Tom Chiota, longtime president of the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Company in Ocala, Fla., will retire from that position June 30, the auction house announced Monday. Tom Ventura, the company’s sales director and general manager, will succeed him.
Chiota has been with OBS since 1978. Ventura joined the company in 1984. OBS will name a new director of sales at a future date, according to an OBS news release.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Record-setting Grade 1 winner You and I has arrived at Old Friends, the Kentucky equine retirement facility where he will live in retirement from stud duty.
A 20-year-old Kris S. horse, You and I had stood at Woodstead Farm in Chehalis, Wash., since 2009. The farm has donated him to Old Friends for permanent pensioning.
W. A. Fabry and Jeffrey E. Johnson bred You and I from La Chaposa, a champion sprinter in her native Peru. She later also would produce another Grade 1 winner in You and I’s half-sister Chaposa Springs.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – The Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation has issued what it called “an urgent plea” to horsemen and farm owners to serve as foster facilities for pasture-sound Thoroughbreds currently residing at the foundation’s 30 satellite facilities.
The charitable organization, which cares for retired racehorses, will reimburse foster facilities for veterinary and farrier services, if requested. The group would like to identify 100 farms to take between two and five horses each for at least a year under the foundation’s Foster Care Program.
ARCADIA, Calif. – The proof is in the numbers, the ones that are rising and falling.
In 2012, the newly formed Golden State Series will offer 27 races for statebreds worth $4.65 million. An emphasis has been placed on races for 2- and 3-year-olds, increasing opportunities for those age groups from 12 races worth $1.275 million in 2011 to 18 races worth $3.6 million in 2012.
The slimmed-down Tattersalls autumn horses in training auction in Newmarket, England, ended Thursday with declines in gross and average, but the median held level with last year, prompting Tattersalls’ chairman, Edmond Mahony, to call it “a good, solid sale” despite the downturns.
Glenye Cain Oakford
LEXINGTON, Ky. – With a $375,000 Lemon Drop Kid yearling filly leading the way, the first phase of Flying Zee Stable’s dispersal at Fasig-Tipton grossed more than $1.2 million.
Flying Zee was the late Carl Lizza’s racing and bloodstock stable. Lizza, 73, died in New Jersey on July 8.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - Fasig-Tipton’s robust Kentucky fall yearling sale ended Wednesday night with dramatic improvements over last year’s figures, fueling more hopes that the yearling market has turned a corner after steep declines since the 2008 global financial crisis.
English bloodstock agent Anthony Stroud picked up another high-priced horse Wednesday at the Tattersalls autumn horses in training sale in Newmarket, paying the session-topping price of 310,000 guineas for four-time group-placed Measuring Time.
The price was about $520,800.