Archers Bay never got a chance to enjoy a long retirement from away the racetrack, and there will be only three crops of foals by the Canadian champion, who died following colic surgery last October.
The first group of Archers Bay foals will hit the racetrack in 2003, and a number of them will be racing for their sire's owners, Eugene and Laura Melnyk.
Mike Sherman's Farnsworth Farms has been a regular at the 2-year-old sales since 1965. With 60 juveniles cataloged for the annual Ocala Breeders' Sales spring sale of 2-year-olds in training, which runs Tuesday through Friday, Farnsworth has one of the biggest consignments.
Sherman said he used to sell his 2-year-olds earlier in the year, but that many of his juveniles just weren't ready to be put under the sale microscope.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Continental Red was having a wonderful career until he was named the California-bred horse of the year for 2002.
"As soon as he got that, he ran two clunkers," trainer Ian Jory said Friday.
A winner of 6 of 48 starts and $844,853, Continental Red will try to end that losing streak in the $150,000 Khaled Stakes over 1 1/8 miles on turf at Hollywood Park next Saturday.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - Americans Stuart and Anita Subotnick got the Tattersalls April 2-year-old auction off to a rousing start Monday when they paid a European record 260,000 guineas, about $428,610, for a Danehill colt.
The price shattered the record of 180,000 guineas, set last year at this sale.
The Danehill colt is out of the unraced Silver Hawk mare Silver Bubble, who herself is a full sister to multiple Grade 1 winner Hawkster. Silver Bubble has two winners to her credit: French winner Silver Solver and British victor Definate Spectacle.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - Peace Rules won the Grade 1 Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland and established himself as trainer Bobby Frankel's second contender for the Kentucky Derby. Although not by a Derby winner, as is race favorite Empire Maker, Peace Rules has numerous pedigree connections to the classic at Churchill Downs. His most intriguing connection to sports history comes through his sire, Jules, who is named for Jules Fink.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - Keeneland's April 2-year-old sale produced a record gross and its second-highest average Tuesday, a sign that racehorse buyers are feeling confident about their chances to make money in purses.
The gross of $21,440,000 for 128 horses sold during the one-day sale breezed easily past 1999's previous record of $18,560,000 for 123 lots.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - Wild Applause - dam of Grade 1 winner Eastern Echo and graded winners Yell, Blare of Trumpets, and Roar - died April 2 of foaling complications at 22.
The mare, who resided at Claiborne Farm in Paris, Ky., died at the Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital in Lexington, according to a report in the Thoroughbred Times on Tuesday.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - Keeneland's one-day select 2-year-old sale shot off some early fireworks Tuesday, courtesy of master showman James McIngvale. McIngvale, better known in some quarters as Mattress Mac after his furniture stores, bought Hip No. 58, a $950,000 Menifee colt out of Pacific City after a lively bidding war that also included underbidder John Oxley and trainer D. Wayne Lukas. The $950,000 was the highest price as of 6:30 p.m. Eastern with selling still underway.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - An equine fatality disrupted Keeneland's second and final under-tack preview on Monday in advance of the April 15 2-year-olds in training sale at the track.
Hip No. 81 had just posted one of the day's faster times of 21.00 seconds for a quarter-mile when he broke down. The chestnut Hennessy-Scivolina colt, from the family of European Horse of the Year Peintre Celebre, was euthanized. Leprechaun Racing, agent, had consigned the colt. The colt's exercise rider was unharmed.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - The Eastern Echo gelding Buddy Gil, the winner of last weekend's Santa Anita Derby, certainly looks like this year's version of War Emblem. He is by a well-bred stallion who had fallen from favor and been exiled from the Bluegrass; the same scenario applied to War Emblem's sire, Our Emblem.