While other young men at their age are still trying to figure out what to do for a living, Mike and Chris Blake have firmly established themselves as up-and-comers in the Ontario racing and breeding industry.
Mike, 28, and Chris, 25, own and operate Ascot Stud in Port Colbourne, Ontario, and race a small contingent of horses under the name of Berkshire Stables.
William M. Rickman Sr. is best remembered, in the racing world, as the track owner who ushered in the current slots-rich era at Delaware Park.
But Rickman, who died September 30, 2005, at age 84, was known to derive more pleasure from breeding and racing his own horses than he did from his racetrack.
"Dad truly loved his horses," said Rickman's daughter Cynthia Rickman. "And he wanted the family to stay involved."
Florida racetracks rarely program statebred restricted stakes nowadays. Restricted races and stakes were standard fare back in the 1940's and 50's - the early times of the industry in the state. But, the Florida breeders in the 60's came to the conclusion that the best way to achieve status as a major-league breeding hub was to do away with restricted stakes and promote competition.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - The sale of Grade 1 winner Madcap Escapade and her dam, Sassy Pants, produced the largest total sum for a mare and daughter in the history of the Keeneland sales.
Madcap Escapade, winner of the Grade 1 Ashland Stakes, was the sale's most expensive mare, bringing $6 million from Hill 'n' Dale Bloodstock. Claiborne Farm consigned the mare for Bruce Lunsford, who raced her and retained an interest in this young mare carrying her first foal on a cover by Claiborne stallion Pulpit.
Promising young sire Talk Is Money will stand the 2007 breeding season at Carl Lizza Jr.'s and Joseph Bartone's Highcliff Farm in Delanson, N.Y.
An 8-year-old son of Deputy Minister, Talk Is Money arrives from Ro Parra's Millennium Farms in Kentucky, will stand for a fee of $5,000.
Millennium Farms also relocated the stallion Millennium Wind to Highcliff Farm in late 2005 for the 2006 breeding season.
Talk Is Money is already the sire of Blazing Sunset, winner of the Alydar Stakes at Hollywood Park and placed in the $250,000 Iowa Derby from his first crop.
Maryland-bred Grade 1 winner and Grade 1 producer Hookedonthefeelin made headlines last week, selling for $2.9 million at the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky November selected mixed sale last Sunday afternoon.
The price equals the second-highest for a Maryland-bred broodmare at public auction. Hookedonthefeelin's sale was the highlight of an eventful two days in which Maryland-bred champions went through sales rings in Kentucky.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - As the first week of Keeneland's November breeding stock auction drew to a close Friday, buyers were still ponying up six-figure sums for both mares and weanlings.
Prices usually come down from million-dollar heights by the end of the two-week auction's first week, and that was true again this year. But the market remained remarkably robust Friday, with 33 horses bringing $150,000 or more - and 13 bringing more than $200,000 - by 5:30 p.m.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Steve Warner thought he had reached a milestone when two of the horses he bred in partnership started in Breeders' Cup races at Churchill Downs on Nov. 4: Thor's Echo in the $2 million Sprint and Dancing Edie in the $2 million Filly and Mare Turf.
"Just having Dancing Edie and Thor's Echo, it was unbelievable to be there to begin with," he said.
Then, Thor's Echo pulled an upset in the Sprint, and Warner had arrived at the moment that defined his involvement in horse racing.
On Nov. 3, 2005, Miesque's Approval finished sixth of 10 in a turf claimer at Aqueduct. For all intents and purposes, his racing career appeared to be over at age 6. Horses owned by Live Oak Stud rarely race in claimers and usually not for long.
Miesque's Approval was shipped back to Ocala, Fla., where one man believed the horse still had some good racing left in him. Thanks in part to Live Oak trainer Johnny Collins, Miesque's Approval returned to top form in 2006, culminated by his victory in last weekend's Breeders' Cup Mile.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - Given the impact of the great sire Sadler's Wells on racing and breeding in Europe, he should be equally popular and successful in America.
Historically, that has been the case with stallions who have made an impact in England, France, and Ireland. Nearco, Phalaris, St. Simon, and Hyperion had a strong influence not only on the breeding of Thoroughbreds in Europe but also in America.