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Programming by many of the Clubs in NZ is very poor! Nelson deserves what it gets with having these mile races on the second day of their meetings nowadays! Lunacy that they think that mile standing starts on that track is going tonentice punters to wager! Miss away slightly and you might as well pull the horse up? Unfortunately we have got people with very limited business sense continuing to make decisions that are not in the best interests of harness racing! For those that are punting in those miles, all the best as there will be some upsets over that distance you would think? -
By Wandering Eyes · Posted
Making his 13th start of the year and 100th of his career, the 11-year-old gelding Surprsinglyperfect has been named the National Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association's 2025 National Claiming Horse of the Year.View the full article -
By Wandering Eyes · Posted
Springboard Mile Stakes victor Express Kid (Bodexpress), a California-bred with 10 points on the Road to the Kentucky Derby, brought down the gavel for $800,000 on the Fasig-Tipton Digital platform Friday. The freshly minted 3-year-old sold to Brad Kleven and was consigned by Paramount Sales, agent. “We live for results like this one,” said Paddy Campion of Paramount Sales. “A good horse really can come from anywhere and it's made all the more rewarding when you have connections like owner Steve Haahr and trainer Wade Rarick who, from the little time I've spent dealing with them, it's obvious are genuine people and love the sport. There were some serious judges that were after this horse. We wish Mr. Kleven the very best of luck with his purchase and hope to see Express Kid on the first Saturday in May.” Express Kid posted a 6 1/4-length win in Remington Park's Springboard Mile Stakes Dec. 20 and also placed in the Prairie Meadows Freshman Stakes last year. He has three wins and a third from five career starts with earnings of $236,902. “This flash sale was a great way to kick off our digital sales for 2026,” said Fasig-Tipton President Boyd Browning. “Our platform continues to offer quality horses and produce outstanding results for sellers. We look forward to launching our regularly scheduled January Digital Sale on Thursday, January 15, which will include nearly 250 offerings.” The January Digital Sale, to be held Jan. 15-20, is Fasig-Tipton's next digital offering. Express Kid was offered in a one-horse flash sale. The post Springboard Mile Winner Express Kid Hammers for $800,000 on Fasig-Tipton Digital appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions. View the full article -
By Wandering Eyes · Posted
Dan Rosenberg has seen it all before. That makes him very different, mind, from the guys who know it all. What they don't know isn't worth knowing, right? The fact, for instance, that Tim Tam was a slow breeder. Who cares about that, today? Well, it's just that each piece of the mosaic eventually adds up to something precious. Meeting Rosenberg, one after the other you're blessed by little vignettes, another miniature tile, that will stay with you. And you begin to sense how rare a perspective he must have, in viewing a lifetime of those together. “Tim Tam was terribly slow,” Rosenberg confirms. “Tim Tam was forever. One day, Robert Courtney brings a mare to the breeding shed. Old Robert, this is: Robert Senior. And he hands over the mare, and he's got this folding table, a chair, a box. And he opens the box, lays a linen cloth on the table, a vase, a rose. And Melvin says, 'What in the hell are you doing?' 'Well, I just figured I'd bring my lunch.'” Now you've heard that, you won't forget any time soon that Tim Tam was a slow breeder. Far more importantly, you might also ask whether we still meet the standards of the old school: where the horse came first, whatever its foibles, and everything else was worked around that. Melvin, of course, was Melvin Cinnamon–Calumet manager when Rosenberg worked there in the 1970s. And if you can suppress Rosenberg's modesty long enough for him to acknowledge mentoring three others to emulate him as Kentucky Farm Manager of the Year, he quickly emphasizes how their lore is collective. “So Melvin was a Farm Manager of the Year who brought through three Farm Managers of the Year,” he says. “Before that, at Clovelly, I'd worked for Lars la Cour: a Farm Manager of the Year, who had two Farm Managers of the Year. And they had both come from Charlie Kenney, who ran Stoner Creek before there ever was a manager award. And Charlie Kenney was the dean. Gus Koch came up under Kenney, I bet you there's a dozen top managers came up under him.” Slew o' Gold, between horses, in the inaugural Breeders' Cup Classic | Horsephotos And actually that sense of communal legacy extended to the way Gary Bush, Sandy Hatfield and Ned Toffey have meanwhile joined the roll of honor. There wasn't much choice, admittedly, when Wayne Hughes called Rosenberg at Three Chimneys, where Toffey was broodmare manager. “I just bought Spendthrift Farm,” Hughes said. “So I'm moving all my 40 mares. Oh, yes, and I hired Ned.” WinStar did actually ask whether they might approach Bush. “I told them that was like asking to date your wife,” Rosenberg remembers. “But of course I said yes, told Gary he'd be getting a call. Because I always hired people who wanted my