Multiple Grade 1 winner and Brazilian champion Sandpit died on Sept. 4 at Lexington's Hagyard Davidson McGee veterinary clinic in Lexington, Ky. A 14-year-old stallion at Spendthrift Farm, Sandpit had a malignant liver tumor.
"He had been in good condition and finished the breeding season well," Suzie Picou-Oldham, a Spendthrift representative, said Tuesday.
The stallion went off his feed and began to show discomfort, prompting Spendthrift to send him to the clinic five days before his death.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - The 12-day Keeneland September yearling sale, Keeneland's first yearling sale since its July sale was canceled until next year, got under way Monday with some contentious bidding and million-dollar fireworks, headed by a $3.6 million Danzig colt.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - With the epic Keeneland September yearling sale set to open Monday, Keeneland officials and many consignors have reason to be optimistic - but also realistic - in their expectations.
The auction runs from Sept. 8 to Sept. 20, with a dark day on Sept. 12, and is Keeneland's only major yearling sale this year. The company canceled its 2003 July select sale, partly because of a diminished foal crop caused by mare reproductive loss syndrome two years ago.
Popular Maryland stallion Allen's Prospect, the nation's leading sire in wins from 1999-2002, died Sept. 3. A 21-year-old Mr. Prospector horse, he was euthanized at the University of Pennsylvania's New Bolton equine hospital after developing complications from surgery to remove a tumor from his jaw.
Allen's Prospect was second behind Not for Love on Maryland's general sire list at the time of his death, with $2,277,548 in progeny earnings.
ELMONT, N.Y. - A New York-bred who has been somewhat overlooked this summer during all the Funny Cide hoopla is Whitmore's Conn, who won back-to-back graded stakes in July and August.
Whitmore's Conn, owned by Michael Shanley and his wife, Lyn, won his first Grade 1 in the Sword Dancer Handicap at Saratoga Race Course on Aug. 9. In his prior start on July 12, the 5-year-old won the Grade 2 Bowling Green Handicap at Belmont Park for the second year in a row.
Each winter hundreds of show horses, their trainers, and handlers come to the Ocala area for training and dressage.
A few of these snowbirds have put their feet in both the show horse and the Thoroughbred camps.
Francine Weiner-Govostes is a horse show lady-cum-Thoroughbred entrepreneur. From Canton, Mass., where she operates Green Lane Farm, catering to show horses - including her 2001 World Cup finalist Fresco - she recently bought an Ocala property and renamed it Green Lane South.
Pennsylvania's Day at the Races on Aug. 30, the celebration for state breeders that included five stakes worth a total of a quarter-million dollars, brought many visitors to Philadelphia Park. Among them were members of the Pennsylvania Horse Breeders Association's board of directors, including Roger E. Legg and his wife Gayle.
DEL MAR, Calif. - In recent years, Tommy Town Thoroughbreds in Santa Ynez, Calif., has grown in prominence through its yearling consignments, broodmare acquisitions, and as a stud farm.
Wednesday at Del Mar, Tommy Town had its first major success on the racetrack when She's Gottogetaway pulled an upset in the $100,000 Generous Portion Stakes.
The victory was a pleasant surprise to farm owners Tom and Debra Stull. Sent off at 28-1, She's Gottogetaway caught the heavily favored Dirty Diana in the final strides of the six-furlong race.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - Starlight Stable's multiple Grade 1 winner Harlan's Holiday, who injured a right hind suspensory ligament in last month's Saratoga Breeders' Cup, will stand in 2004 at Mr. and Mrs. Brereton Jones Jr.'s Airdrie Stud in Midway, Ky.
The Harlan colt, now 4, will make his stud debut at a $17,500 fee.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - With his victory in the Grade 1 Hopeful Stakes at Saratoga, the unbeaten colt Silver Wagon is the brightest new toy on the 2-year-old playground. Running the seven furlongs in 1:23.47, Silver Wagon rolled home four lengths in front of previously unbeaten Chapel Royal, a son of Montbrook who topped the Ocala Breeders' Sales February sale of selected 2-year-olds in training at $1.2 million.
At the same sale, Silver Wagon sold to Buckram Oak Farm for $120,000, and he topped a Florida-bred exacta in the year's most prestigious 2-year-old race to date.