ARCADIA, Calif. - Bud Johnston does not need a reminder about the exorbitant costs that California horse farm owners pay for worker's compensation. The figure for his Old English Rancho in Sanger, Calif., is easy to remember.
"It's $1,000 a day, and that's before we open the door or buy a bale of hay," he said Friday morning at Santa Anita.
What is an Ontario-bred?
That question will be asked a lot this spring as the province's Thoroughbred industry adjusts to a new definition and requirements.
On the website of the Ontario division of the Canadian Thoroughbred Horse Society,
cthsont.com, a separate link reveals the new definition: "A registered Ontario-bred is a registered Canadian-bred, foaled in the Province of Ontario, out of an Ontario-resident mare, registered with the Horse Improvement Program."
The Maryland Horse Breeders Association announced this week the state's 2007 breeder, stallion, and broodmare of the year. The results showcased:
* The continued strength of the operation of Eastern Shore residents Tom and Chris Bowman.
* The dominance of Northview Stallion Station's leading sire Not for Love.
* A producer who is every breeder's dream, Frank and Virginia Wright's homebred Blue Sky Princess.
The Jockey Club's records show that 211 Florida stallions covered 6,376 mares over the 2007 breeding season. This was a smaller group than in 2006, when 247 stallions were bred to 7,141 mares. Florida's 2007 freshman stallions - 13 in all - had an average book of 75 mares each, in a wide range from 177 to 15.
First-time stallions have a way of becoming fashionable only to lose some of their patina when their second season comes. Declan Doyle, stallion manager of The Vinery, calls the phenomenon the "flavor of the month."
New York-based sire Hook and Ladder got his first graded stakes winner when his son Big Truck captured the Grade 3 Tampa Bay Derby on March 15.
Big Truck is a member of Hook and Ladder's first crop to race.
Hook and Ladder, an 11-year-old son of Dixieland Band, stands at Sequel Stallions New York in Hudson for a fee of $10,000.
Taking advantage of the Breeders' Cup being run in Southern California, Barretts unveiled plans on Friday to host a sale of selected horses of racing age in Pomona, Calif., on Sunday, Oct. 26.
The evening sale will be held a day after the second and final day of the Breeders' Cup at the Oak Tree meeting at Santa Anita.
"We expect it to be a fairly small sale," said Jerry McMahon, president of Barretts. "Somewhere around 50 to 75 horses would be a decent target for us. We're looking for high-quality horses that need to be marketed at that time of year."
LEXINGTON, Ky. - With Adriano's victory in Turfway's prep for the Kentucky Derby, the Lane's End, A.P. Indy has sired yet another prospect for the classics. The most dependable American classic sire, A.P. Indy (now standing at Lane's End in Versailles, Ky.) won the Belmont himself, and this bay son of Triple Crown winner Seattle Slew has sired a Belmont winner, Rags to Riches, and a Preakness winner, Bernardini.
Morris E. Balser, a Towson, Md., attorney, may never become famous as a breeder of Thoroughbreds. But his modest 13-year run in the breeding business has brought a success rate that even the great Federico Tesio would have been proud to call his own.
In his entire career, Balser has owned only one broodmare - the now 16-year-old Slew the Dragoness, by Slew City Slew.
Claimed by Balser for $10,500 at Delaware Park in July 1995, in what would be her final start, Slew the Dragoness has produced three stakes horses.
Liberty Bull wins the $500,000 WinStar Derby last Sunday at Sunland Park. The colt is a son of Holy Bull out of the Dehere mare Lasting Sensation. P
LEXINGTON, Ky. - With his victory in the WinStar Derby, Liberty Bull earned a Beyer Speed Figure of 95 and a place as a respectable outsider on the Daily Racing Form's DerbyWatch. That said, his options for making the Derby are somewhat limited, as the colt has little graded stakes earnings and the Churchill Downs classic is likely to be overfilled.
The breeding operation of Marty and Pam Wygod stretches from California to Kentucky, and it includes River Edge Farm in Buellton, Calif., the ownership of Kentucky-based stallions After Market and Yankee Gentleman, and numerous top-level mares in that state.
In the next week, the Wygods' racing stable will go global when Idiot Proof starts in the $2 million Golden Shaheen for sprinters in Dubai.