With his son Gold and Roses in sharp form, and with progeny earnings topping the $1 million mark, Gold Token is enjoying a solid season at stud.
Among his current runners, 50 percent are winners, and he has had 66 percent winners from starters overall.
The 12-year-old son of Mr. Prospector is owned by Questroyal Stud and stands at Sugar Maple Farm, in Poughquag, N.Y., for a fee of $3,500, live foal.
It is not unusual that there is a lot of buzz in the air about the Queen's Plate, Canada's most famous race, but a lot of the noise this year is coming from places much farther west than Woodbine.
Three of the 10 horses in the 146th Plate, worth $1 million, were foaled in the province of Manitoba.
No Manitoba-bred has ever won the Plate, and it is rare to even see one in the 1 1/4-mile classic for Canadian-foaled 3-year-olds.
Only two winners in the 145 previous runnings were foaled in western Canada, and both were bred in Alberta.
The 2005 Ocala Breeders' Sales June sale of 2-year-olds in training statistically fell back to earth. The overall numbers for the sale, conducted Tuesday and Wednesday, were down from those of 2004 but still finished on a par with the averages of the '02 and '03 June sales.
"Last year's numbers were a pleasant surprise," said Tom Ventura, the general manager and sales director of the OBS. "The averages, the medians jumped significantly, and the buy-back rate was unusually low. This year's results were more in line with the steady growth of previous years."
Edward P. Evans works diligently to breed a better racehorse. And the master of Spring Hill Farm in Casanova, Va., who has assembled a band of nearly 90 broodmares and turned nearly 3,000 acres of Virginia countryside into a horse paradise, continues to rise in the ranks of the nation's leading breeders. But his results last weekend were exceptional, even by Evans's lofty standards.
The Barretts summer sale of horses of racing age and 2-year-olds in-training on Tuesday in Pomona is primarily for juveniles, but there is one noteworthy name on the list of horses of racing age.
Frankelstein, who has won 2 of 11 starts and $123,420, will be offered by owner Edward Nahem as part of a consignment by Sam Hendricks, agent. A 4-year-old Bertrando gelding, Frankelstein finished fifth in the Quicken Tree Stakes for California-breds at Hollywood Park on June 18 in his stakes debut.
Polish Precedent, a French champion whose progeny include the multiple champion and 1996 Breeders' Cup Turf winner Pilsudski, has died at age 19.
The Darley organization, which stood Polish Precedent at its Dalham Hall in Newmarket, England, announced Wednesday that the stallion had died from complications related to colic surgery Tuesday night.
Kingmambo, who missed time from the breeding shed at Lane's End Farm in Versailles, Ky., because of health problems earlier this year, has ended the season early.
"He just had had a tough season," Lane's End owner Will Farish said Tuesday. "It's been up and down, and we just decided rather than put him through any more, we'd stop and let nature take its course."
Farish said the stallion is healthy but needed a rest, on the advice of veterinarians. He covered 36 mares in 2005.