LEXINGTON, Ky. – The Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation will fund 16 equine research projects this year, including eight new projects, for a total of $845,646.
The funding also will cover the second year of eight continuing projects started last year.
Projects that will receive the Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation’s support include research studying foal pneumonia, laminitis, vitamin D’s role in equine immunity, and stem cell therapy.
Twelve-time stakes winner and pensioned sire Fortunate Prospect died March 15 at the Old Friends equine retirement haven, the Georgetown, Ky., farm announced Friday.
The 31-year-old Northern Prospect horse was euthanized due to age-related complications, farm founder Michael Blowen said. Fortunate Prospect was the farm’s oldest retiree.
“Old Friends veterinarian Dr. Doug Byars arrived at the farm within minutes of Fortunate Prospect showing signs of distress and advised euthanasia after a thorough examination,” an Old Friends release noted.
Adios Charlie, the 2011 Jerome Stakes winner, has been retired from the racetrack and will take up stud duties this breeding season at Ocala Stud in Ocala, Fla.
The 4-year-old Indian Charlie colt will stand in 2012 for $3,500 stands and nurses.
Bred in Florida by Brylynn Farm, Adios Charlie won the Grade 2 Jerome and was runner-up in two other Grade 2 events last year, the Peter Pan and Dwyer. He steps off the track with 3 wins and 3 second-place finishes from 7 starts, which earned $251,090.
The Ocala Breeders’ Sales Company saved the highlight for last Tuesday when the opening session’s final offering, an Empire Maker half-sister to stakes winner Passport, brought a session-topping $485,000.
The first of two sessions sold 91 juveniles for $11,877,000, up 15 percent from last year’s gross for 119. The $130,516 average was up 50 percent, and the $100,000 median climbed 75 percent. Buybacks also fell from last year’s 30 percent to 27 percent.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – The birth of Zenyatta’s 130-pound Bernardini colt, the mare’s first, took place in an unusually heated atmosphere as the 2010 Horse of the Year’s fans took to the Internet in droves, speculating and fretting publicly over this important first in the mare’s new career as a broodmare at Lane’s End Farm in Versailles, Ky. The horsemen in attendance for the colt’s birth say the event went as routinely as any other foaling, but they acknowledge that the first delivery by one of the world’s most popular racemares was anything but a routine event for all concerned.
At the breeding shed and the year’s first major juvenile sale, Tribal Rule is proving to be a popular stallion in California.
Last Monday at the Barretts March sale of selected 2-year-olds in training in Pomona, Calif., colts by Tribal Rule sold for $130,000, $105,000, and $30,000. He was by far the leading stallion of California-breds at the one-day sale, by gross and average.
An Indian Charlie filly posted Friday’s fastest eighth-mile work in 9.8 seconds at the final under-tack show for the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Company’s March select juvenile auction.
The two-day sale is set for March 13-14 at the OBS facility in Ocala, Fla. Sessions are at 11 a.m.
The Indian Charlie filly is out of the Forestry runner Winter Forest, a full sister to Grade 2-placed stakes-winner Ever Elusive. Old South Farm, agent, consigns her as Hip No. 213.
A week after California’s Barretts March select 2-year-old sale began the juvenile auction season with gains, the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Company general manager believes the trend will continue when its Florida select sale opens Tuesday, a day after the OBS Championship stakes day.
