The celebration of Shedaresthedevil’s victory in the Sept. 4 Kentucky Oaks over Swiss Skydiver stretched from her connections in Louisville around the globe to Karacabey, Turkey. The top two finishers in the Oaks are by former American stallion Daredevil, who was purchased late last year by the Turkish Jockey Club, which was bullish in the North American market.
Curlin’s Voyage
Curlin – Atlantic Voyage, by Stormy Atlantic
Bred in Ontario by Hill ‘n’ Dale Equine Holdings
Sovereign Award champion 2-year-old filly Curlin’s Voyage signaled she is ready to take on the Queen’s Plate with a victory in the Woodbine Oaks last month. The filly is a daughter of an influential American classic sire from one of Canada’s most influential families.
The Jockey Club is projecting a 2021 registered North American Thoroughbred foal crop of 19,200, a decline of 6 percent from an estimated 20,500 in 2020.
The foal crop projection is computed by using Reports of Mares Bred received to date for the 2020 breeding season. The crop projection is typically announced in mid-August but The Jockey Club delayed publication of this year's estimate in order to provide farms that may have been affected by the coronavirus pandemic additional time to submit their Reports of Mares Bred.
Roses have thorns. About 20 minutes before Saturday’s Kentucky Derby, B. Wayne Hughes’s Spendthrift Farm co-owned two entrants – Authentic, by its reigning leading sire Into Mischief, and Thousand Words. Then, Thousand Words, whom Spendthrift partners on with Albaugh Family Stables, reared while being saddled and fell in the paddock, resulting in his late scratch.
Halo Again
Speightstown – Halo’s Verse, by Unbridled’s Song
Bred in Ontario by Anderson Farms ($600,000 Keeneland September yearling purchase by Winchell Thoroughbreds)
Halo Again, a stakes winner both as a juvenile and this season, is by a stallion who excelled as a sprinter but has produced his share of route runners.
In recent years, the club model of Thoroughbred ownership has grown in popularity, attracting new owners to Thoroughbred racing by offering interested parties a chance to buy a small share in a horse with a small single payment. This approach to ownership offers some of the experiences with no additional costs or risks – but also few, if any, financial rewards.
Every Thoroughbred bloodstock entity faces difficult decisions in wheeling and dealing its stock in pursuit of success. Of course, operations want to breed or acquire the best horses possible – but financing that pursuit may also require selling some stock to raise capital.
Last year's class of freshman sires was touted as stellar. Not only did the class have success with its 2-year-olds, with a pair of Breeders' Cup winners and several other Grade 1 winners sired by the group, but now, the following year, with several expected entrants in the Kentucky Derby and Kentucky Oaks.
Three individual sires have first-crop representation in the Kentucky Derby, led by WinStar Farm’s Constitution, sire of race favorite Tiz the Law. Four other first-crop sires are expected to have runners in the Oaks.
The Kentucky Derby is only a few days in the future. But for a few of the colts who will try to write their names in the history books this Saturday, part of their future is already secured. Several of the expected entrants in their Derby field are already spoken for as future stallions, led by favorite Tiz the Law, who will eventually join some of the biggest stars in modern history at Coolmore’s Ashford Stud.
Dotted Line
Signature Red–Springledge, by Outflanker
Bred in Ontario by Howard Walton
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