LEXINGTON, Ky. - The victory by Pass Rush in the San Fernando Breeders' Cup Stakes at Santa Anita was not merely a major success for owner Michael Tabor, who purchased the handsome chestnut colt as a 2-year-old. The San Fernando win also is important for Pass Rush's breeders, Don and Dana Myers, who own Swifty Farms in Indiana, for their stallion Crown Ambassador, and for the Indiana breeding program.
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DRF Past Performances
The Ocala Breeders' Sales Company's winter mixed sale in Ocala, Fla., got underway Monday with its only consignor-preferred session. There were strong gains in gross receipts, average price, and median, despite the lack of a six-figure horse.
The Monday session posted a top price of $80,000 for Norwegian Wood, a 3-year-old half-sister to the 1994 Horse of the Year, Holy Bull. Ro Parra, owner of Millennium Farms, purchased the filly - by Wild Again out of Sharon Brown - from Becky Boyd's Peacock Ridge agency.
The Magic Millions yearling auction in Australia ended Sunday with record-breaking results.
Led by a $526,950 colt by the late Sunday Silence, the Magic Millions four-session select auction rang up a total of $29,359,604 for 545 lots. The average price of $53,870 was up 8 percent from last year, and the 2003 median of $39,521 jumped 12.5 percent from last year's figure. All three figures were records for the 17-year-old Magic Millions sale.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - The five-day Keeneland January auction of horses of all ages ended Friday with declines across the board as expected.
With no star in the catalog, the auction was what Geoffrey Russell, Keeneland's director of sales, called "a typical January sale." It was a deflation from the past several years, in which unusually high quality stock had produced seven-figure sales, like that of Mackie, who sold for $5 million in 2000.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - For the second year in a row, Harry T. Mangurian Jr.'s Mockingbird Farm in Florida has topped the nation's earnings list for individual breeders and breeding partnerships for 2002.
According to The Jockey Club's statistics for individual breeders, Mockingbird-bred runners earned $11,175,975 last year, well ahead of Frank Stronach's second-ranked Adena Springs operation, which had earnings of $9,360,102. Mockingbird bred the winners of 516 races from 3,279 starts, compared with Adena's 237 winners from 1,374 starts.
The Winston family, which has bred and raced Thoroughbreds as Star Track Farms since 1962, was rewarded with its first open company stakes winner last weekend when New York-bred Grey Comet won his third consecutive stakes in the Count Fleet at Aqueduct.
The grandfather of Star Track president Peter Winston purchased Grey Comet's dam, Jack Betta Be Rite, for $6,000 at a Fasig-Tipton auction in 1988 when she was a yearling.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Siberland, widely considered one of the top 2-year-old California-breds of 2002, may be on the verge of outgrowing his surroundings at Turf Paradise in Phoenix.
For the last three months, Siberland has been based at Turf Paradise with trainer Kevin Lewis, far from the spotlight cast on Triple Crown hopefuls at Santa Anita.
On Sunday, Siberland tries for his third stakes win in the $35,000 Rattlesnake Stakes at one mile. Lewis and owner Dennis Weir are aware that a victory in the modest stakes could lead to a start in California.
Sometimes perseverance pays off. Just ask Lucy Kessler. Kessler and her late husband, Elliott, worked for more than 20 years developing a breeding program at their 45-acre Liberty Hill Farm in Mt. Airy, Md. Beginning in the early 1990's, they also trained a small stable at Pimlico. When Elliott died at age 65 in March 2000, Lucy continued with the farm that had long been the couple's pride and joy.
The Ocala Breeders' Sales Company's winter mixed sale begins the 2003 Florida auction schedule. The OBS has cataloged 915 horses, mostly broodmares and yearlings, to sell Monday through Wednesday.
The scene switches to Calder Race Course Feb. 4 for the OBS selected sale of 2-year-olds in training. Calder is also the venue for the annual Fasig-Tipton selected sale of 2-year-olds in training Feb. 25.