Claiborne Farm has acquired the rights to Silver State, whose biggest win came in the Grade 1 Metropolitan Handicap, considered a stallion-making race. Silver State, who is being pointed to the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile on Nov. 6 at Del Mar, is expected to stand at the Hancock family’s Paris, Ky., farm in 2022.
Silver State is by Hard Spun, a son of legendary former Claiborne stallion Danzig. Claiborne’s current flagship stallion is War Front, one of the best sons of Danzig.
The international Godolphin operation's U.S. arm announced Monday that its president and racing manager Jimmy Bell will retire from his day-to-day involvement at the farm by the end of the year and that the farm's Michael Banahan will take on an expanded role as a result.
“My 20 years with Godolphin have been nothing short of a dream come true,” Bell said in a press release. “More special have been the friendships and fellowships I’ve developed with so many folks here at Team Godolphin. It’s been my privilege and pleasure to work alongside so many wonderful colleagues.”
Joseph and Helen Barbazon’s Pleasant Acres Stallions of Morriston, Fla., stood 12 stallions in 2021 and is continuing to add to its roster for 2022. The farm will introduce multiple graded stakes winner Leinster and Bellavia, and the roster also will be joined by Never No More, who is moving down from Winding Creek Farm in Maryland.
The influence of the late Sunday Silence, who spent his entire stud career in Japan, was in evidence Saturday at Keeneland in the pedigrees of Brazilian-bred Grade 1 winner In Love and British-born Grade 1 winner Blowout.
The late champion and leading sire Giant’s Causeway had just three foals in his final crop. Two were in action on Saturday’s card at Keeneland, and the stallion has at least one additional stakes horse to burnish his legacy.
Giant’s Causeway, by the great Storm Cat, was the 2000 European Horse of the Year and went on to be a three-time North American leading sire for the international Coolmore group. He died at age 21 in April 2018 at the group’s Ashford Stud in Kentucky, following an illness.
The seemingly ageless sire More Than Ready swept the turf graded stakes races for juveniles at Belmont over the weekend, as his daughter Bubble Rock won the Grade 3 Matron Stakes on Saturday and Slipstream won the Grade 3 Futurity on Sunday.
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While rising to the top levels of the sport, trainer Ken McPeek developed a reputation for finding talented runners at bargain prices. One of those was a Smart Strike colt named Curlin whom he purchased for $57,000 at the 2005 Keeneland September yearling sale on behalf of original owner Midnight Cry Stable. With McPeek having taken a sabbatical from training, the colt went to his former assistant Helen Pitts and later moved to Steve Asmussen after a private purchase.
Curlin earned two Horse of the Year titles and more than $10.5 million.
The Jockey Club has released its breeding statistics and resulting foaling statistics for the 2020 season, reporting that 1,447 stallions covered 29,699 mares in North America, leading to a continued contraction of the foal crop.
Munnings, who stands at Coolmore’s Ashford Stud in Kentucky, was a consistent graded stakes performer throughout his racing career, and has enjoyed consistent success throughout his stud career. He has 59 stakes winners to his credit, including four Grade 1 winners.
In the midst of an outstanding season – he ranks sixth on the general sires list through Sunday – Munnings recorded his second Grade 1-winning son on Saturday when Jack Christopher won the Champagne Stakes at Belmont.
Jack Christopher could prove to be an important horse for Munnings’s legacy.
