Charlotte Weber’s Live Oak Stud team has not made the headlines in 2008 they made in recent years, such as when homebred Miesque’s Approval won an Eclipse Award as turf champion in 2006, or when millionaires My Typhoon and Revved Up were winning graded stakes. Headlines down the road will be made, according to Live Oak manager Bruce Hill, when the future crops of homebreds come on line.

“I am on the same page with Ms. Weber,” said Hill. “We go over the stallion opportunities that are available and then match them to the Live Oak mares.”

Ten Most Wanted, a millionaire and Grade 1 winner on the racetrack earlier this decade, will stand at stud at his third farm in four years in 2009 at Magali Farms in Santa Ynez, Calif.

Considering the effort made to acquire the stallion in recent months, and the impression that his first 2-year-olds have left on some California horsemen, he may have found a long-term home.

Ten Most Wanted's oldest foals are 2-year-olds, a few of which have given the indication that they might be promising 3-year-olds.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - Nancy Probert has waited a long time to come watch one of her horses sell at the Keeneland November breeding stock sale. Probert, who is in her early 70s, has been a California breeder for several decades on her ranch in a redwood forest near Annapolis, Calif. She also keeps a few broodmares in Kentucky and has sold some foals out of them. But until this year, she had never set eyes on the Bluegrass.

"Absolutely, it blows your mind," Probert said of central Kentucky. "It is so, so different, so fabulous compared to California."

Archers Bay provided owners Eugene Melnyk and Iris Bristow with their first big moment in racing when he won the Queen's Plate in 1998.

And there is not much doubt that Archers Bay, a son of Silver Deputy, was going to be a star stallion had he not died young - in 2002 from colic - after siring just three crops.

Arch Hall, a member of Archers Bay's first crop, will try to emulate his daddy when he begins stud duty next spring at Bristow's Cathcart-Bristow Farm in Campbellville, Ontario.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - Like his famous sire, Mr. Prospector, Seeking the Gold began his stud career by siring an Eclipse Award winner in his first crop of foals. Like a true top-tier sire, Seeking the Gold showed from the beginning of his career that he could get champions and athletes able to challenge for the premium prizes in racing.

Progeny of Hook and Ladder won two of the six divisions of the New York Stallion Stakes Series last weekend at Aqueduct.

His 2-year-old colt Lookin at Her won the Great White Way, while his 3-year-old filly Under Serviced won the Staten Island.

They became his fourth and fifth stakes winners this year, sending his seasonal earnings to $1.77 million, ranking him sixth in the state with only two crops to race.

The explosive turn of foot Nistle's Crunch produced at the end of the Grade 3 Commonwealth Turf Stakes at Churchill Downs on Nov. 9 was, well, out of this world.

Owned and bred by Alien Farms LLC, Nistle's Crunch had a beautiful trip early in the 1 1/16-mile turf race, but then was blocked and steadied under Robby Albarado. Nistle's Crunch rapidly made up the lost ground and cruised in the final yards to win by a half-length.

Recession-driven market forces, clearly in evidence at the 2008 Keeneland mixed sale this month, have impacted Florida’s Thoroughbred industry, creating a bearish, tight-money modus operandi. Richard Hancock, executive vice president of the Florida Thoroughbred Breeders’ and Owners’ Association, said recently: “The FTBOA is preparing for a 10- to 15-percent drop in the annual foal crop for 2009.”

A $100,000 broodmare was the top seller Thursday as the Keeneland November breeding stock sale wound toward its Nov. 17 conclusion in Lexington. But Thursday's 11th session ended with declines, following the auction's general trend since its Nov. 3 opening.

Maryland horsemen breathed a huge sigh of relief on Tuesday evening when Question 2 on the state's ballot, the constitutional amendment authorizing slot machines to fund education, as well as support the Maryland racing industry, passed. And it wasn't even close, with 59 percent of Marylanders voting for the amendment, which will allow a total of 15,000 video lottery terminals to be placed at five locations in the state.

The consensus of those operating the state's leading breeding farms is one of renewed hope.