DEL MAR, Calif. - Ted Aroney had just about given up on Babs Moossa when the gelding made his third start in a $12,500 maiden claimer at the Alameda County Fair in Pleasanton, Calif., on June 25.
"I was rooting for a tag," Aroney said, hoping the gelding would get claimed.
Babs Moossa's four-length win in the race was a minor consolation. At least Babs Moossa improved on sixth- and second-place finishes in maiden claiming races at Golden Gate Fields in the spring.
I Lost My Choo, winner of the Grade 3 Virginia Oaks last weekend at Colonial Downs, is a product of Carl Lizza's Flying Zee Stable.
The 3-year-old filly won the $200,000 event at 1 1/8 miles on turf with a powerful late rush, sending her career earnings to $271,640 with a record of 5-0-2 from 8 starts.
Trained by Philip M. Serpe, I Lost My Choo finished on the board in the Appalachian and Sands Point stakes, both Grade 3, in her two previous starts.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - With an increasing number of graded stakes horses, including Belmont Stakes victor Da' Tara and Santa Anita Derby winner Colonel John, Tiznow is having a career-high season with his stock at the racetrack.
A son of Cee's Tizzy, Tiznow ranks second among North American sires by progeny earnings for 2008, and he had another pair of major victories last weekend when Well Armed won the San Diego Handicap on Saturday and Bear Now won the Ontario Matron the following day.
Seven Maryland-breds, one of them by the state's leading sire Not for Love, are undergoing final preparations for the Saratoga select yearling sale to be conducted by Fasig-Tipton on Aug. 4 and 5 in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.
The 2007 Maryland broodmare of the year, Blue Sky Princess (by Conquistador Cielo), is represented by a colt - already named Bishop's Head - from the single crop of 2005 Horse of the Year Saint Liam.
Blue Sky Princess has been a gold mine for longtime Maryland breeders Frank and Virginia Wright, and this chestnut colt sparkles as brightly as any.
The news that Floridas leading sire, Ocala Studs Trippi, has been sold to South African interests is yet another sign of a growing deficit in the states pool of established stallions. Trippi joins Successful Appeal, Macho Uno, Closing Argument, Yes Its True, Stormy Atlantic, and Exchange Rate as stallions who started in Florida but ended elsewhere.
Like many other top Canadian stables that have undergone dramatic changes, the Knob Hill Stable continues on.
Steve Stavro, the master of Knob Hill, which gave Canadian racing such stars as Granacus, Benburb, Apelia, and Thornfield, died in April 2006 leaving his racehorses to his widow, Sally, and a very large family of children and grandchildren.
One grandson, Blake Stavro-Pearce, 21, is becoming immersed in the business, more so than many other family members, and currently assists manager Howard Wood with the running of the racing and breeding operations.
Members of Maryland's freshman sire class of 2007 were locked in a tight battle last year, until Maryland Stallion Station's Seeking Daylight surged late, getting five winners in the last six weeks of the year, to take the title of leading freshman sire.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - Two-time Grade 1 winner Tomisue's Delight, a full sister to 2003 Horse of the Year Mineshaft and the dam of stakes-placed Save Big Money, was euthanized on Wednesday due to complications from colic surgery, according to a release issued Friday by Lane's End Farm in Versailles, Ky. The A.P. Indy mare was 14.
DEL MAR, Calif. - As Mistical Plan was roaring down the Calder stretch last weekend, en route to winning the Grade 1 Princess Rooney Handicap, breeder Carol Anderson was doing everything she could in Gilroy, Calif., to see that the filly finished the job.
"Here, all by myself, I was jumping up and down, screaming," she recalled on Thursday. "That was the most nervous I've ever been of all the horses I've raced - ever."