ELMONT, N.Y. - Funny Cide, a 2-year-old New York-bred who won his stakes debut in last Sunday's $83,975 Bertram F. Bongard at Belmont Park, looks like a serious racehorse.

A son of Distorted Humor, Funny Cide, a gelding, won the restricted Bongard by nine lengths under a hand ride and stopped the clock for seven furlongs in 1:22.95, a stakes record. The 103 Beyer Speed Figure he earned for the win is tied for the highest Beyer by a 2-year-old this year, matching the figure set by Sky Mesa in the Grade 1 Hopeful.

In Funny Cide's previous start, his career debut, he won by

A record-setting filly by Sadler's Wells helped Tattersalls avoid any show of weakness for its most prestigious sale, the Houghton yearling sale at Newmarket, England, which ended Thursday night after two days of selling.

The filly, purchased for $3.2 million, was the highest-priced yearling to sell at auction this year, and her price nudged up Tattersalls' numbers so that it could show a slight gain over last year's average price. The average price increased 2.1 percent to $348,199.

Exhibiting the strengths and weaknesses common to yearling sales this year, the three-day Fasig-Tipton Midlantic eastern fall yearling sale in Timonium, Md., ended Wednesday with slight drops in average price and gross receipts but a double-digit increase in the median price.

A full brother to Italian champion Central Park had brought the top price at the Tattersalls Houghton yearling sale in Newmarket, England, by late afternoon on Wednesday, first day of the two-day sale.

The colt, by In the Wings out of the Relkino mare Park Special, was purchased for $1,032,750 by Demi O'Byrne, the veterinarian who represents Coolmore Stud. The colt is a full brother to another stakes winner and a half-brother to stakes winner Velvet Moon.

Kelly Kip, who set three track records during his racing career, arrived over the weekend at Highcliff Farm in Delanson, N.Y., to stand the 2003 breeding season.

The stud fee for Kelly Kip, owned by Hobeau Farm, is $2,500.

An 8-year-old son of Kipper Kelly, Kelly Kip stood his first two seasons in Florida at Meadowbrook of Ocala Jockey Club for $3,500. His first foals are now weanlings.

NEW YORK - A number of farms in Kentucky have reacted to falling yearling prices at this summer's auctions by reducing the stud fees of their stallions, especially at the high end of the market.

Claiborne Farm will reduce the fees on four of its stallions, including freshman sire Coronado's Quest, whose fee will be slashed from $75,000 to $35,000. Claiborne will raise the fee on only one of its stallions, Pulpit, the sire of Hopeful Stakes winner Sky Mesa. Pulpit will stand for $75,000 next year, compared with $60,000 in 2002.

McMahon of Saratoga Thoroughbreds, a prominent New York breeding farm, is expanding.

Joe McMahon, who owns the farm with his wife, Anne, said three 20-stall barns are presently being built on land that is located a few miles down the road from their main property.

The farm's primary property rests on 160 acres near Saratoga Race Course and is home to several stallions, including one of New York's most popular sires, Personal Flag, as well as year-round boarders.

ARCADIA, Calif. - The launch of the Sunshine Millions stakes day for California-breds and Florida-breds in January will give California-breds a third day of stakes worth at least $1 million in 2003.

Scheduled for Jan. 25, the Sunshine Millions program will feature eight stakes worth $3.6 million, with four races run at Gulfstream Park and four at Santa Anita. The races will be restricted to horses bred in those two states.

Charles Fipke's life story reads like an adventure novel and, in fact, his biography has already been written.

An Edmonton-born geologist, Fipke has been called the "Indiana Jones of mining exploration," having traveled to New Guinea, South Africa, the rain forests of the Amazon, and the Arctic tundra.

In 1991, Fipke and colleague Stewart Blusson discovered the first major diamond mine in Canada - the multi-billion-dollar Ekati mine - which is projected to produce $7 billion worth of diamonds over the next 25 years.

No Thoroughbred horsepeople bridge the states of Delaware, Maryland, and Pennsylvania quite like Bernard and Arlene Daney. The Daneys live in Delaware, where Bernard is serving his second six-year term as chairman of the Thoroughbred Racing Commission, but their horses typically are foaled in Pennsylvania and raised at Elberton Hill Farm in Darlington, Md., under the care of their daughter-in-law Amy Hopkins Daney.