LEXINGTON, Ky. - Among first-time visitors to the record-breaking Australian Easter yearling sale in Sydney this year was bloodstock agent Joe Brocklebank, one of a number of American-based buyers lured to the auction by AusHorse's marketing campaign targeting the United States.

A group of 57 regular Australian consignors and sales companies, including William Inglis and Son, which conducts the Easter yearling sale, are funding AusHorse in an attempt to keep Australian breeding, sales, and racing on foreign minds.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - The victory of Flower Alley in the Lane's End Stakes, Turfway Park's Kentucky Derby prep, has prompted comparisons between him and 2003 Kentucky Derby winner Funny Cide, as both are by the same sire.

Should Flower Alley win at Churchill Downs this year, he will propel his sire, the Forty Niner stallion Distorted Humor, into the most elite ranking of sires, alongside A.P. Indy and Storm Cat, among proven American stallions.

ARCADIA, Calif. - Bear Fan, one of the top female sprinters of 2004, will be bred to A.P. Indy later this month and is unlikely to race again, according to her trainer and co-owner Wesley Ward.

Bear Fan, a California-bred 6-year-old, won half of her 16 starts and $808,150. She finished fifth in the $2 million Golden Shaheen at Nad Al Sheba in Dubai on March 26, the world's richest sprint.

Ward said that Bear Fan will be retired unless she is pronounced not in foal at the end of the spring.

There is no count of pinhookers in the Ocala, Fla., sales market who buy weanlings and yearlings for sale as 2-year-olds. And there is no gender bias in this business, for there are likely as many women as men in the business. Two female pinhookers who have made a worldwide mark happen to share the same training facilities: Murray Smith, who pinhooked the 2001 Kentucky Derby winner, Monarchos, and Danzel Brendemuehl, who does business under the banner of Classic Bloodstock.

The beautifully bred Hunting Hard has joined the New York stallion ranks and will stand the 2005 season at Breezy Knob Farm in Ava, N.Y., about six miles north of Rome in Oneida County.

Breezy Knob Farm is owned by Brian and Pamela Mandryck, and has been in the family since 1929.

Until Pamela Mandryck purchased a Thoroughbred broodmare in 1980, Breezy Knob was operated as a dairy farm, and it continues to breed Holstein dairy cattle.

A Maryland Million Day in April? The Spring Festival of Racing, to be held the first Saturday of Pimlico's spring meet on April 23, will serve as a prelude to the big event later in the year.

The Inglis auction house's Australian Easter yearling sale broke records for gross, median, and top price by its end Thursday.

Arrowfield Stud's young stallion Redoute's Choice dominated the top of the three-day market. Six of the auction's eight millionaire colts were by Redoute's Choice, a 9-year-old Danehill horse, including the sale's record-setting top lot, an Aus$2.5 million colt out of Tugela. Arrowfield Stud, agent, sold that colt to Woodlands Stud. Redoute's Choice's 35 yearlings sold for an average price of Aus$611,714, or about $472,977 U.S.

A $2.5 million (Australian) colt by popular young sire Redoute's Choice set an auction record at William Inglis and Son's Australian Easter yearling sale Wednesday in Sydney.

The record colt, whose price in American terms was just over $1.9 million, went to Woodlands Stud of New South Wales.

"We thought he was the best horse here," said Trevor Lobb, bloodstock manager of Woodlands.

In a reversal of policy, the British government has approved the cloning of horses, England's Guardian newspaper reported Wednesday.

Professor Twink Allen, an equine reproduction professor at Cambridge who heads the Equine Fertility Unit in Newmarket, will now receive a license allowing him to clone horses for research purposes. But he will not be allowed to clone for commercial purposes. The Jockey Club registries in Britain and the United States do not allow cloned Thoroughbreds, meaning that such horses cannot compete at a racecourse.

The Australian Easter yearling sale produced two seven-figure sales in its opening session on Tuesday in Sydney, Australia.