ARCADIA, Calif. - Bertrando, one of California's top stallions in recent years and the champion older male of 1993, has been bred to 35 mares this year despite suffering from a liver disease that required surgery as recently as December.

Through Wednesday, 20 of the 35 mares bred to Bertrando had been pronounced in foal, according to owner Marty Wygod. As of Wednesday, Bertrando had been booked to 69 mares this year.

Bertrando stands at Wygod's River Edge Farm in Buellton, Calif.

Throughout the current breeding season, Bertrando's health has been closely monitored.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - Robert Sangster, a major English-based owner and breeder and a force behind the creation of the globally dominant Coolmore operation, died at his London home on Wednesday. Sangster, who was 67, had pancreatic cancer.

A family friend, Lord Bell, said Thursday, "He was surrounded by his family, and he died very peacefully after a long illness that started nine or 10 months ago."

Millionaire and multiple Grade 1 winner Excellent Meeting died March 23, according to Brushwood Stable. The mare died during colic surgery at the Rood and Riddle veterinary clinic in Lexington, Ky., according to a report on The Blood-Horse website. The mare was 8 and delivered her last foal, a Storm Cat filly, earlier this year.

Excellent Meeting, a daughter of General Meeting and the Chief's Crown mare Fitted Crown, won four Grade 1 races. From a career record of 20-8-5-3, Excellent Meeting earned $1,402,396.

LAS VEGAS - In a "normal" year, the Wood Memorial Stakes, Blue Grass Stakes, and Arkansas Derby are designed to be preps for the big prize, the Kentucky Derby.

Not this year.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - European champion In the Wings, winner of the 1990 Breeders' Cup Turf and sire of 1996 grass champion Singspiel, died Saturday at age 18.

Laminitis had plagued the Sadler's Wells stallion during the last month. Officials at Sheikh Mohammed al Maktoum's Kildangan Stud in Ireland decided to euthanize him after his condition declined "to spare him further pain," according to a statement issued by Kildangan manager Joe Osborne.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - Having shaken the dust of Dubai off his heels, Pleasantly Perfect now has won the two richest dirt races in the world: the Dubai World Cup and the Breeders' Cup Classic. There is no doubt that he is a very good horse at 10 furlongs, and he showed the versatility in the Dubai World Cup on Saturday to lie close to the pace and then duel head and head with Medaglia d'Oro for about the last five-sixteenths of a mile.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - Mare abortion rates in central Kentucky are no longer alarmingly high, as they were during the mysterious mare reproductive loss syndrome in 2001. But the drop in abortion rates hasn't made breeders or researchers any less vigilant about the Eastern tent caterpillar.

ARCADIA, Calif. - The rise of McCann's Mojave to the status of multiple stakes winner this year at Santa Anita would have seemed improbable at times.

His dam, Joni U. Bar, was 20 when she foaled McCann's Mojave, having suffered through a severe bout of colic the previous year that resulted in the loss of a foal.

After McCann's Mojave was born, the colt was rushed to an equine hospital, suffering from diarrhea that left him in critical condition. The incident caused him to be weaned from his dam earlier than normal.

Meadowbrook Farm near Ocala is in the process of being sold to the Hyperion Training Center LLC, the business entity of Daniel and Diana Case. According to Daniel Case, the Cases have started a variety of businesses including real estate development, trucking, and mortgages. Since arriving in Florida recently from Paradise Valley, Ariz., the Cases said they have been involved in several development deals, including an effort to buy Noel and Bobby Hickey's Irish Acres Farm. That deal did not fly, according to Daniel Case, because of zoning problems.

With 2-year-old racing set to begin shortly in New York, more than a dozen freshman sires standing in the Empire State will be represented by juvenile runners this year.

Here's a look at some of those New York freshman sires:

Badge (Air Forbes Won-Revenge Time). A winner at 2 and 3, Badge won at distances ranging from six furlongs to a mile and 70 yards. As a 3-year-old, Badge won the Grade 3 Gotham Stakes and finished third in the Grade 1 Preakness.