Classic sire Distorted Humor, a flagship stallion for WinStar Farm, has been pensioned from stallion duty and will live out his retirement at his longtime home.
WinStar announced the retirement of the 28-year-old stallion on Monday evening, along with that of 21-year-old Congrats, also a successful sire.
Knicks Go, a leading candidate for the Breeders’ Cup Classic, will stand at Taylor Made Farm in Nicholasville, Ky., upon the conclusion of his racing career, the farm announced Monday.
A stud fee for the 5-year-old Paynter horse, who races for the Korea Racing Authority, will be announced following his run in the Classic on Nov. 6 at Del Mar.
Candidates for this year’s Breeders’ Cup were acquired at all levels of price points by the experts scrutinizing the thousands of young horses to pass through public auction each year, looking for the combination of qualities to make a future star. At one end of the spectrum are horses like Corniche, a $1.5 million purchase by Speedway Stables to lead the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Co.’s flagship spring sale of 2-year-olds in training. The colt has lived up to expectations attached to that sort of price tag, as an unbeaten Grade 1 winner and an early favorite for the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile.
Thunderous Affair and Forthegreatergood were selected as the overall champions at the Retired Racehorse Project’s Thoroughbred Makeover, held Oct. 12-17 at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, Ky.
The annual event was dubbed the “Mega Makeover” this year as it comprised two competition years. With the 2020 event canceled due to the pandemic, that season’s entries were rolled over and held alongside the 2021 competition – essentially as separate events, to keep horses on a level playing field based on the amount of post-race training they had received.
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.
:: DRF BREEDING LIVE: Real-time coverage of breeding and sales
