LEXINGTON, Ky. - Fasig-Tipton Kentucky started the 2008 November mixed sales with a world-record broodmare price of $14 million for 2007 Broodmare of the Year Better Than Honour. That price and the sale of 18 other seven-figure horses, including $5.7 million Stardom Bound, Sunday night lifted the auction to double-digit gains. But the unusual circumstances of the auction made it difficult to consider the sale a definitive indicator of the breeding stock market.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - European runners' success at the Breeders' Cup added weight to the conventional wisdom that turf horses adapt more easily to synthetic surfaces than dirt runners do. Did the Breeders' Cup results convince commercial breeders to consider turf-oriented sires more seriously for their 2009 matings? Many say the Breeders' Cup alone doesn't supply enough long-term evidence. But they say the growing push for tracks to convert to synthetic surfaces, which are perceived as safer for horses, could have broader implications for breeders soon.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - What a difference a year makes. In 2007, a strong yearling auction season preceded good results at the Fasig-Tipton and Keeneland November mixed sales. Fasig-Tipton's average and median both went up, while Keeneland put up a record-equaling median, the second-highest average in the sale's history, and 39 million-dollar horses, which also equaled a record. Keeneland also produced a world-record $10.5 million broodmare in Playful Act.

Three Chimneys will stand Big Brown for $65,000 when the 2008 Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner enters stud at the Midway, Ky., farm in 2009.

The farm also will debut Grade 2 winner Lewis Michael, who retired this week, at $12,500.

Only one stallion on the Three Chimneys stallion roster receives a fee raise for 2009. That is Sky Mesa, who goes from $15,000 to $30,000. Sky Mesa's 2008 stakes winners include Grade 1 Frizette winner and Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies third Sky Diva and graded winners Storm Mesa, Terrain, and Skylighter.

First Defence, a Grade 1-winning homebred for Juddmonte Farms, will launch his stud career in 2009 with a $20,000 fee, the farm announced Friday. A 4-year-old Unbridled's Song colt, First Defence won the 2008 Forego and finished second in the Grade 1 King's Bishop and Grade 2 Alfred G. Vanderbilt.

First Defence is out of the Seattle Slew mare Honest Lady, a Grade 1 winner and daughter of the great broodmare Toussaud.

Breeding racehorses may not be an exact science, but David Wade makes it look that way.

Wade, the manager of Richard Golden's Sycamore Hall Farm in Chesapeake City, Md., breeds one, or at most two, foals on his own account each year.

In slightly more than a decade, he has been represented by seven stakes horses - four of them stakes winners. Two have been voted Maryland-bred champions.

Lawrence Goichman has another good one on his hands.

His homebred juvenile filly My Magic Moment won the $75,000 Missymooiloveyou Stakes last Sunday at Belmont Park on turf.

She became the 30th New York-bred to win an open stakes this year, and the fifth from the foal crop of 2006.

Goichman is also the breeder of the outstanding New York-breds J'ray and Read the Footnotes.

Canada's leading freshman sire, Tomahawk, who sits 11th on the North American first-crop list, has been moved from Park Stud in Orangeville, Ontario, to Firestone Farms Ltd. in nearby Caledon.

D. Morgan Firestone, who owns the 50-acre farm, owns 75 percent of the Seattle Slew stallion and wants to expand his breeding business after some 20 years in racing, according to manager Hugh Graham.

The November breeding stock sales in Kentucky this month will include a California-bred millionaire, a Grade 1 winner bred in California, and a half-sister to one of the finest statebreds in history.

Between Sunday's Fasig-Tipton selected fall mixed sale and the 15-day marathon Keeneland sale that begins on Monday, there are nearly 100 California-breds available. Several truly belong in sales with international attention.

Sunday's Fasig-Tipton sale includes three prominent older females bred in California - Memorette, Overly Tempting, and Somethinaboutlaura.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – With an astonishing finish to win the six-furlong Breeders’ Cup Sprint in 1:07.08, Midnight Lute joined Tiznow, Miesque, Da Hoss, and Lure as repeat winners of a Breeders’ Cup event. This is a special distinction for Midnight Lute because he is the first two-time winner of the Sprint.

The breeding of Midnight Lute is a fascinating study in what can be accomplished with modest amounts of money – and plenty of luck.