After a decade-long absence, a horses of racing age sale in California reappears on the calendar with Tuesday's Barretts summer sale at Fairplex Park in Pomona. The one-day sale offers 75 2-year-olds in training and 48 horses of racing age.
With no recent history of such a market, sale organizers have modest expectations. Barretts president Gerald McMahon on Thursday said he expects the 123-horse sale to have an average price "in the teens."
Hundreds of Florida breeders will not be getting any breeders or stallions premiums down the road, because Myung Geol Leg, an executive with the Korea Racing Association, has been on a shopping spree these past few months. And, according to his tally, the KRA has bought 142 2-year-olds in training, with most of these having Florida connections.
During the recent Ocala Breeders' June sale of 2-year-olds in training, Leg talked about Thoroughbred racing in South Korea and the future of the horses he bought at the Florida sales this year.
Brandala has been a wonderfully consistent runner for her owner and breeder, Dr. Jim Kirvin, but until last Sunday she had not won a stakes in 12 tries.
A 6-year-old New York-bred, Brandala got her first stakes win in the restricted Mount Vernon Handicap at Belmont Park. Brandala, who races for Kirvin's Sorin Stables, won the second division of the 1 1/8-mile turf race by three-quarters of a length. The win boosted Brandala's earnings to $360,686 from a record of 7-5-6 in 38 starts.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - In a deal that bloodstock industry insiders say puts Smarty Jones's total stallion value at about $48 million, the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes winner will stand at Three Chimneys Farm in Kentucky upon his retirement from racing.
The colt's owners, Roy and Pat Chapman, have privately sold the Midway, Ky., farm a half-interest in the colt. Three Chimneys will syndicate their half.
LAS VEGAS - They're off and running. The 2004 group of freshman sires have not wasted any time in establishing themselves as win-early stallions. Breeders and farm owners are always eager to get their first-crop stallions off to a fast start and 2-year-olds by these freshman sires are usually well meant in the early 4 1/2- and five-furlong maiden races against juveniles by older stallions already established.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - Negotiations for Smarty Jones's stud rights were still under way in central Kentucky on Friday afternoon, with four or five farms still in the running. Bloodstock market watchers predict that Smarty Jones, the Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner, could end up with a total stud value of between $35 million and $40 million - or more.
The hot competition for Smarty Jones reveals a stallion market that takes both bottom-line considerations and intangible factors like "buzz" into account, giving sellers like Smarty Jones's owners, Roy and Pat Chapman, a windfall.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - The Smarty party is not over. Although there is no longer the level of Triple Crown publicity surrounding Smarty Jones, breeders continue to have interest in the colt who has become the darling of the general public. The attention on Smarty Jones as a stallion prospect will intesnify in the next week or so with the announcement of plans for hisretirement to stud.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - Wavering Monarch, Grade 1 winner and sire of champion Maria's Mon, was euthanized Thursday because of the infirmities of old age, Glencrest Farm in Midway, Ky., announced Friday. He was 25.
Wavering Monarch was a Glencrest homebred out of Uncommitted, a winning Buckpasser mare. He won 6 of his 13 lifetime starts, most notably the 1982 Haskell Invitational and 1983 San Fernando Stakes, both Grade 1 events. He earned $466,773.
The bulls and the bears maybe having it out on Wall Street, but there is no uncertainty in the Florida 2-year-olds in training market. The Ocala Breeders' Sales Company's two-day June auction completed the 2004 schedule of six sales, between February and June, with record-breaking numbers. The statistics for the June sale show that 314 horses sold for gross receipts of $7,394,600, an average price of $23,550. Both the gross and the average were records for the sale. Last year 249 lots sold for an average of $18,412.
Trueamericanspirit, the 4-year-old New Jersey-bred aiming for his second consecutive stakes score in Sunday's Lincroft Handicap at Monmouth, was given a name inspired by Sept. 11. But he also reflects the spirit of the Swales family and the long battle to preserve New Jersey racing.
"The days of just surviving are hopefully behind us, and now we can all start thriving," said Tom Swales IV, Trueamericanspirit's breeder/owner.