LEXINGTON, Ky. - Among the sires of most renown in California, can any stand higher than Bertrando? The star stallion at River Edge Farm, Bertrando has consistently produced fast and competitive racehorses, and his offspring are littered throughout the card of the Cal Cup races.

Among his better runners are such competitors as Bilo and Chief Storm Cloud. None, however, can hold out any higher accomplishments than Bertrando's gelded son Unfurl the Flag, who won the Grade 1 Triple Bend Handicap earlier this season.

The excitement of a new breeding season is just around the corner, and three of Maryland's busiest establishments are ready to show off their new stallions for next year.

Breeders' Cup Sprint winner Silver Train comes from a productive New York family.

His dam is Ridden in Thestars, a daughter of former state leading sire Cormorant, bred in New York by Francis Paolangeli.

Ridden in Thestars placed in the Schenectady and Susan B. Anthony handicaps during her career of 34 starts, earning $178,998.

The breeders of Silver Train, Joe Mulholland Sr., Joe Mulholland Jr. and John Mulholland, purchased Ridden in Thestars for $90,000 at the 1998 Keeneland November mixed sale.

Eight days ago he was the talk of the Big Apple and a presumed legend in the making. Nowadays, Lost in the Fog is getting some quiet R and R at Greg and Karen Dodd's Southern Chase Farm in Williston, Fla. The scenery is familiar to the big brown colt, for it's where his professional career began two years ago.

Coolmore Stud announced Thursday that it would raise Giant's Causeway's fee in 2006, giving the stallion a $300,000 price at Coolmore's North American division, Ashford Stud. Coolmore also announced it would lower the fee for Fusaichi Pegasus, also standing at Ashford, from $150,000 to $125,000.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - Haskell winner and millionaire Roman Ruler has been retired and will enter stud at Hill 'n' Dale Farms in Lexington, the farm has announced. His fee in 2006 will be $30,000.

An outstanding juvenile last year, won his first two starts - the second in the Grade 2 Best Pal - by a combined 11 lengths. He went on to take the Grade 2 Norfolk Stakes after finishing second in the Del Mar Futurity. He wrapped up his juvenile season ranked two pounds below eventual champion Declan's Moon, rating 124 pounds on the Experimental Free Handicap.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - Saturday's Breeders' Cup Classic winner Saint Liam will have a $50,000 fee in 2006, when he begins his stud career at Lane's End in Versailles, Ky.

Saint Liam capped his three-season racing career on Saturday with a one-length win in the Classic, beating Flower Alley.

Proud Truth, winner of the 1985 Breeders' Cup Classic, has died in Panama, according to press reports. The 23-year-old stallion reportedly died on Aug. 15 after a bout of colic.

Trained by John Veitch and racing as a homebred for John W. Galbreath's Darby Dan Farm, Proud Truth won six graded stakes in all, including the 1985 Florida Derby and Peter Pan Stakes to complete his trio of Grade 1 victories.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - Whether from the thunder of his offspring's hooves or the roars of fans cheering for their favorite, Sunday Silence is still the king of Japan, some three years after his death at age 16.

A horse of uncommon presence and outstanding ability, Sunday Silence became Japan's greatest sire. Leading sire lists ever since the racetrack appearance of his first crop, Sunday Silence earned an amazing reputation in Japan. He did the unthinkable by becoming more revered and famous than his many celebrated offspring.

Breeding and racing good horses is nothing new for Hazel Marsh, the Virginia horsewoman who with her late husband, John D. Marsh, campaigned homebred multi-millionaire Majesty's Prince and many other stakes winners.

Still, Marsh is reveling in the accomplishments of her latest star, Bright Gold. Proving all but unbeatable at 5 1/2 furlongs on turf, Bright Gold has racked up victories in her last five starts, taking two stakes at Colonial Downs en route to her most ambitious performance to date, in the $100,000 Franklin County Stakes on Oct. 20 at Keeneland.