LEXINGTON, Ky. - Thirty years ago, while Saudi Arabian prince Khalid Abdullah was conducting some family business in France, he found himself sipping coffee and idly watching trotting races on television. The scene gave him a thought.
"One day," he told himself, "I think I would like to own a horse."
They saved the best for last at Friday's final session of the Ocala Breeders' Sales Co.'s spring 2-year-old auction in Ocala, Fla. A $380,000 Double Honor filly that sold Friday brought by far the auction's highest bid as of 5:30 p.m., outstripping the auction-leading price of $175,000 for a Larrupin' filly who sold Wednesday.
A major perk of New York's breeding and racing program is that it permits mares to be bred annually to out-of-state stallions.
Funny Cide and Carson Hollow, currently among the top horses in training, are New York-breds who were sired by leading Kentucky stallions.
There are also advantages to breeding to New York-based stallions and one of them is the New York Stallion Series, which features a race for 3-year-olds of each sex at Aqueduct on Sunday - the $150,000 Times Square and the $150,000 Park Avenue.
Harold C. Plumley, who a decade ago developed a cattle farm and a Thoroughbred breeding and training facility in Ocala, has been elected and then re-elected president of the Florida Thoroughbred Breeders' and Owners' Association.
With the Ocala Breeders' Sales Co.'s 2-year-old sale going on this past week, you would have expected Plumley to make an appearance. Instead, Plumley was in Australia watching his horse Star of Florida in the Group 2 Galaxy Stakes at Randwick, according to Richard Kent, general manager of Plumley Farm.
David Moose runs a landscaping business in Baltimore County, Md., but he also has a keen eye for a horse. How else do you explain what's happened with Moose's 11-year-old mare Clap Happy (by Greinton), who now is the dam of four stakes horses from five foals of racing age?
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Two years after he jumped into racing with a flurry of purchases, Stan Fulton has built a stable that may play an important role in California and across the nation in coming years.
The vital elements are certainly in place.
This year, Fulton, 72, the owner of Sunland Park in New Mexico, has a 50-strong stable of 2- and 3-year-olds that he compiled in 23 months.
People have finally stopped being surprised by In Excess. The Irish-bred stallion, once expected to be a major runner on English turf, became a star in America instead. Despite an obscure pedigree, he has turned out to be one of the nation's most versatile and successful stallions.
After gains at its first session and declines at its second, the Ocala Breeders' Sales Co.'s spring juvenile sale in Florida saw the top prices tail off further at the next-to-last session Thursday.
As of 5 p.m., the day's highest price was $75,000 for two horses: Hip No. 646, a Storm Boot-Miss O'Keefe colt that Larry Durocher Jr. bought from Sez Who Thoroughbreds, and Hip No. 709, a Capture the Gold-Norm's Louise filly that ASG Stable and partners bought from Price Thoroughbreds, agent.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - A strange and unaccustomed quiet has settled on John Salzman's barn, because the Heat is gone. Champion filly Xtra Heat has shipped from Salzman's training barn to her owners' ClassicStar Farm in Kentucky. Now she will try to pass on to her foals the speed and gameness she showed at the racetrack.
"She's been sent home to be bred," Salzman said, adding that she left his barn April 17.
She is passing from the excitement and activity of racing life to the pastoral calm of Bluegrass farms.
