Weanling colts by first-crop sires Vekoma and Country House topped the leaderboard Sunday as the Keeneland November breeding stock sale closed out its Book 4 portion with solid figures.
To this point of the sale, Keeneland reports that 1,566 horses have sold for gross receipts of $201,383,300. Through the same seven sessions of the 2021 sale, 1,690 horses had sold for $186,168,500.
Multiple Grade 1 winner Jack Christopher has officially been retired after missing last week’s Breeders’ Cup, and will enter stand in 2023 at Coolmore’s Ashford Stud in Kentucky.
Jack Christopher, campaigned by Jim Bakke, Gerald Isbister, and Coolmore, which bought in during the colt’s juvenile season, will debut for an advertised fee of $45,000. The flashy colt will stand alongside his sire, Munnings, who he closely resembles. Munnings has been a consistently successful sire the last several years, and has seen his fee climb from $20,000 in 2019 to $100,000 for 2023.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Flightline, the undefeated Breeders’ Cup Classic winner who is sure to be named Horse of the Year, will have a $200,000 fee in his first year at stud, according to an announcement by Lane’s End Farm, where the 4-year-old colt will stand next year.
The $200,000 fee will be the highest since 2015 Triple Crown winner American Pharaoh went to stud in 2016.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Susan Moulton will have runners both days of the Breeders’ Cup in Manny Wah and homebred Andthewinneris, both graded stakes winners at Keeneland, and both carrying the sentimental silks of her late father, Naylor Morton.
“It’s been amazing – the silks I use are my father’s,” she explained. “I had some silks in the past, but when my father passed, I started using his.”
LEXINGTON, Ky. – It’s rare, but not unprecedented, for half or full siblings to contest races at the same Breeders’ Cup. This year, however, it’s an exceptionally unique circumstance, as two sets of half-siblings will share the weekend.
Lost Ark (Juvenile) and American Rockette (Juvenile Fillies) will be in action on the Nov. 4 card. One day later, their respective older half-siblings will take the track in Nest (Distaff) and Frank’s Rockette (Filly and Mare Sprint).
Flightline is campaigned by the partnership of Hronis Racing, Siena Farm, breeder Summer Wind Farm, West Point Thoroughbreds, and the Lane’s End-affiliated Woodford Racing. Bloodstock agent David Ingordo, who advises several of those entities, said the partnership came together quite naturally, as several of those groups already had ties with the others.
“It was very organic,” Ingordo said, “and it ended up being a match made in heaven for horse, trainer, and owners.”
Summer Wind Farm
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Jane Lyon bred and raised the unbeaten and unchallenged Flightline. But she can’t say he’s her favorite horse.
“Do people love one of their children more than the others?” Lyon asked rhetorically. “Probably not.”
Gun Runner set the earnings record for a North American freshman sire in 2021, with his first Breeders’ Cup winner that season. He was the busiest stallion in North America in 2022, according to The Jockey Club’s Report of Mares Bred.
Gun Runner, the 2017 Horse of the Year, is now loaded for the upcoming Breeders’ Cup.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Major farms are rolling out their stallion rosters for 2023, and they include several Breeders’ Cup candidates.
The stallion class of 2023 will include Grade 1 winners Life Is Good, Olympiad, and Happy Saver, all candidates for the Breeders’ Cup Classic on Nov. 5. The Breeders’ Cup Classic might be the final ontrack appearance for those three, but Grade 1 races remain on the calendar and several retiring horses in recent years have taken a shot at the Pegasus World Cup, which falls prior to the start of breeding season.
Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint favorite Golden Pal will retire to Coolmore's Ashford Stud in Kentucky following that Nov. 5 race at Keeneland, the farm confirmed Wednesday.
Trainer Wesley Ward had already indicated that Turf Sprint was likely to be the colt’s swan song.
Golden Pal is undefeated in North American stakes company, with his eight starts at that level including victories in the 2020 Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint at Keeneland and 2021 Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint at Del Mar.
