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.

LAS VEGAS - With the Kentucky Derby just five short weeks from Saturday, the 3-year-olds are dropping like flies.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - The recent strangles outbreaks at the Trackside training center in Kentucky and Palm Meadows in Florida have raised awareness of this bacterial infection, which can spread quickly but is only occasionally fatal.

Churchill Downs, which operates Trackside, reported Friday that six horses tested positive for strangles last week, down from 19 the previous week. And Palm Meadows had reported five positives, with an additional suspected case that had not been confirmed by Monday.

OCALA, Fla. - With a pedigree as full of Florida as a basket of oranges, the sale-topping colt at the Ocala Breeders' Sales Company's select auction of 2-year-olds in training is a bay son of the highly rated young sire Yes It's True out of the Pentelicus mare Kit Kat Kitty.

The handsome and scopy colt had breezed twice before the sale, with the first trial being a furlong in 10.40 seconds and the second a quarter in 21.20. The colt's speed and the way he ran convinced buyers that he was an outstanding prospect, and he yielded a final sales price of $900,000 from Godolphin.