job. I wasn't looking for the guy that just wanted to be in this slot the rest of his life.” After all, it had been the same for Rosenberg himself. One day la Cour called him into the office. “Calumet are looking for an assistant manager,” he said. “You have an interview at one o'clock. Go home and get changed.” La Cour was the only one who would call over Rosenberg–this hunter-jumping kid, schooled in Chicago–and say, “Now look at this horse. This is something you need to know.” It had been different at Glade Valley Farm in Maryland, with Dr. Robert A. Leonard. “He'd come into the barn and it wasn't just that he didn't talk, he wouldn't even acknowledge you were alive,” says Rosenberg. “That drove me crazy. So I made a point of having a question ready. Every time, I was going to make him speak to me. Because I wanted to learn. And if you did ask something, he'd actually answer in detail, get right into it.” He tried the same with the Clovelly veterinarians, Bill McGee and Art Davidson–who both also worked for Calumet. “Going to my interview, I'm rehearsing everything he might ask me,” Rosenberg recalls. “I get out of the car and Melvin says, 'Lars says you're okay, Bill and Art say you're okay. Here's the job. You want it or not?' My last day at Clovelly, Bill says: 'You going act like you know something now? Quit asking so many goddamned questions?'” After three years at Calumet, Rosenberg began a three-decade association with a farm being founded by Robert Clay. “Three Chimneys started with three employees, and 120 acres,” he recalls. “But in our very first conversation Robert said, 'I want to develop this into a world-class commercial operation.' So we syndicated Slew o' Gold, our first stallion. Man, we took a big bite. But the plan was to play on the international stage, and we needed to start out with a big horse. If he failed, or we failed, it was over. No second chance. But we swung for the fences and got it done.” Rosenberg at Three Chimneys in 2004 | Horsephotos Of course, Seattle Slew would soon follow his son to Three Chimneys. Rosenberg will never forget collecting him from Spendthrift. “We're all standing around this Sallee van,” he says. “John [Williams, then managing Spendthrift], me, and I can't tell you how many lawyers and insurance people. Because his insured value was $120 million, and they're arguing when the risk would pass from one entity to the other. When you put the shank on the horse? When he puts a foot out of the stall? When he's on the ramp? When he sets a foot on the van?” Then, when that was finally settled, his groom Tom Wade asked Brownell Combs if he could ride over and see Slew safely into a stall. “And Brownell told him, 'You set one foot on that van and you're fired,'” Rosenberg says. “'In that case,' I said, 'I'll hire you here and now. If you care that much about this horse, come on!'” They knew Slew's reputation, as another Tim Tam, but he proved “a breeding machine from day one” at Three Chimneys. Williams told Rosenberg that they had turned the horse round by riding him–and, actually, they were already doing the same with Slew o' Gold. “Melvin Cinnamon was old enough to remember when mares didn't come to the breeding shed but the stallion was ridden to each farm,” Rosenberg explains. “They didn't even take the saddle off. You bred the mare, rode to the next farm. But when Nashua was syndicated, they became too valuable. “So when Slew o' Gold was coming, I told Robert what I'd learned from Melvin. And I said, 'The leading causes of death in stallions are founder and heart attack: both functions of obesity. Why not keep riding him?' We had long conversations with Lloyd's of London, but finally they came to see that we weren't going to harm the horse, and might in fact prolong his life. So they acquiesced.” Three Chimneys went from 20 mares to 400, on 2,000 acres, with 150 employees. Eventually even the workaholic Rosenberg was ready to drop a gear, starting a consultancy in 2008. His first client was Kevin Plank, then reviving Sagamore. That brought things full circle. “I went to three farms before Glade Valley and got run off all three,” he remembers. “I'd go in and say, 'I'm 19, I want to learn the Thoroughbred business, I'll do anything you want.' Every time it was: 'Get out of here, kid, stop bothering me.' Woodstock, Windfields, Sagamore. Later, when Allaire (duPont) was a client, I reminded Perry Alexander: 'You know, you ran me off this farm once.'” He got a similar reception at Darby Dan, when reaching Kentucky. “I go into Olin's office and he has this sign on the wall,” Rosenberg recalls. “It says, 'Yea, though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I will fear no Evil–for I'm the meanest son-of-a-bitch in the Valley.' I say, 'Mr. Gentry, I've been around horses since I was a boy, been at Glade Valley three years, I want to learn from the best, don't care what you pay me.' And he says, 'I don't hire boys like you. Go see Lars la Cour. He does.'” A few weeks later, la Cour sent him with a mare to Darby Dan. “We're walking down the ramp, and Olin says, 'Boy, I don't know what Lars is paying you, but I'll pay more–and give you a house.' I said, 'Mr. Gentry, you had a chance to hire me, and sent me to Lars. I'm happy where I am.' He says, 'Goddam, must've been a bad day….!'” Rosenberg has since put a hand on six Derby winners, seven if you count