CHICAGO - The foal crop is shrinking. Purses are stagnant. Fairmount Park teeters on the brink of dissolution. Chicago, home to five different Thoroughbred tracks in the last several decades, is down to two racetracks, and one of them, Hawthorne Race Course, is struggling. All in all, it is not a great time to try and make a stallion in the state of Illinois.

NEW ORLEANS - One day, Michele Rodriguez woke up and found out she was standing 15 stallions at her Elite Thoroughbreds in Folsom, La.

Okay, so it wasn't quite that sudden, but Rodriguez, co-owner of Elite with Lee Daniel Thomas, said she never really intended for the Elite stallion roster to become so large.

"We double our number in two years," said Rodriguez.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - Dr. Stuart Brown remembers very clearly the moment he was called to his vocation. He was 13 years old and weed-eating a pasture fenceline on a local farm when a mare in the field caught his eye.

"It was in May, and they had two mares left to foal that year," Brown, now 44, recalled. "I started weed-eating around this building, and in the first hour this mare they had turned out started foaling. I was hooked. I'd never seen anything like that, and I was just captivated."

Jody Huckabay has been playing the waiting game this year when it comes to mating mares.

With an accumulation of recent winners, New York's Desert Warrior is the leading Northeast regional third-crop sire thus far in 2009.

The 9-year-old son of Deputy Minister has eight winners from 21 runners and earnings of $261,819.

The other states in the region are Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, and New Jersey.

Five of Desert Warrior's winners have come at the current Aqueduct meeting. They are Kiss and Fly, Lily of Paradise, Spa Princess, Beequeone, and Katskill Bay.

David and JoAnn Hayden of Dark Hollow Farm have been breeding primarily for the sales market for nearly two decades. With the goal of having mares capable of producing six-figure yearlings, they have built up a broodmare band together, and in partnership, that has produced superb results.

But sometimes a mare doesn't quite reach expectations, and hard decisions have to be made. After a promising debut, their mare Silverdew, a daughter of Silver Deputy owned in partnership with Will DeBurgh and George Harris, was on the way out.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - Old Fashioned has placed himself as high among the year's classic prospects as his experience allows. Unbeaten in four starts, including the Southwest Stakes at Oaklawn on Monday, the gray colt was the lowest-priced individual prospect in Pool 1 of the Kentucky Derby Future Wager, which closed Feb. 15.

The winner of last year's Remsen Stakes before his winter layoff, Old Fashioned returned to the winner's circle in the Southwest with every indication that he is a prospect for the classics who has much improvement ahead.

The Ocala Breeders' Sales Company kicked off the select 2-year-old season Tuesday with across-the-board losses, but not as severe as those seen at last fall's mixed sales.

As expected, the upper market fared relatively well at the Ocala, Fla., auction. Twelve horses brought $200,000 or more, including a sale-topping $340,000 Graeme Hall filly and a pair that brought $300,000. Another horse, a Distorted Humor-Age of Silver filly consigned by Niall Brennan, was a buy-back at $320,000.

John and Susan Moore have privately sold their Grade 1 winner Zaftig, now retired, to John Sikura's Hill 'n' Dale Farm.

The transaction, completed Tuesday, will send the 3-year-old Gone West filly to Hill 'n' Dale's broodmare band.

Zaftig won the Grade 1 Acorn Stakes as well as the Grade 3 Nassau County Stakes in 2008. She also finished third in the Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Sprint.

Zaftig is out of the Grade 1 winner Zoftig, by Cozzene. She is the first Grade 1 winner for her dam and won half her six starts for earnings of $408,700.

Wild Gams, a winner of two stakes worth $250,000 or more last season, has been named New Jersey-bred horse of the year for 2008 by the Thoroughbred Breeders' Association of New Jersey.

Wild Gams, owned by New Farm and trained by Ben Perkins Jr., also was named champion handicap mare.

She captured the $250,000 My Juliet Stakes at Philadelphia Park and set a track record in winning the $400,000 Presque Isle Downs Masters Stakes. Wild Gams finished her career as the fourth highest earning New Jersey-bred of all time with $1,198,486.