A nearly four-decade involvement in California Thoroughbred racing will largely end for Marty and Pam Wygod when they offer their West Coast breeding stock in a dispersal at Barretts in Pomona, Calif., on Tuesday.
The Wygods, who have owned such prominent Thoroughbreds as the 2004 champion 2-year-old filly Sweet Catomine and 2009 Breeders’ Cup Ladies’ Classic winner Life Is Sweet, will continue to race a small number of horses in California and keep a group of broodmares in Kentucky.
Fasig-Tipton's select 2-year-old sale will relocate in 2011 from its usual venue at Calder Race Course to the Palm Meadows training facility in Boynton Beach, Fla., about 45 miles north of Gulfstream Park.
The juvenile sale will take place on March 3, 2011, following a Feb. 28 under-tack preview.
The Tattersalls October Book 1 yearling sale ended its three-day run Thursday with across-the-board declines, despite a $2 million sale-topper.
The 2010 Book 1 auction sold 449 yearlings for about $80,035,137, for an average price of about $178,252 and a median of approximately $116,130. Compared year-to-year in the auction currency of guineas, the gross was down 10 percent. The average and median pricesfell by 5 percent and 10 percent, respectively. Buy-backs were 25 percent.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Kentucky horseman and former farm manager Ralph Kercheval died Oct. 6 in Lexington. He was 98.
Kercheval managed Alfred G. Vanderbilt’s Sagamore Farm in Glyndon, Md., and oversaw that operation and its matings when classic winner and two-time Horse of the Year Native Dancer was foaled there in 1950. But he got his start in the Thoroughbred business in his native state first by working with mares and foals at C. V. Whitney’s Lexington farm and then as a trainer for Maine Chance Farm.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - Fasig-Tipton Midlantic’s Eastern fall yearling auction ended Wednesday with gains in gross and average and a slightly lower median.
Topped by a $250,000 After Market colt that Jay Em Ess Stable bought from the Charlton agency, the two-day sale grossed $6,273,800 for 392 yearlings, a total that was up 12 percent from last year’s gross for 387 horses. The 2010 average price jumped 10 percent, rising from 2009’s figure of $14,513 to $16,005. But median dropped 3 percent, falling from $5,500 to $5,350.
The Tattersalls October Book 1 yearling sale’s second of three sessions ended with average and median down, but so slightly as to remain nearly level with last season. Gross fell 6 percent.
As at Tuesday’s opening session, Galileo remained a hot commodity, with six of the Coolmore stallion’s yearlings on the auction’s 10 most expensive horses so far. The highlight of the day was Hip No. 287, a Galileo filly out out of the unraced Darshaan mare Gwynn. Coolmore Stud owner John Magnier paid about $1.5 million for the filly.
One day after showing increases in gross and average but a significant downturn in median price, Fasig-Tipton Midlantic’s Eastern fall yearling auction entered its second and final day Wednesday with a session-leading $150,000 Corinthian colt.
Paramount Sales, agent, sold the bay colt to Dell Ennis. The colt is out of Silver Deputy’s stakes-winning daughter Silver Lace. He is a half-brother to the winner Angel in Lace, by Fusaichi Pegasus.
A $250,000 After Market colt topped Tuesday's opening session as Fasig-Tipton Midlantic's Eastern fall yearling kicked off with mixed results in Timonium, Md.
The colt, Hip No. 103, sold to Jay Em Ess Stable after going through the ring from Mr. and Mrs. Rick Abbott's Charlton consignment. A chestnut son of Christmas Strike, by Smart Strike, he is a half-brother to stakes-winner Double Down Vinman and to a pair of stakes-placed runners, No Passing Zone and Holy Christmas. He is from the family of Grade 1 winner Christmas Kid.
Jerry Bailey and Lance Robinson’s Gulf Coast Farms, best known as the breeder of champion and classic winner Lookin At Lucky, will disperse its bloodstock due to declining business in mare-leasing programs.
Bailey and Robinson announced Tuesday that they will begin their dispersal at the Keeneland November breeding stock sale, which runs Nov. 8-20 in Kentucky. Taylor Made Sales will handle the consignment.