LEXINGTON, Ky. - Zayat Stables' multiple Grade 1 winner Zensational has been retired after his fifth-place finish in the Breeders' Cup Sprint and will enter stud at Hill 'n' Dale Farm in Lexington. The 3-year-old Unbridled's Song ridgling will stand for $25,000 stands and nurses.
The farm said that breeders paying the stud fee on or before Nov. 15, 2010, will receive a 10-percent discount.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - Jane and Frank Lyon spent the summer topping select yearling sales with horses they bred at their Summer Wind Farm in Georgetown, Ky. On Tuesday at Fasig-Tipton, they topped a sale again, but this time as buyers.
Jane Lyon, seated on the edge of a row in Fasig-Tipton's pavilion, went a bid or two past her planned budget but didn't regret paying $2.15 million for Holiday Runner. The 9-year-old Meadowlake mare is the dam of Grade 1 winner Seventh Street, by Street Cry, and the Baccari Bloodstock agency sold her here in foal to Tiznow.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - The second time was the charm for Azeri.
The 2002 Horse of the Year went through Keeneland's January sale this year, only to be bought back for $4.4 million by the Allen E. Paulson Living Trust. Ten months later, the trust tried again at Keeneland's November auction and got the job done, selling the famous chestnut mare to Japanese breeder Katsumi Yoshida for a session-topping $2.25 million.
Azeri was carrying a Distorted Humor foal and sold through the Hill 'n' Dale agency's consignment.
B. Wayne Hughes's Spendthrift Farm near Lexington, Ky., will stand its flagship stallion Malibu Moon for $40,000 in 2010, the same fee he had in 2008 and 2009.
Malibu Moon's stakes winners this year include Grade 1 winners Funny Moon and Devil May Care.
The Barretts Equine Limited auction house in Pomona, Calif., has moved its March select juvenile auction date two weeks later on the calendar, to March 22.
The one-day sale originally was set for March 8, but buyers and sellers had expressed concern that the convergence of several select juvenile auctions around that time would force them to travel repeatedly across country in order to attend them.
Lane's End Farm near Versailles, Ky., will host an open house daily through Nov. 15 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the stallion complex, located on Midway Road. The farm's stallions will be available for inspection, including new arrivals Candy Ride and English Channel, with no appointment necessary.
Three Chimneys and Adena Springs were the latest farms to set fees for 2010 on Monday, and both stallion operations made significant cuts to their prices.
At Adena Springs in Paris, Ky., Awesome Again and Ghostzapper both were trimmed from six figures to five. Both stood for advertised fees of $125,000 in 2009 but will now be available for $50,000.
Top 10 third-crop sire Cactus Ridge will relocate from Walmac Farm to Vinery, both located in Lexington, Ky., for the 2010 season, Vinery announced Friday.
Cactus Ridge, an 8-year-old Hennessy horse, has sired 16 stakes-winners, including six this year. His 2009 stakes-winners are led by Grade 1 winner Hot Cha Cha.
Vinery has not announced Cactus Ridge's 2010 fee. In 2009, he stood for $6,000.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - It has been a difficult season for many Thoroughbred yearling sellers. Global economies are gradually emerging from the worst economic recession in half a century, but the Thoroughbred marketplace is still struggling to clear its oversupply when many buyers are feeling especially tight-fisted. Despite a few bright exceptions, North American yearling auctions generally lost from 15 to 30 percent in average price and from 25 to 40 percent in median in 2009.
