The lone New York-bred sold at last Tuesday's Keeneland 2-year-olds in training sale was purchased for $500,000.
Consigned by Becky Thomas's Sequel Bloodstock, agent, the son of Horse of the Year Mineshaft was bought by Dennis O'Neill.
It was the fourth-highest price among the 82 juveniles sold at Keeneland.
Named Explosive Surge, the colt is out of the Cox's Ridge mare Immerse, who is also the dam of Stephen Got Even, winner of the Grade 1 Donn Handicap, and of Indy Glory, winner of the Videogenic Stakes and placed in the Grade 2 Black-Eyed Susan Stakes.
With his second-place finish in the Dubai Golden Shaheen, Friendly Island became the 19th New York-bred millionaire.
A 6-year-old horse bred by Kildare Stud and Adrian Regan, Friendly Island sent his earnings to $1,369,714 and has a record of
9-2-2 from 19 starts.
Owned by Stuart and Anita Subotnick, Friendly Island won the Grade 2 Palos Verdes Handicap at Santa Anita before his effort in Dubai. Winner also of the Grade 3 Maryland Breeders' Cup, he placed in the Forego and Breeders' Cup Sprint, both Grade 1 events.
Two-year-old racing is in high gear at racetracks around North America, including Woodbine, which held its first pair of two-furlong dashes this weekend and has two more in the condition book on April 28 and 29.
When trying to pick a winner in these races, handicappers should not look for only the fancy first-crop sires, because a lot of 2-year-old races are won this time of year by the offspring of stallions you might never have heard of, and might not hear from again until next spring.
The weather conditions did not match the mood at Abbott Ranch in tiny Oro Grande, Calif., on Thursday afternoon.
While the wind kicked up, with gusts as high as 40 miles per hour, and a rare rain shower blew through the high desert town, ranch owner Buck Abbott was in high spirits.
Earlier in the day, across the nation, One Hot Wish, by Abbott Ranch stallion Bring the Heat, won a maiden race at Keeneland by 12 3/4 lengths, finishing 4 1/2 furlongs in the world-record time of 48.87 seconds. She will be sold Tuesday at Keeneland's 2-year-old sale.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - Breeding a Kentucky Derby winner is a triumph for any horse owner, and Nobiz Like Shobiz - bred and raced by Elizabeth Valando - will be one of the favorites for this year's running of the Kentucky classic after his victory in the Wood Memorial last Saturday.
Valando and her late husband, Tommy, owned juvenile champion Fly So Free, who ran fifth in the 1991 Kentucky Derby and played an indirect role in the breeding of Nobiz Like Shobiz.
Veterinarian Renee Nodine and her husband, Alex Levengood, have weathered several storms at Horse Shoe Valley Equine, which they established in fall 2003 in Annville, Pa.
The first was an actual tornado, which touched down at their Thoroughbred nursery near the famous chocolate town of Hershey during summer 2004. The tornado wreaked havoc on fences and the exterior of their house, but miraculously spared the barn housing their horses. Everyone emerged safely, including future graded stakes winner Control System, who was a weanling at the time.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - When Great Hunter and Street Sense met last year at Keeneland in the Breeders' Futurity, Great Hunter won convincingly from Circular Quay, with Street Sense third. But Street Sense reversed placings with Great Hunter in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile, with Circular Quay again second, and took home the Eclipse Award as champion 2-year-old colt.
So next Saturday's Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland offers a prospect of deja vu to bettors and racing fans as Great Hunter meets Street Sense for the first time since the Breeders' Cup.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - Keeneland's new Polytrack surface has been in use as a racing strip since October, but its debut Monday as a training surface at a juvenile sale had consignors wondering how the synthetic track might affect the 2-year-old auction world.