POMONA, Calif. - After a quiet year in 2003, California-breds were back in demand at the Barretts March sale of 2-year-olds in training, just as they were in the first few years of this decade.

The top selling statebred at the Tuesday sale was a Swiss Yodeler colt named Swissle Stick, who was purchased by Bob and Beverly Lewis for $600,000. Swissle Stick tied for the second-highest price in the 2-year-old portion of the sale. An Awesome Again filly led the sale at $2 million; a Pine Bluff filly sold for $600,000.

When Unusual Heat entered stud in 1998, the partners who owned him were so eager to attract mare owners that the they waived the stud fee.

"The fee was please," recalled co-owner Madeline Auerbach, drawing out the last word for emphasis.

Six years later, most mare owners can not get to Unusual Heat. He was booked full this year at $5,000, live foal.

The success is quite a turnaround for a former $80,000 claimer whom no one wanted at the end of his racing career.

ARCADIA, Calif. - The position of commissioner on the California Horse Racing Board is one of solemn responsibility, fraught with consequence and charged with the integrity, health, and well-being of a multi-billion dollar industry affecting thousands of people.

POMONA, Calif. - A world-record trend in the select 2-year-old market continued at the March 2 Barretts auction in California on Tuesday, lifting the auction to markedly higher numbers overall.

This time it was a $2 million Awesome Again filly who broke the barrier, edging out the previous 2-year-old filly record of $1.9 million for Atlantic Ocean at this sale in 2002. John Ferguson, representing Sheikh Mohammed al Maktoum, bought the filly.

POMONA, Calif. - A $2 million Awesome Again filly, a half-sister to the impressive 3-year-old filly Madcap Escapade, set a new world record for a 2-year-old filly as sale-topper at the Barretts March select juvenile auction Tuesday afternoon.

John Ferguson, agent for Sheikh Mohammed al Maktoum, signed for the filly, who is out of the stakes-winning Saratoga Six mare Sassy Pants. Jerry Bailey, agent, sold the sale-topper. She had cost just $75,000 as a 2003 Keeneland September yearling.

POMONA, Calif. - The Barretts March select juvenile sale, bolstered this year by racing-age stock from The Thoroughbred Corp., got under way Tuesday afternoon with a $1.35 million early session leader in La Canada winner Cat Fighter.

John Sikura, owner of Hill 'n' Dale Farm in Lexington, Ky., signed the ticket for Cat Fighter, a 3-year-old Storm Cat filly out of Grade 2 winner Strategic Maneuver.

MIAMI - Only the dead were unaware of the heavy-hitters among the juveniles available at the Fasig-Tipton select sale of 2-year-olds in training at Calder on Tuesday. Yet the confluence of buyers with seemingly limitless budgets and a couple of dozen very exciting young prospects sent prices to unprecedented heights.

The world's record for a 2-year-old in training was broken not once, but twice, in the one-day session, and both the colts, one selling for $3.1 million and the second for $4.5 million, seem outstanding young athletes for racing both this year and next.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - Florida's two select juvenile auctions launched the 2-year-old sale season in extraordinary style, and the question now is whether the March 2 Barretts auction, which features a dispersal of The Thoroughbred Corporation bloodstock, can keep the boom going.

Graeme Hall (by Dehere out of Win Crafty Lady, by Crafty Prospector) entered stud last year, and when the breeding season ended, the multiple Grade 2 stakes-winning millionaire had covered 77 mares. "We have 16 on the ground already," said Phil Hronec, manager of Winding Oaks Farm, where Graeme Hall stands, "and I could not be more pleased with their appearance."

ARCADIA, Calif. - There may be a future state champion lurking among the 24 California-breds that will sell at Tuesday's Barretts March Sale of selected 2-year-olds in-training in Pomona.

In two of the last three years, the California-breds offered in the sale have included a 2-year-old who went on to win a championship - Officer in 2001 and House of Fortune last year.

Officer was bought for $700,000 by The Thoroughbred Corporation at the 2001 Barretts March Sale and went on to win the Del Mar Futurity and Champagne Stakes that year. He now stands at stud in Kentucky.