Dancer's Image: Forward Pass, Tim Tam, Seattle Slew, Silver Charm, Smarty Jones and Genuine Risk. Genuine Risk | Horsephotos “Diana Firestone would get on her plane in Virginia, fly to Lexington, not call us, not say anything, drive to the farm, take Genuine Risk out on a shank and graze her a while,” Rosenberg says. “Then she'd put her back in her stall, drive back to the airport, fly home. That was beautiful. She just wanted time with this horse that brought her so much.” That was despite Genuine Risk's notoriously unproductive broodmare career, a book in itself. Rosenberg is not convinced that there are too many Diana Firestones around today. “We saw the best,” he says gratefully, on behalf of his generation. “We hit a sweet spot, between it being just a game that very rich people played, and the cut-throat one that has made a commodity of the horse. “The horse still mattered. For Charlie Whittingham, Allen Jerkens, it was just: 'How do I get the most out of this horse?' Whether it's a claimer or stakes horse. As opposed to: 'This is the goal, and any that can't cut it, screw them.' Horses now have to fit a program, instead of us finding the best program for this horse. “And owners tell their trainers, 'I don't want you doing any bad stuff. But I'm not going to question the vet bill. And if you're not winning, I'm going to take the horse to a guy who is.' “I don't care what purses are, you don't go into this thinking that owning a racehorse is profitable,” Rosenberg cautions. “If that's your motive, go do something else. It has to come back to: 'I do this because I love it.' Back in the 50s and 60s, if you made it in Hollywood, or Wall Street, one of the things you did to advertise that fact was own a racehorse. Now imagine you're at a cocktail party and you tell your friend, 'I just bought a yacht for $10 million.' Your friend says, 'Whoa!' But if you say, 'I just bought a yearling for $10 million,' your friend says, 'Why?!' We've become unfashionable. It needs to be a cool thing to do–and it can be. But only if you remember that you don't buy that yacht to make money.” Viewed right, horses become their own reward. Rosenberg will never forget quitting college to follow his dream, so turning down the chance of entering his father's business. The response was brutal. “You will die in the gutter,” his father said. “We reconciled years later,” Rosenberg says. “And I was able to send him an 8×10 glossy photograph of me introducing my children to the Queen of England. I wrote on the back: 'Here I am in the gutter.'” Not that he has it cracked, even now–anything like. Rosenberg chuckles at the memory of one last piece of counsel, leaving Calumet. “You're going to find out that in this business, when you guess right, you're a smart son-of-a-bitch,” Cinnamon said. “And when you guess wrong, you're a dumb son-of-a-bitch. So don't forget that you're always guessing. And you're always a son-of-a-bitch.” The post Rosenberg: ‘I Always Hired People Who Wanted My Job’ appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions. View the full article -
By Wandering Eyes · Posted
BLESS THE BROKEN (f, 4, Laoban–The Nightingale, by Tapit) missed the board once last year in a campaign that included a gutsy third-place finished in th GI Kentucky Oaks, and finishing fourth in the GI Acorn Stakes June 6 at Saratoga in what turned out to be the last race of her season. Sold for $950,000 to Qatar Racing and Mountmellick Farm during the Fasig-Tipton November sale last year, she was moved from the barn of Will Walden to Brad Cox, and made her return to the races here with first-time Lasix. Carrying 2-1 second favoritism to her name when the gates opened, she was content to watch Amalfi Drive (Medaglia d'Oro) set the pace from her outside, but had locked horns with that rival coming through the final bend. Bless the Broken was able to take command entering the lane, but still had 4-5 favorite Being Myself (Curlin) rolling behind her as they entered the final sixteenth. Clear by two lengths at that point, she held them to that margin down to the wire to claim her seasonal bow in a solid 1:43.10. The victress is the most accomplished runner for her dam by far, and the second from as many to the races to get her picture taken. She has an unraced 3-year-old half-brother named Bourbon Dream (Quality Road) as well as a 2025 half-brother by Jackie's Warrior. Their dam, The Nightingale, is due to Curlin for 2026 and is herself a half-sister to a GI Kentucky Oaks winner in Princess of Sylmar (Majestic Warrior). That sibling was purchased by Japanese connections and exported to her adoptive country where she has since produced a stakes-placed runners, namely Danon Luster (Jpn) (Deep Impact {Jpn}) and Glenoaks (Jpn) (Lord Kanaloa {Jpn}). 6th-Fair Grounds, $56,000, Alw (NW2$X)/Opt. Clm ($50,000), 1-9, 4yo/up, f/m, 1 1/16m, 1:43.10, ft, 2 lengths. BLESS THE BROKEN (f, 4, Laoban–The Nightingale, by Tapit) Sales history: $950,000 3yo '25 FTKNOV. Lifetime Record: 10-3-2-2, $484,435. Click for the Equibase.com chart or VIDEO, sponsored by FanDuel TV. O-Qatar Racing and Mountmellick Farm; B-Cypress Creek Equine, LLC (KY); T-Brad H. Cox. The post Bless the Broken Straight and Strong in Fair Grounds Seasonal Bow appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions. View the full article
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