LEXINGTON, Ky. - When Kentucky Thoroughbred Farm Managers president Ken Wilkins opened a June 7 meeting about possible distribution programs for the state's new breeder awards fund, he said, "This is really a math problem."
The bottom line, he said, is a simple question: "How big is the pie, and how does it look split different ways?"
LEXINGTON, Ky. - No 3-year-old will have a chance to win the Triple Crown this year, but the stallions from the Coolmore group's international array of sires will have taken a classic in their third country in the past eight days should Andromeda's Hero get home in the Belmont.
Last Saturday, Motivator (by Coolmore sire Montjeu) won the Derby at Epsom, and then Shamardal (by Ashford sire Giant's Causeway) won the French Derby (Prix du Jockey Club) at Chantilly.
While looking for a stallion during the last couple of years, Gus Schoenborn Jr. had in mind the characteristics of two outstanding former Empire State stallions, Talc and Cormorant.
They were known for getting hard-hitting and sound runners who could sustain their form for a long period of time.
When he came across Crafty C. T., Schoenborn found one that filled the order for his Contemporary Stallions stud farm in Coxsackie, N.Y.
Crafty C. T. stands for $5,000 live foal, and his first crop this spring is pleasing his owners.
The Ocala Breeders' June sale of 2-year-olds in training on June 21-22 will have its under-tack shows next weekend. Those cataloged for the first sales session will go under tack on Saturday, and those in the second session will go Sunday. Starting times for both under-tack shows is set for 8 a.m.
The June 21 sales session has 330 2-year-olds in training cataloged. The second session has 304 2-year-olds plus 22 horses of racing age. Starting time for each of the two days of sales is 10:30 a.m.
Hot on the heels of a record-breaking 2-year-old sale, Fasig-Tipton Midlantic will conduct a summer sale of 2-year-olds and horses of racing age on June 28 at the sales pavilion in Timonium, Md. The sale has 111 cataloged, many from local consignors, and begins at 11 a.m. The under-tack show will be held the day before at 10 a.m.
"We were swamped for the May sale and knew we weren't able to accommodate all of them," said Paget Bennett, director of Fasig-Tipton Midlantic sales. "We spoke with a couple of people who were willing to wait and then quickly added this sale."
Fans at Woodbine for Sunday's Labatt Woodbine Oaks are going to have a love-in with a team of fillies from Harlequin Publishing giant Dick Bonnycastle, whose Manitoba homebred Gold Strike will rule as the heavy favorite.
Bonnycastle, who founded Harlequin in 1949 and then began publishing his company's famous romance novels in 1964, has been in racing and breeding for more than three decades.
His familiar black and white diamond silks have been seen at numerous Canadian racetracks over the years, aboard such horses at Nice Dancer, Pleasure Bent, and Caught Out.
At the time, it seemed like a run-of-the-mill horse deal for some middling broodmares. But when John Martin Silvertand agreed three years ago to take ownership of a group of mares in exchange for foal-sharing rights, he unwittingly acquired a new lease on life and a place in the record book as a Preakness-winning breeder.
Medallist, Robert Clay's homebred Grade 2 winner, has been retired from racing and will enter stud in 2006 at his owner's Three Chimneys Farm in Midway, Ky. His stud fee has yet to be determined.
A 4-year-old Touch Gold colt, fractured a sesamoid in his left foreleg during training last month. He had been pointing for the Metropolitan Handicap on Memorial Day. Initially, trainer Allen Jerkens said the fracture was not displaced, but further examination showed otherwise, Clay said in a statement Tuesday.
The owner of Kendall-Jackson winery, Jess Jackson, who has increased his Thoroughbred bloodstock sharply in the last year, may be poised to purchase the 450-acre Adena Springs South farm property in Ocala, Fla.
Jackson has been in discussions with Adena Springs owner Frank Stronach for several months regarding the possible purchase of the property. Earlier this year, Jackson bought the former Buckram Oak Farm in Lexington, Ky., for a reported $17.4 million. He has renamed the property Stonestreet Farm.
