Led by demand for yearlings by the British sire Acclamation, the Tattersalls October yearling sale's Book 2 section started Tuesday in Newmarket, England, with gains across the board.

The first of three Book 2 sessions ended with 210 yearlings sold for about $12,449,304, an average price of about $59,282, and a median of about $44,268. Compared year-to-year in guineas, the local auction currency, those figures all rose sharply. The gross was up 39 percent, the average price by 27 percent, and the median by 24 percent.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - WinStar Farm, which announced last week that its general manager Tony Cissell was leaving the post, said Tuesday that it has hired longtime Spring Hill Farm manager Chris Baker to fill that position.

Baker spent 11 years at Spring Hill in Casanova, Va., as general manager for the late Edward P. Evans’s homebreeding operation. During Baker’s tenure there, Evans and Spring Hill were among North America’s leading owners and breeders, and the operation produced or developed such horses as Quality Road and Saint Liam.

Joe Hirsch Turf Classic winner Cape Blanco will enter stud next year at Ashford Stud, the Kentucky division of Cape Blanco’s co-owner Coolmore Stud.

Coolmore has yet to announce a stud fee for the 4-year-old, who is by its flagship sire Galileo.

Cape Blanco also won the Arlington Million and Man o’ War Stakes this year and the Irish Derby and Irish Champion Stakes last year.

Blind Luck, the reigning champion 3-year-old filly, will be among eight Grade 1-winning fillies on offer at Keeneland’s November mixed sale, which starts Nov. 7.

Blind Luck is a late entry to the auction and will go through the ring as Hip No. 210A, the last horse through the ring on the 11-day sale’s opening session. Owners Mark DeDomenico, John Carver, Peter Abruzzo, and Jerry Hollendorfer will offer the 4-year-old as a racing or broodmare prospect.

Taylor Made Sales will act as consignor.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Red Bullet, winner of the 2000 Preakness Stakes and sire of a Canadian Horse of the Year, Fatal Bullet, has been pensioned at age 14 due to declining fertility, Frank Stronach’s Adena Springs announced Tuesday.

An Unbridled horse, Red Bullet otherwise is “very happy and healthy,” Adena’s general manager, Eric Hamelback, said, and he will continue to live at the farm in Paris, Ky.

“He will be available to all of his fans and continue to enjoy the same treatment as all of our active stallions,” Hamelback said.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - Fasig-Tipton has cataloged 155 horses for its Nov. 6 November select sale here.

The mixed auction, which will start at 4 p.m. that Sunday, includes 60 graded winners or graded stakes-producing mares, 28 of whom are Grade 1 winners or Grade 1 producers. The one-session sale also features select foals, racing prospects, broodmare prospects, and mares in foal.

The catalog also includes breeding rights, including a lifetime breeding right to Vinery’s 2010 leading freshman sire, Congrats, and a share in Lane’s End stallion Lemon Drop Kid.

The late Carl Lizza’s estate will begin dispersing most of Lizza’s Flying Zee Stable bloodstock at Fasig-Tipton’s Kentucky fall yearling sale on Oct. 26. 

Galileo fillies continued to be all the rage Friday at the Tattersalls October yearling auction’s Book 1 auction, where a three-quarter-sister to Henrythenavigator’s dam topped the sale at 1.7 million guineas, about $2,784,600.

A massive boost to stakes purses for California-breds in 2012 is likely to contribute to higher interest in statebred yearlings at this week’s Barretts October yearling sale at Fairplex in Pomona, Calif.

The two-day sale begins on Tuesday with an evening session at 7 p.m., and continues Wednesday morning at 11 a.m. There are 253 yearlings in the sale, predominantly California-breds.

Last year, a two-day yearling sale averaged $14,128 for 160 horses sold, an increase in average price of 14 percent from the 2009 average of $12,413 for 178 horses sold.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - The general manager of WinStar Farm, Tony Cissell, who succeeded Gary Bush as WinStar’s GM in 2005, is leaving.

The Versailles, Ky., farm announced Cissell’s departure on Thursday night.

During Cissell’s tenure on the farm, WinStar homebred Well Armed won the Dubai World Cup in 2009, and WinStar won the Kentucky Derby and Belmont with homebred Super Saver and $600,000 purchase Drosselmeyer, respectively, last year. The farm also earned the Eclipse Award as owner in 2010.