Kay Jeffords, owner of five-time champion steeplechaser Lonesome Glory, died Tuesday in New York City at age 80. She had suffered from Parkinson's disease in recent years. She was 80.
Jeffords had been married to the late Walter Jeffords, who died in 1990. Kay Jeffords campaigned a string of top horses with her husband and in her own name. She was steeplechasing's leading owner in 1995 and overall won purses of $1.4 million, according to the National Steeplechase Association.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - A $2.79 million colt from the last crop of the great Japanese stallion Sunday Silence topped Monday's opening session at the Japan Racing Horse Association's select foal sale.
Shadai Farm, the Hokkaido stallion station that stood Sunday Silence until his untimely death last year at age 16, sold the brown colt to Fusao Sekiguchi for 330 million yen, or $2,791,878. Sekiguchi, a flamboyant Japanese entrepreneur, owned 2000 Kentucky Derby winner Fusaichi Pegasus.
Ohio resident George Smith and his longtime friend and partner Dr. W.E. Johnson usually breed and foal a mare or two in Florida. The result of one of such breeding is Spoken Fur (Notebook-Siberian Fur, by Siberian Express), who, following her recent sale by Smith and Johnson, went from allowance company to a Grade 1 win in the Mother Goose Stakes for Amerman Racing Stables and trainer Bobby Frankel.
The trip was a homecoming for Kentucky Derby- and Preakness-winning trainer Barclay Tagg, who returned to the state where he had trained horses for nearly 30 years to judge this year's 69th annual Maryland Horse Breeders Association's yearling show last Sunday.
Tagg swapped stories with dozens of old acquaintances. He attended a crab feast at one of his old stomping grounds, Merryland Farm, a Thoroughbred nursery and training center in Baltimore County where years ago he found work galloping horses.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - The full brothers Mineshaft and Rock Slide could have a blast this weekend. Mineshaft is the likely favorite in Saturday's Suburban Handicap at Belmont Park, and Rock Slide will race the same day in the Firecracker Handicap at Churchill Downs.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - Popular sprinter Hallowed Dreams has been off the track for a little more than a year now, and her owners report she is doing well in her new life as a broodmare.
Now 6, Hallowed Dreams, a Malagra mare, is in the broodmare band at trainer Lloyd Romero's farm in Erath, La., and is carrying her first foal by his stallion, the Claiborne-bred Tirade. Romero said he and Hallowed Dreams's co-owner, Johnny Gaspard, plan to keep the mare's first foal and race it, which accounts in part for their choice of stallion.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - Juddmonte Farms's Grade 1 winner and millionaire Chester House was euthanized in Lexington on Saturday due to the effects of a form of bone marrow cancer. The Mr. Prospector stallion was 8 and was standing his third season at stud. His first foals are yearlings this year.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - It does not surprise trainer Paul Aguirre that Stalking Tiger is undefeated in two starts, including the $94,050 Haggin Stakes at Hollywood Park on June 21.
Since the California-bred gelding joined his barn last month following a private purchase, Stalking Tiger has impressed Aguirre, sometimes by doing nothing.
While some 2-year-olds can be playful and a problem for handlers, Stalking Tiger is the opposite, Aguirre said.
"He gives you confidence around the barn," Aguirre said. "He's always laying down sleeping and taking care of himself."
Mt. Sassafras, Canada's Horse of the Year of 1996, will be paraded in front of the Woodbine fans as part of the Canada Day festivities Tuesday. An 11-year-old gelding, he won the 1997 edition of the Dominion Day Handicap, the 1 1/4-mile race held annually on the country's birthday.
Mt. Sassafras was one of four champions raced by Aubrey Minshall in the 1990's. In fact, it has been 12 years since Minshall, who died in 1993, collected his first Sovereign, for his homebred sprint champion King Corrie.