The summer sales season starts with the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky July yearling sale Monday and Tuesday at the Newtown Paddocks in Lexington, Ky., and Maryland breeders are ready to go. With nearly two dozen statebred yearlings cataloged, only Kentucky and Florida have a higher representation of statebreds.

Recent Maryland-bred graduates of this sale include last year's statebred 2-year-old filly champion Celestial Legend, who was sold by her breeders Bill Fitzgibbons and David Wade for $45,000. The filly has won four stakes and $213,730 from nine starts.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - Thursday's news that Barbaro's prognosis had darkened because of acute laminitis in his left hind leg does not mean, his surgeon said, that the colt's destruction is imminent.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - North America's members in the Society of International Thoroughbred Auctioneers have raised the minimum purse requirement for races to earn black-type designation in sales catalogs.

Effective Jan. 1, 2007, races must have a total purse of $45,000, distributed on the day of the race, in order to be eligible for black type. The current minimum purse requirement is $40,000. The minimum purse level will be raised again, to $50,000, effective Jan. 1, 2008.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - Barbaro's surgeon termed the colt's condition "guarded" and said he faces "tough odds" on Wednesday now that infection has threatened his survival.

"As we said yesterday, Barbaro's condition is potentially serious, and we are aggressively seeking all treatment options," Dr. Dean Richardson said in a release issued Wednesday by the University of Pennsylvania's New Bolton Center in Kennett Square, Pa. "Today we will focus on further diagnostics and keeping our patient comfortable."

Barbaro, the injured Kentucky Derby winner, was still "resting comfortably" Tuesday, according to his surgeon, three days after an infection led to surgery to replace the compression plate and many screws holding his broken right hind leg together.

"Barbaro is eating well and resting in his stall," Dr. Dean Richardson, chief of surgery at the University of Pennsylvania's New Bolton Center equine hospital, said in a release issued Tuesday.

A $5.2 million King Kamehameha filly set a world foal or weanling record on Tuesday and jump-started the Japan Racing Horse Association's summer foal sale at the Northern Horse Park on the island of Hokkaido.

The Tuesday session was the first of two selling foals and followed the company's first yearling sale on Monday, which set a Japanese yearling mark of $1.79 million for a Pivotal colt out of Veil of Avalon. Both the top-priced yearling and the world-record filly foal involved the same connections: seller Katsumi Yoshida's Northern Farm and buyer Nobutaka Tada.

Churchill

It may be time to start paying to attention to Brahms, whose first foals are 3. On June 30, Dixie's Jubilee, a 3-year-old filly by Brahms, won a 5 1/2-furlong allowance, paying $15, and on July 8, Arson Squad, a 3-year-old gelding by Brahms, won the Swaps Stakes, defeating Point Determined and A. P. Warrior.

A $5.2 million King Kamehameha filly set a world foal or weanling record on Tuesday and jump-started the Japan Racing Horse Association's summer foal sale at Hokkaido's Northern Horse Park.

The Tuesday session was the first of two selling foals and followed the company's first yearling sale on Monday, which set a Japanese yearling mark of $1.79 million for a Pivotal colt out of Veil of Avalon. Both the top-priced yearling and the world record filly foal involved the same connections: seller Katsumi Yoshida's Northern Farm and buyer Nobutaka Tada.

Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro appeared "more comfortable" on Monday, his surgeon said, two days after an infection prompted his surgical team to replace the compression plate and many of the screws that have been holding his shattered right hind leg together since May 21. He remains in intensive care at the University of Pennsylvania's New Bolton Center equine hospital, and the surgical team reported Monday afternoon that his vital signs were normal after the Saturday surgery and a sixth cast change on Monday.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - With the first stakes for juveniles at Belmont having been run in the last week, the early results from the quick and the precocious are now coming in steadily.

One of the big early winners among the freshman sires of 2006 is Officer, who has 6 winners from 12 starters to date (5 debut winners) and is the country's leading freshman sire.

Officer himself was a precocious and immensely talented juvenile who won his first five races in a row at 2, including the Grade 1 Champagne Stakes, and started as the heavy favorite in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile.