INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Rousing Sermon will make his graded stakes debut in the $750,000 CashCall Futurity over 1 1/16 miles at Hollywood Park next Saturday under circumstances that could make him dangerous.

“It’s his third time at the distance, and that’s to our advantage,” said Dan Kiser, racing manger for owner-breeders Larry and Marianne Williams.

Kiser has a right to be biased. He helped raise Rousing Sermon, thought favorably of the colt from the start of his career, and has watched a successful 2-year-old season unfold in 2011.

LEXINGTON, Ky.  - WinStar Farm will auction some of its racing memorabilia on eBay this month to benefit the New Vocations Racehorse Adoption Program.

The auction, which can be accessed via WinStar Stablemates, will run from Dec. 9 and Dec. 13, and all proceeds will go directly to New Vocations.

Taking inspiration from Spendthrift Farm, Darby Dan Farm in Lexington, Ky., will adopt the Share the Upside breeder incentive for breeders sending mares to their new stallion, American Lion.

Spendthrift owner B. Wayne Hughes started the Share the Upside program last year. The program allows breeders to earn a lifetime breeding right to a participating stallion by breeding a mare to that horse in each of the stallion’s first two years at stud. Breeders who have earned lifetime breeding rights are not billed for costs associated with the stallions’ care or advertising expenses.

LEXINGTON, Ky. − With the Eurozone crisis, a credit crunch, and concerns about austerity measures roiling British and European economies, anyone might have expected the recent Thoroughbred breeding stock market at Tattersalls to be tepid. But confidence in the Thoroughbred business overcame doubts about the global economy at the English auction house, where strong gains added evidence that the Thoroughbred market is turning a corner after three difficult − for some, disastrous − years.

The New York Thoroughbred Breeders have elected six members to fill two-year terms beginning Jan. 1, 2012.

They are Jerry Bilinski of Waldorf Farm and Equine Medical Center in North Chatham; Chester Broman of Chestertown Farm near Chestertown; Michael Lischin of Dutchess Views Farm in Pine Plains; Joanne Nielsen of Sunnyfield Farm in Bedford; Suzie O'Cain of Highcliff Farm in Delanson; and Barry Ostrager of Questroyal Stud in Claverack.

Five of the six already were serving on the board for two-year terms that were set to expire Dec. 31. The new member is Lischin.

Phase II of the late Carl Lizza’s Flying Zee Stable dispersal pumped up sales figures Monday at Fasig-Tipton Midlantic’s December mixed sale, leading to gains across the board.

The one-day auction in Timonium, Md., sold 260 horses for $3,739,350, almost four times more than last year’s $968,100 total for 158 horses. The majority of income was due to the sale of 96 Flying Zee horses who grossed $2,315,350, averaged $24,118, and had a median price of $15,000.

The Ocala Breeders’ Sales Company in Florida on Friday named Tod Wojciechowski as its director of sales, effective early next year.

Wojciechowski’s previous duties with OBS included acting as a horsemen’s relations representative. He will succeed Tom Ventura, who will assume the Florida auction house’s presidency when current president Tom Chiota retires on June 30.

McMahon of Saratoga Thoroughbreds will add two stallions to their stallion roster in 2012: Grade 1 winner Here Comes Ben and former Vinery New York resident Justenuffhumor.

Illinois stallion Fort Prado will relocate from Hill ‘n’ Dale Farm in Barrington, Ill., to Doug Arnold’s Buck Pond Farm in Versailles, Ky., for the upcoming breeding season. A 10-year-old El Prado-Fort Pond horse, he will stand for $5,000 live foal, up from his 2011 fee of $3,000.

Fort Prado’s first weanlings sold this year at the Keeneland November sale, with three colts averaging $51,667. Fort Prado, a Grade 3 winner with 12 stakes wins, earned more than $1.2 million from 18 wins and 18 placings in 59 lifetime starts.
 

England’s Tattersalls December sale series ended Thursday with robust gains in all financial categories.

The December sale included yearling, weanling, and breeding stock sessions. All told, these grossed about $117,523,060 for 1,444 horses, resulting in an $81,387 average price and a $34,398 median. Compared year-to-year in the auction’s guineas currency, gross receipts rose 29 percent from last year’s total for 1,398 horses, while the average and median prices were up by 25 percent and 24 percent, respectively.