty years ago, the long-term prospects for the male line of dual champion sire Halo did not look all that bright. His best son, 1989 Horse of the Year Sunday Silence, had been exported to Japan, widely viewed at the time as the dumping ground for failures and rejects. His other Kentucky Derby-winning son, Sunny’s Halo, was a failure as a stallion, and, although his champion son Devil’s Bag was a pretty good stallion, he showed no signs of siring the precocious, classic horse that excites commercial breeders.
In July 1997, a bay daughter of Silver Deputy was a $155,000 purchase by Mike Pegram via his Morning Wood Stables at the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky selected yearling sale.
Well more than a decade later, that six-figure price tag looks like a bargain as Silverbulletday has been the gift that keeps on giving. The Hall of Fame racemare, who owns two Eclipse Awards and earned more than $3 million for Pegram and trainer Bob Baffert, is now in her second career as a broodmare at Hill ‘n’ Dale Farms in Lexington, Ky., joined by three daughters who are already stakes producers.
Minnesota will expect to see a significantly larger foal crop in 2013, following a report released by the Minnesota Thoroughbred Association that the number of registered broodmares in the state has increased by 77 percent for the current foaling year.
All broodmares that will be foaling in Minnesota are required to be registered by March 15 of the year they will foal.
