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.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - When Keeneland's auctioneers open the bidding at Tuesday's 2-year-old sale, the auction house will be attempting to continue its record 2002 performance.

Whether Keeneland will accomplish that feat is anyone's guess. The select 2-year-old market this year, which opened in February, has been buffeted by everything from Iraqi war worries and economic downturns to extreme buyer selectivity.

On Tuesday, the Marion County Commissioners, five in all, will vote to grant Eugene and Laura Melnyk's request to zone their Winding Oaks Farm property for agricultural purposes only. This request for a change in zoning bucks the Ocala-area trend of selling horse farms for commercial development.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - Toussaud is the favorite to be named 2003's Broodmare of the Year in Kentucky, and it is easy to see why. Just 14 years old, the mare, a resident of Juddmonte Farms, is the dam of 2003 Kentucky Derby hopeful Empire Maker. But Empire Maker, favored for Saturday's Wood Memorial, is just the latest in a distinguished line of runners. Toussaud already is the dam of four other graded stakes winners: Grade 1 winners Chester House, Honest Lady, and Chiselling, and Grade 2 winner Decarchy.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - An Elusive Quality colt out of Pleas Write was the only juvenile to breeze an eighth-mile in 10 seconds, the fastest time at Monday's preview for Keeneland's April 15 2-year-olds in training sale.

Ciaran Dunne's Wavertree Stables has consigned the colt, who will sell as Hip No. 62 at the auction here. The bay colt's dam, Pleas Write, is a stakes winner by Staff Writer and has produced a winner in American Writer.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - Anees, North America's champion 2-year-old and Breeders' Cup Juvenile winner of 1999, was euthanized Saturday due to complications from a broken pastern. The Unbridled horse was 6 and had been standing his third year at stud at Mill Ridge Farm in Lexington.

ARCADIA, Calif. - The selection process for the annual Del Mar yearling sale has changed in the last 10 years.

Doug Burge, the executive director of the California Thoroughbred Breeders Association, the company that conducts the sale, recalls a time when consignors were not as prepared as they are now.

"When we started revitalizing this sale, and stressing that it is a select sale, we were running into problems inspecting horses," he recalled on Friday. "The yearling would be in the field and the farm manager would go, 'There he goes. What do you think?' "

Beginning Tuesday, April 22, more than a thousand 2-year-olds in training will be offered at the Ocala Breeders' Sales spring sale. It is the biggest sale of its kind; four days of continuous sessions are needed to move the 2-year-olds through the sales ring.

Ordinarily, the annual auction starts on a Monday, but this year the sale was delayed a day because Easter is on April 20.

This is the first open sale of 2-year-olds in training on the Florida calendar, and the first that will test most of Florida's freshman stallions, 12 of whom have offspring on offer.