A bountiful array of Maryland-bred yearlings will be offered at the two-day Fasig-Tipton Kentucky July yearling sale, which kicks off 10 a.m. Monday at the Newtown Paddocks in Lexington, Ky.
Twenty-six Maryland-bred yearlings - 14 colts and 12 fillies - are slated to go through the ring, including five from the first crop of Maryland sire Domestic Dispute. The catalog boasts the most Maryland-bred yearlings ever offered at this sale.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - Anamato's third-place finish as Australia's first runner in the American Oaks did some advertising for her sire, Redoute's Choice. A 9-year-old son of the famed stallion Danehill, Redoute's Choice has become a dominant young sire himself in Australia, and Arrowfield Stud, which stands him, now hopes to boost Northern Hemisphere interest in him.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - It has taken less than two weeks for Perfectly Pretty to make a name for herself as a broodmare.
On June 27, Perfectly Pretty's second foal, the 2-year-old High Intellect, won his debut in a maiden special weight race at Hollywood Park. On Wednesday, her first foal, the 3-year-old Idiot Proof, set a six-furlong track record of 1:07.47 winning his first stakes in the Grade 3 Jersey Shore Breeders' Cup Stakes at Monmouth Park.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - Last week's thunderstorms have eased the Bluegrass area's severe drought, but forage experts and suppliers say horsemen can expect hay prices to climb sharply after this spring's unseasonable weather.
Temperatures climbed unusually high in February before plummeting into hard freeze, a weather cycle that caused this spring's first hay cutting in May to yield just 30 percent of last year's first cutting. Now, drought-plagued breeders are feeding more hay to make up for parched pastures - adding more demand on already short hay supplies. The result: rising costs.
Ready's Image, the Maryland-bred colt who brushed off his rivals with remarkable ease while winning Belmont Park's Tremont Stakes last Sunday, proves that looks can be on the money.
The Todd Pletcher-trained colt needed minimal urging from jockey John Velazquez before drawing off to a 7 3/4-length score as the odds-on favorite in the Tremont, a race that traditionally heralds the talents of precocious juveniles. He covered the 5 1/2 furlongs in a blazing 1:02.86, missing the track record by .60 of a second.
New York-bred Glacken's Gal won the $100,000 Astoria Stakes for 2-year-old fillies at Belmont Park last weekend, the first juvenile stakes of 2007 on the New York Racing Association calendar.
Inaugurated in 1902 and won by many top-class fillies, the Astoria was run for the 102nd time.
Glacken's Gal was bred by the late Peter Karches, former co-chairman of the NYRA board of trustees, and Michael Rankowitz. A daughter of Smoke Glacken, she remains unbeaten in two starts with earnings of $90,180.
Glacken's Gal is owned by Kevin Scatuorchio's Let's Go Stable.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - With a pair of Grade 1 winners in the Mother Goose and the Suburban Handicap last weekend, Taylor Made Farm stallion Unbridled's Song is realizing the goals that the Taylors envisioned for the horse.
The sire of more than 50 stakes winners from his first eight crops to race, Unbridled's Song has gone from being a promising young sire to one of the most commercially successful stallions in the country.
This elevation of his profile and proof of the stallion's success have made a difference in the quality of his mates.
Bill Jones got into the Thoroughbred racing business in an unorthodox way. Just over 20 years ago he had a farm in Mansfield, Ontario, bulging with Black Angus cattle, and a company in the oil business in Toronto.
"I won this horse - I think it was in a card game - and I didn't know what to do with it," said Jones.
While golfing one day, he mentioned to one of the course employees, Theresa Shiel, that he had a racehorse. Shiel introduced Jones to her father, Dan, a trainer at Fort Erie.