Fast Lane Farms, the breeding operation of horseman Steve Warner, has never been a big outfit.
"We've never had more than three or four mares," said Warner, whose principal business provides feed at Southern California Thoroughbred tracks.
Warner was the breeder of two starters at the 2006 Breeders' Cup at Churchill Downs - Thor's Echo, who won the Sprint, and Dancing Edie, who finished eighth in the Filly and Mare Turf.
The results of the recent yearling sales hosted by Fasig-Tipton, one conducted in mid-July in Lexington, Ky., and the other a two-day boutique auction Monday and Tuesday at Saratoga, confirms that there is still ample money in the market for eye-catching yearlings sporting upscale pedigrees. What has not been tested so far in 08 is the middle market for yearlings. The first of these middle markets is coming on line in eight days.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - He was just the kind of colt to start a battle royal at the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga select yearling sale, and he did exactly that.
Hip No. 158, a flashy dark bay Storm Cat colt with a star and three white socks, was out of a Mr. Prospector mare that was a Grade 3 winner. He was a half-brother to three other stakes winners: Grade 2 winner Daydreaming, Gradeo3 winner Accelerator, and Canadian stakes winner Harborage. Another of his half-sisters, She's a Winner, is the dam of the Gradeo1-winning millionaire Bluegrass Cat, like Hip No. 158 a son of Storm Cat.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Storm Cat remained king of Fasig-Tiptons Saratoga select yearling sale Tuesday night when his son out of the Mr. Prospector mare Get Lucky sold for the sale-topping price of $2 million.
Coolmore Stud struck late in the session to buy the colt, outbidding Sheikh Mohammed al-Maktoums representative, John Ferguson. Michael Vincent Magnier, the son of Coolmore chief John Magnier, signed the ticket for the dark bay or brown colt offered by Ben Waldens Gracefield.
Fasig-Tiptons Saratoga select yearling sale kicked off Monday night with increases in average and median and a $1.5 million session-topping Storm Cat filly.
Barry Irwin of Team Valor bought the session-topper, a bay half-sister to Grade 1 winner Lils Lad and a full sister to Group 3 winner Cherokee and to stakes-winner Art Museum. Hill n Dale Sales Agency, agent, sold the filly, a daughter of Grade 3 winner Totemic.
Shes got the most awesome body, shes so athletic, Irwin said. Shes got everything you want.
When Thoroughbred owner and breeder Steve Kemp was approached by his friend Bill Hicks with an interest in buying a broodmare, Kemp sent his friend off with a pile of catalogs.
"It was the Keeneland January sale earlier this year," said Kemp, who owns Ballycroy Training Centre in Adjala Township, just north of Woodbine racetrack.
"I told him to do some studying and pick out what he likes."
It turns out that both Kemp and Hicks, who met when a horse Hicks owns in partnership was boarded at Ballycroy, were immediately on the same page, literally.
Topped by the brilliant Saratoga maiden winner Cribnote, the freshman sire Read the Footnotes is off to a good start this year.
Bred and owned by Red Diamond Stable, Cribnote won a restricted maiden event by 13 1/2 lengths in 1:03.32 for 5 1/2 furlongs last Sunday.
The track record of 1:03.13 was set by eventual multiple graded-stakes winner J Be K at the 2007 Saratoga meeting.
Cribnote is trained by Rick Violette, who also trained Read the Footnotes. Violette is pointing Cribnote for the Grade 1 Hopeful Stakes at Saratoga on Sept. 1.
DEL MAR, Calif. - When it was finally over on Wednesday, the day that Lava Man's retirement was announced after 10 days of speculation, co-owner Jason Wood sat down at his Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif., home and sent out an e-mail to about 30 family members and friends.
Wood highlighted the 2005 Hollywood Gold Cup, the first of the gelding's three consecutive wins in that Grade 1 race, the two wins in the Santa Anita Handicap in 2006 and 2007 and the 2006 Pacific Classic as personal favorites.
"All you can say is, 'Thanks, Lava Man,'" Wood wrote in his message.
Just more than three decades ago, Dianne Boyken, a new graduate of Virginia Tech sporting a degree in animal science, decided to try carving out a living boarding horses. Taking on a 37-acre property in Clarksburg, N.J., near Trenton, in 1977, Boyken set about creating Four Winds Farm.
Four Winds Farm has since become one of the mainstays of Thoroughbred breeding in the state.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - Fasig-Tipton's Saratoga select yearling sale, scheduled to take place Monday and Tuesday in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., has a slimmer catalog this year, and that looks like a good thing in a market where the prevailing climate is one of economic recession and "select" really is the operative word.