ARCADIA, Calif. – Shadow of Illinois, who won the Grade 3 San Simeon Handicap in 2005 and raced as an 11-year-old this year, has been retired, trainer Anthony Saavedra said.
A winner of 10 of 50 starts and $517,295, the California-bred Shadow of Illinois is currently residing with Saavedra and his wife, Jennifer, at their home near Santa Anita.
“We’re letting him down and getting him ready for the second phase of his life,” Saavedra said Friday. “This will be better for him.”
LEXINGTON, Ky. - Keeneland has cataloged 3,919 horses to its November mixed sale, which will take place Nov. 7-17.
Catalogs will be available online beginning Oct. 4, and hard copies will be in the mail during the week of Oct. 17.
Racing fans will find one lot in the catalog especially intriguing. She is a weanling Henreythenavigator filly who is a half-sister to the 2010 Horse of the Year, Zenyatta, and Grade 1 winner Balance. The Select Sales agency will consign the bay filly.
The Goffs Orby yearling sale, which ended Thursday in Ireland, eked out a 3 percent gain in median price as average fell by the same amount.
The three-day auction sold 487 yearlings, or 79 percent of the 614 offered, for an approxiamte aggregate of $30,630,600. Compared year-to-year in the euros used at the auction, that was a 1 percent increase over last year’s total for 467 yearlings. But the average price, about $62,897, fell 3 percent from last season and certainly was affected by the larger number sold at the loss of last year’s 950,000-euro sale-topper.
Fasig-Tipton has cataloged 1,007 yearlings for its Oct. 24-26 fall yearling sale in Lexington, Ky.
Catalogs for this year’s auction already are available online at www.fasigtipton.com, and hard copies will be available at Fasig-Tipton offices from Oct. 5. The catalog’s cover horse is 2006 sale graduate Dubai Majesty, winner of the 2010 Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint.
Auction sessions will begin daily at 10 a.m. in the Fasig-Tipton pavilion on Newtown Pike in Lexington.
The Goffs Orby sale in Ireland saw gains in gross at its first two sessions, but the average and median fell in a tepid performance.
The sale-leader after selling Tuesday and Wednesday was a 350,000-euro New Approach filly that Sheikh Hamdan al-Maktoum’s Shadwell Estate Company bought from The Castlebridge Consignment. The price was equivalent to about $476,000. The chestnut filly is out of the Indian Ridge mare Posterity and is a half-sister to Group 3 winner Future Generation.
A colt by champion Afleet Alex brought a bid of $120,000 from Mary Grum to top the annual yearling auction put on by the Breeders’ Sales Company of Louisiana on Tuesday. The sale was held at the Ike Hamilton Expo Center in West Monroe, La., and was sponsored by the Louisiana Thoroughbred Breeders’ Association.
A total of 136 horses sold for a collective $1,494,400, or an average of $10,998, according to figures provided by sales director Tom Early. That average represents a 42 percent gain from 2010. There were 44 buybacks. Median price also climbed 42 percent to $5,000.
Robert Ogden paid 300,000 euros, or about $408,000, for a Montjeu colt to kick off the opening day of the Goffs Orby sale in County Kildare, Ireland, on Tuesday.
The first of three days sold 175 yearlings for about $14,532,960, yielding an average price of $83,046 and a $57,120 median. Compared year-to-year in the local auction currency of euros, the average was down 6 percent from last year’s opener, but the buyback rate improved significantly, dropping from 24 percent to 16 percent.
Bold Executive, Canada’s perennial leading sire during the last two decades, Bold Executive, was euthanized Monday afternoon at the age of 27.
A son of Bold Ruckus, out of Arctic Vixen (by Victoria Park), Bold Executive was being returned to his stall from a day in his paddock at Paradox Farm (formerly Gardiner Farm) in Caledon East, Ontario, when he began to have some breathing discomfort. Dr. Mike Colterjohn, who has been managing the stallion for Gardiner Farms for his entire career, said the horse was found to have a leaking artery which would have required surgery.
Grade 2 winner St Trinians, whose shining moment was when she gave Zenyatta a scare in the Grade 1 Vanity Handicap in 2010, has been retired from racing, trainer Mike Mitchell said Tuesday.
St Trinians won eight races and $440,758 from 19 starts, including Grade 2 victories in the Santa Maria Handicap at Santa Anita in 2010 and Milady Handicap at Hollywood Park in 2011. She won the restricted Adoration Stakes in her most recent start Sept. 4 at Del Mar and was aiming toward the Grade 1 Spinster on Oct. 9 at Keeneland.