Van Lear Rose did not attract a bid at last year's Canadian Thoroughbred Horse Society's annual yearling sale at Woodbine.

Her owner and breeder, Richard Day, and his sister, trainer Catherine Day Phillips, could not understand it, but the result was very good fortune for the family.

Van Lear Rose, a leggy 2-year-old by freshman sire Stroll out of Richard Day's mare Devaluation, by Conquistador Cielo, is on her way to California for the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies on Oct. 24 thanks to her strong win in the Grade 3 Mazarine Stakes earlier this month.

Maryland Million Day, which this year had its 23rd renewal on Oct. 4 at Laurel Park, celebrates the Maryland breeding industry, starting with the stallions. The 12-race card is dedicated to the offspring of stallions standing in the state who are nominated to the program. Winners on the 2008 card represented five Maryland farms.

Northview Stallion Station and Maryland Stallion Station led the way, with three winners each. Three other farms had two wins apiece - Bonita Farm, Country Life Farm, and Murmur Farm.

The fall mixed sale of the New York Breeders' Sales Company posted slight gains last Sunday at Saratoga Race Course in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.

The sale's gross receipts for 160 sold were $1,787,650 for an average price of $11,173, an increase of about 7 percent from last year. The corresponding sale in 2007 grossed $1,778,700 for 170 sold, averaging $10,463.

“It’s all but a done deal,” were the words of Brent Fernung, who will be standing the Grade 1 winner Circular Quay for the 2009 breeding season at his Journeyman Stud. The deal is the syndication of the stallion prospect into 50 shares. Forty-seven shares have already been sold, he said. By Thunder Gulch-Circle of Life, by Belong to Me, the 4-year-old Circular Quay was trained by Todd Pletcher. He will stand for $12,500 live foal.

Jockey Club statistics released Thursday show a drop in North American Thoroughbred breeding, with the population of active stallions decreasing by 5.9 percent and active mares declining 7.7 percent during the 2008 breeding season.

The numbers are based on Reports of Mares Bred returned to the Jockey Club for the 2008 season. The Jockey Club estimates that up to 5,000 more reports could be outstanding but that its current statistics represent about 92 percent of the mares breeders eventually will report as bred in 2008.

The Pons family of Country Life Farm waited 23 years to breed a winner of the Maryland Million Classic.

But when Cuba drew off to a commanding four-length victory in the $300,000 Classic before a crowd of 21,948 on the 23rd annual Maryland Million Day last Saturday at Laurel Park, few people were aware that it had finally happened.

That's because Cuba, a 7-year-old New Jersey-bred son of Not for Love, has no obvious ties with the long-successful Maryland breeding establishment.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - With the impressive victory of his daughter Sky Diva in the Grade 1 Frizette Stakes at Belmont, Sky Mesa has thoroughly re-established himself as a player among the top second-crop sires in the country and is currently the overall leading sire of juveniles in 2008.

An hour before the Ocala Breeders' Sales Co. was to begin its annual fall mixed sale last Monday, there were open spaces in the parking lot. Not since the lean days of the 1980s has this phenomenon occurred.

By sales time, 10:30 a.m., those present were focusing as much attention on Wall Street and the tumbling Dow Jones averages as on the horse in the ring, Hip No. 2, a weanling colt by Halo's Image who went unsold for $20,000.

ARCADIA, Calif. - The farther Joshua Litt gets from racing on a regular basis, the better he does in the game.

In his first try as a Thoroughbred breeder, Litt, a former trainer, is the co-owner of the stakes winner Lucky Primo, winner of the $125,000 California Cup Juvenile at Santa Anita last Sunday.

"I guess I had to stop training to get a good horse," he said earlier this week.

Jeffrey Cannizzo, the new executive director of New York Thoroughbred Breeders Inc., brings solid credentials to the post.

The 30-year-old began work for NYTB in late July at the organization's home office in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., after a stint as web manager at Daily Racing Form.

Cannizzo, the son of Finger Lakes trainer Ronald Cannizzo, grew up in Auburn, about 30 miles west of Syracuse, N.Y.