New York's breeding industry is still reeling from the sudden death of breeder and owner Jerry Nielsen, who suffered a heart attack on Feb. 2.

Nielsen, 69, was unanimously elected to a second two-year term as president of the New York Thoroughbred Breeders last month.

Dennis Brida, executive director of the NYTB, said Nielsen was a unique individual.

"He always was steady, nothing upset him," Brida said. "He also was one of the kindest people I knew. He never had an ax to grind with anybody. He's going to be sorely missed."

A blockbuster sale at Timonium in the dead of winter? It had happened in the past, and the numbers sizzled once again at the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic winter mixed sale on Monday.

Compared with 2003, which was an off year for this auction, the gross ($1,303,000) soared 175 percent and the average price ($9,871) was up 123 percent. The median ($5,000) increased 67 percent.

Edward Evans's Spring Hill Farm near Casanova, Va., suffered a double blow last month with the deaths of Grade 2 winner Withallprobability and her Grade 3-winning daughter With Ability.

Evans said Wednesday that Withallprobability died Jan. 14 at the Kentucky Equine Sports Medicine and Rehabilitation Center after a lengthy battle with laminitis. She was 16. The mare's 6-year-old daughter, With Ability, died after fracturing a pastern.

Consignor W.D. "Willie" North hit one straight out of the park in the final minutes of the Ocala Breeders' Sales Company's select 2-year-old sale at Miami's Calder Race Course on Tuesday night, selling a $1.6 million colt that shattered the auction house's previous record for a 2-year-old and helped lift the sale across the board.

The Ocala Breeders' Sales Company kicked off the select 2-year-old season with a spate of expensive juveniles topping the bill at its one-day auction at Calder Race Course on Tuesday.

As of 6 p.m., a pair of $500,000 colts by Horse Chestnut and Siphon were the day's top lots. Michael Tabor's agent, Demi O'Byrne, signed for both.

The late Jeanne Vance's bloodstock will be dispersed this year, starting with 11 racing-age horses that the Eaton Sales agency will offer at Keeneland's April 2-year-old sale.

That first draft from Vance's stable will consist of juveniles and older horses of racing age by such stallions as A. P. Indy, Danzig, Deputy Minister, Fusaichi Pegasus, Kingmambo, Storm Cat, and Lemon Drop Kid, the 2000 champion older male raced by Vance and her husband Milton "Laddie" Dance, who died in December 2002. Jeanne Vance died on Dec. 15, 2003.

LAS VEGAS - This is the final installment of a series on the 2004 freshman sires, with particular emphasis on how to play their offspring. Listed alphabetically, the sires are followed by their pedigree and the state or country where they stand.

Angel Fever, dam of 2000 Kentucky Derby winner Fusaichi Pegasus, died Friday after a paddock accident at Arthur Hancock III's Stone Farm, the farm announced Monday.

According to a statement issued by the farm, 14-year-old Angel Fever fractured her pelvis, severing a major artery. Angel Fever, a daughter of Danzig and the Halo mare Rowdy Angel, was in foal to Seeking the Gold.

Fasig-Tipton Midlantic's one-day February winter mixed sale on Monday yielded substantially higher results across the board this year compared with last year.

The auction in Timonium, Md., sold 132 lots this year, up from the 107 in 2003, for a total of $1,303,000. That was almost three times as much as last year's $474,400 gross. The average price also went up this season, soaring from $4,434 last year to $9,871, and the median also leaped, rising from $3,000 to $5,000. The only negative note on the result sheet was the buy-back rate, which rose from 18 percent to 21 percent.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - Sword Dance, sire of Grade 1 winner Marlin and numerous other stakes winners, has been pensioned at the age of 20.

"His fertility has just been dropping and dropping," said Larry King of Stonehedge Farm in Williston, Fla., which has stood Sword Dance since the early 1990's. "Some specialists have looked at him, and they can't come up with any reason for it. We've done scintigraphy and X-rays, and he seems physically fine. He's not showing any pain, but his sperm count just kept going down. It's been kind of mystifying."