First Class Gal was a finalist for Canada's outstanding broodmare two years ago but lost to Primarily. Lover's Talk was fourth in the voting for top mare last year behind the incomparable Dance Smartly.
But this year, First Class Gal and Lover's Talk are the leading candidates for the outstanding broodmare award, which will be presented at the Sovereign Awards ceremony on Dec. 7 in downtown Toronto.
On Dec. 1, 57 years ago, Elmer F. Heubeck Jr. arrived in Ocala to manage the only Thoroughbred nursery in north central Florida.
In the mid-1940's Ocala was a rural community of some 10,000. Heubeck was going to go to work for Carl G. Rose. Rose had migrated to Florida from Indiana and made a ton of money selling limestone to highway contractors. Once prosperous he turned his attention to real estate and horses.
West Virginia breeders have many reasons to give thanks. With purses at the tracks high and breeders' fund money filling the coffer, there is plenty of incentive to head to West Virginia.
Rene Moore has owned Naylee Farm near Summit Point with her husband, Dickie Moore, general manager at Charles Town, since 1988, and has seen the good times and not-so-good times for breeding and raising Thoroughbreds in the state. These are very, very good times.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - The results of last weekend's most prestigious international races, the Grade 1 Hollywood Turf Cup and the Grade 1 Japan Cup, reinforced two principles of modern Thoroughbred breeding. First, Northern Dancer was the greatest source for premier international turf horses in the last century, and second, the preeminent families of breeding tend to produce the most consistent sires.
Judge T C, among this year's leading third-crop sires, will stand the 2003 breeding season at McMahon of Saratoga Thoroughbreds in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. His stud fee will be $8,500 and he will stand as the property of McMahon of Saratoga Thoroughbreds, WinStar Farm, and Taylor Made Farm.
Among the nine stakes winners this year sired by Judge T C are The Judge Sez Who, Lady Shari, and Request for Parole.
A graded stakes winner with $ 826,826 in earnings, Judge T C formerly stood in Pennsylvania and Kentucky.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - Koichiro and Yuki Hayata, once among the most active Japanese buyers at American Thoroughbred auctions and owners of the farm that stands Brian's Time, have filed for bankruptcy in Japan for their Hayata Group.
According to a report in The Blood-Horse, the Hayatas' company - which owns Hayata Farm and CB Farm on the island of Hokkaido - declared total liabilities of more than $47 million and total sales as recently as last year of just $13.9 million.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario - The Canadian Thoroughbred Horse Society's 2002 winter mixed sale will start at 3 p.m. Saturday at the Woodbine Sales Pavilion.
A total of 163 broodmares, yearlings, weanlings, and racing prospects have been cataloged for the sale, along with a share in one of Canada's leading sires, Bold Executive.
Major consignors include agents Windfields Farm, Hill 'n' Dale Sales Agency, Gardiner Farm, Michael C. Byrne, Woodlands, and Schonberg Farm.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - Thunderello, runner-up in the Breeders' Cup Sprint, has retired from racing and will join the stallion roster at Doug Arnold's Buck Pond Farm in Versailles, Ky. Thunderello will stand for $5,000.
A 3-year-old Montbrook colt, Thunderello is expected at Buck Pond within the next week to 10 days. Arnold said that plans call for Thunderello to stand as the property of Charles Mady, who raced the colt.
Team New York is beginning to take shape for the inaugural NTRA Great State Challenge at Sam Houston Race Park in Texas Dec. 7, but many of this year's top New York-breds won't be making the trip.
Beautiful America, Carson Hollow, and Gander, the leaders of their respective divisions, will not represent New York in the six-race invitational event, which pits statebreds from different states against each other.
Gander and Beautiful America are being pointed to other races and Grade 1 winner Carson Hollow is being freshened for a 2003 campaign.