Banks Hill, the champion turf female of 2001, has been retired and sent to Kentucky to be bred, trainer Bobby Frankel said.

The 4-year-old Banks Hill finished fourth in her final start, the $500,000 Matriarch Stakes at Hollywood Park on Dec. 1. Overall, she won 5 of 15 starts and $1,933,651 for Khalid Abdullah's Juddmonte Farms. Racing in three countries, Banks Hill won five stakes, including three Grade or Group 1 stakes - the 2001 Coronation Stakes at Ascot, England, the 2001 Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Turf at Belmont Park, and the Prix Jacques le Marois in August in France.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - Champion mare Sunline will not be coming to the Keeneland January sale after all, according to a report Sunday in New Zealand's Thoroughbred News.

Fasig-Tipton Midlantic's two-day December mixed sale saw sharp declines of almost 40 percent in gross revenue and average price on its opening day, Sunday, at Timonium, Md.

The auction's first session sold 188 lots for total receipts of $823,100, down 39 percent from the total brought by 192 lots in the equivalent session last year. The first-session average plummeted by 37 percent this year to $4,378. The median was off only slightly, declining from last year's $2,700 to $2,650.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - Keeneland's January horses of all ages sale will have a major headliner in Australia and New Zealand's three-time horse of the year Sunline. The 7-year-old mare's fame has spread well beyond the Southern Hemisphere, thanks to her seven Australian and New Zealand championships and her horse of the year titles.

Sunline, who earned more than $6.2 million, will sell as Hip No. 134 on the first day of the Keeneland's five-day January auction. Sunline is a daughter of British-bred Desert Sun and the New Zealand-bred Western Symphony mare Songline.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Summer Wind Dancer has grown out of the California-bred 2-year-old filly division this fall.

After winning the Cover Gal Stakes and California Cup Juvenile Fillies during the Oak Tree at Santa Anita meeting, Summer Wind Dancer will reappear in the Hollywood Starlet Stakes over 1 1/16 miles next Saturday. The Starlet is led by Composure, the runner-up in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies at Arlington Park in October.

There were several positives for the Florida Thoroughbred industry in 2002, said Dick Hancock, executive vice president of the Florida Thoroughbred Breeders and Owners Association.

One is the expansion of the Florida-bred stakes program. Before this year, there were no big days of racing for Florida-breds outside of the Florida Stallion Stakes series for 2-year-olds. But this year the Florida Million, a day of stakes for statebreds, was inaugurated at Calder, and in January Gulfstream will hold the first Sunshine Millions, which matches Florida-breds against California-breds.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - Spend a Buck, the 1985 Kentucky Derby winner and Horse of the Year, died at Brazil's Haras Bage do Sul on Nov. 24 of anaphylactic shock after an allergic reaction to penicillin. Spend a Buck was 20.

Spend a Buck, who began his stud career at Lane's End in Versailles, Ky., stood the 2000 breeding season at Jay Adcock's Red River Farms in Coushatta, La., before being sold last year to Antonio Lemgruber, a Brazilian breeder.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Red Bullet, the 2000 Preakness winner, has been retired, according to trainer Joe Orseno. Red Bullet, 5, bled while finishing seventh as the favorite in last week's Grade 1 Cigar Mile.

Red Bullet was scheduled to van to owner Frank Stronach's Adena Springs Farm in Midway, Ky., over the weekend. He will stand for $30,000, live foal, according to farm manager Dan Hall.

The Tattersalls December mare sales ended Thursday with declines from last year, when a record-setting session buoyed results. Topped by the $1,424,063 mare Velvet Moon, the four-day mare auction sold 756 horses for a total of $55,400,426, for an average price of $73,281. When compared year-to-year in the sale's local currency of guineas, those figures were down 6 percent and 4 percent, respectively.

November, traditionally the major month to offer broodmares and weanlings, was a pleasant surprise for Thoroughbred sellers, who feared the worst after 30-percent declines in the major yearling sales.

Two of the season's largest and most important breeding stock sales - the Keeneland November auction in Kentucky and the Tattersalls weanling sales in England - produced substantial revenue gains.