Jockey Club chairman and Thoroughbred owner-breeder Ogden Mills “Dinny” Phipps will receive the Earle Mack Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation Champion Award for his efforts in the areas of Thoroughbred racehorse welfare, safety, and retirement, the TRF announced Tuesday.
Phipps, a Jockey Club member since 1965 and its chairman since 1977, will receive the award at the TRF’s annual gala event in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., on Aug. 5.
Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s foundation mare Darara, dam of four Group 1 winners, died earlier this month at age 29, the Racing Post reported.
Darara had resided at the couple’s Watership Down Stud in England. Bred by the Aga Khan, the Top Ville mare was a Group 1 winner herself, having taken the Prix Vermeille for the Aga Khan in 1986. Her siblings included Group 1-winning half-brother Darshaan, who became a leading sire and broodmare sire.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – The Fasig-Tipton and Keeneland auction houses announced Friday that they will delay their usual November breeding stock auction dates in an effort to help buyers arriving from the Nov. 2-3 Breeders’ Cup at Santa Anita.
The two auction houses also have amended their conditions of sale to make veterinary X-ray reports part of their repository and subject them to “the limited warranty that the reports are accurate, valid, and authentic,” according to the companies’ Friday announcement.
Moyglare Stud’s outstanding producer Market Slide, dam of Irish champion and English classic winner Refuse to Bend and Melbourne Cup winner Media Puzzle, has died at age 21, Racing Post reported Thursday.
The Gulch mare died earlier this week after producing a Montjeu filly, according to the report.
Market Slide was named Ireland’s Broodmare of the Year in 2002 after Media Puzzle’s Melbourne Cup win and Refuse to Bend’s win in Ireland’s Group 1 National Stakes.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – It took Victor Davila about a half-hour and $11,000 to earn his place in history as the man who broke Triple Crown hopeful I’ll Have Another. Davila, a 34-year-old exercise rider for Barry and Shari Eisaman’s Florida yearling-to-juvenile resale operation, first saw I’ll Have Another in the back walking ring at Keeneland’s 2010 September yearling sale. Davila doesn’t pretend he caught a glimpse of greatness when the colt born on April Fool’s Day stepped into his view. But Davila did see something that few others saw that day, and that was a horse who could turn a profit.
Minstrella, the 1986 Irish champion juvenile filly and a graded stakes producer for the late Robert Evans, died earlier this year and was buried at Evans’s Spring Hill Farm, The Blood-Horse has reported.
The daughter of The Minstrel was 28.
Minstrella, an Evans homebred, won England’s Group 1 Cheveley Park Stakes and Ireland’s Group 1 Phoenix and Moyglare Stud Stakes en route to her Irish divisional title. She also placed in a pair of Group 3 stakes in England, the 1986 Cherry Hinton and the 1987 Cork and Orrery before retiring.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. – There was a time in the fall of 2009 that trainer Carla Gaines thought she could reach the top of racing with the California-bred John Scott.
In his graded stakes debut, John Scott finished fourth behind the well-regarded Lookin At Lucky in the Grade 1 Norfolk Stakes at Santa Anita.
“I thought I was going to the Kentucky Derby with him,” she said.
Instead, John Scott went to the sidelines, first with a fractured cannon bone, and again in 2010 and last year with minor ailments. “It was one thing after another,” Gaines said.
Argentina’s Haras La Pasion has signed a lease agreement to stand Walmac Farm stallion Successful Appeal during the Southern Hemisphere season.
Successful Appeal, a 16-year-old Valid Appeal horse, is the sire of Grade 1 winners J P’s Gusto and Appealing Zophie, Grade 1-placed Dawn After Dawn, and 2004 Kentucky Derby runner-up Closing Argument. He’s also the sire of Argentine Group 1 winner Successful Affair and Group 1-placed Galan de Cine. Haras La Pasion bred Galan de Cine.
Haras La Pasion’s managing director Nico Benedicto previously worked at Walmac.
Australia’s Magic Millions select broodmare sale saw two seven-figure mares and strong increases in gross and average.
The two-day auction’s leading buyer was Tom Magnier of Coolmore Stud, who picked up the sale-topper for about $1,627,065 ($1.65 million Australian). That was Melito, a two-time Group 1 winner by Redoute’s Choice who was carrying an Encosta de Lago foal. Reavill Farm was the consignor.
“She will be served this spring by So You Think, and I can’t wait to see the resultant progeny,” Magnier said. Coolmore bought 10 mares for a total of about $4,476,150.
