LEXINGTON, Ky. - Funny Cide's rise to prominence in the Triple Crown series has prompted many in the Kentucky Thoroughbred breeding community to raise a toast to Jack, Art, and J.R. Preston.

After posting declines in its opening session, the two-day Barretts May 2-year-old sale burst back to strength Tuesday with sale-record prices.

Hip No. 256, a French Deputy filly out of West Forty Two, set a new Barretts May filly record when she sold for $375,000. Later, a Gilded Time colt out of Champaigne Amelia set a sale-record colt price of $335,000.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - After posting losses at Monday's opening session, the second and final day of selling at the Barretts May juvenile auction Tuesday in Pomona, Calif., produced a $170,000 early leader.

At 5:30 p.m., the $170,000 leader was a Smokester filly that Miller Thoroughbreds bought from Mary Knight, agent. The filly is a daughter of the Afleet mare Ultrafleet.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - A total of 45 juveniles are set to go on the auction block Thursday in the Canadian Thoroughbred Horse Society's annual 2-year-olds in training sale at the Woodbine Sales Pavilion.

Major consignors include agents Richard Hogan, Hill 'n' Dale Sales Agency, Huntington Stud Farm, and Cameron Training Center.

Hogan has 2-year-olds by Saint Ballado, Cape Town, Lit de Justice, and Lord Carson. Saint Martin, a Saint Ballado colt, is the first foal of a half-sister to Grade 1 winner Spellbound.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - Globally influential stallion Danehill, the sire of North American champion turf mare Banks Hill and multiple Group 1 winner Rock of Gibraltar among many other stakes winners, died Tuesday in a paddock accident in Ireland.

The stallion was 17 and died after flipping over backward and hitting his head. The horse was being hand-grazed in his paddock at the time of the accident, according to a Coolmore statement.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - Ridgewood Pearl, who defeated males in winning the 1995 Breeders' Cup Mile, hemorrhaged and died after producing a dead foal in Ireland last week, the Racing Post reported Monday.

The mare was 11. The dead foal was by Bahri.

TORONTO, Ontario - Twenty-two Thoroughbreds died Friday in a fire that destroyed a barn at Woodlands, a farm and training center in Hillsburgh, Ontario.

Gail Wood, a consignor and breeder who is the proprietor of Woodlands, said an emergency call was placed at 6:11 p.m. Friday, and that while the fire department responded promptly, flames had engulfed the building by 6:30 p.m.

Four horses were rescued from the blaze.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - A chance meeting in Nebraska 25 years ago brought Bill Casner and Ken Troutt together. Each had placed a claim on Great Bear Lake at the old Ak-Sar-Ben racetrack, and Casner, then a 25-year-old claiming trainer, won the two-way shake.

Neither man could have known at the time that those few minutes over the claim box would change their lives forever. Over the next 25 years, their association would make them enormously wealthy and eventually put their names in the history books as breeders of 2003 Kentucky Derby winner, Funny Cide.

OCALA, Fla. - P.A. "Tony" Everard, who bought Funny Cide as a yearling, is the second Florida-based pinhooker in three years to snare a Kentucky Derby winner. Two years ago, Monarchos, pinhooked by Murray Smith, won the Derby.

Everard bought two yearlings at the 2001 Saratoga sale of New York-breds - Funny Cide and one by Eastern Echo - and sent them to the New Episode Training Center in Ocala, Fla., owned by Everard and his wife, Elisabeth.

New York was not the only state to challenge tradition with a classic winner on the first weekend in May. The Pennsylvania-bred filly Russian Rhythm upset a heavy favorite and 18 other rivals to win England's Group 1 1000 Guineas on May 4, the day after Funny Cide's Kentucky Derby triumph.