With two stakes wins and a perfect record after three starts, City Route has become the star 2-year-old in Northern California this summer, a circuit she may be close to outgrowing.

On July 2, City Route won the Juan Gonzalez Memorial Stakes at the Alameda County Fair in Pleasanton by four lengths, leading throughout. She is expected to start in the $50,000 Wine Country Debutante at the Sonoma County Fair in Santa Rosa on Aug. 6. “Then, I’d consider taking her to Southern California,” said trainer Jerry Hollendorfer, who bred and co-owns the filly.

The Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation, which faced allegations of neglect earlier this year, says it is now up to date in its payment to satellite farms around the nation that care for retired Thoroughbreds under the foundation’s auspices, according to an e-mail sent out by a public relations representative for the organization.

The National Thoroughbred Racing Association’s Safety and Integrity Alliance launched a web page on Wednesday that contains listings of contacts for horsemen seeking to have retired horses placed with after-care organizations.

Canada’s champion 3-year-old filly of 2009, Milwaukee Appeal, has a new home in Kentucky.

Gary and Mary West have purchasedMilwaukee Appeal, a 5-year-old Milwaukee Brew mare, privately, and she will retire to their broodmare band at Dell Ridge Farm in Lexington, according to Horse-Canada.com. C.E.C. Farms bred and raced Ontario-bred Milwaukee Appeal, who is out of the Open Forum winner Appealing Forum.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Fasig-Tipton has reversed the trend toward smaller yearling sale catalogs by plumping up its New York-bred preferred auction with almost 23 percent more horses this year.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – WinStar Farm has sold what it called “a significant interest” in 2010 Santa Anita Derby winner Sidney’s Candy to Argentine-based Rubio B Stable, and the colt will shuttle to Argentina in 2012.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Lane’s End and Dixiana Farms have bought a majority interest in Carter Handicap winner Morning Line from Thoroughbred Legends Racing Stable. A 4-year-old Tiznow colt, Morning Line will stand at Lane’s End in Versailles, Ky., upon his retirement.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Linda Witman, whose body was found Wednesday morning by landscaping workers at Calumet Farm here, committed suicide, the Fayette County coroner’s office reported Friday afternoon.

Witman, 48, was married to Bill Witman, who manages the famed Thoroughbred farm for the late Henryk de Kwiatkowski’s family trust. Linda Witman previously worked for Will Farish’s Lane’s End Farm in its bloodstock and sales departments.

Two years ago this summer, Dancing in Silks was returning from a layoff, in the midst of a losing streak, and in search of his first stakes win.

Sunday, when the 6-year-old gelding starts in the $77,000 Robert Kerlan Memorial Handicap on turf at Hollywood Park, Dancing in Silks is once again returning from a brief layoff and stuck in a losing streak and has even more to prove.

LEXINGTON, Ky. − Ask American auction officials what they’re predicting for the upcoming select yearling sale season, and the first answer you’ll get is this: smaller catalogs. The Jockey Club estimates the North American registered foal crop fell from about 31,750 in 2009 to 27,800 in 2010, a sharp 12 percent decline and its lowest level since the mid-1970s. Dwindling Thoroughbred crop sizes are bad news for racetracks combatting small fields, but they’ll probably be a plus for the 2011 yearling market.