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By Wandering Eyes · Posted
Not too many graded stakes winners are raised in the same paddocks as Arabian horses; even fewer can have done so in East Texas. But if it's the horse that makes the horsemen, then perhaps dealing with more than one breed teaches us that there may also be more than one way to get things done. Besides raising stock of both breeds at Centurion Stud, Eric and Randi Moreau-Sipiere also operate an international export service, principally to the Middle East and Europe. Their charges tend to fly in bays of three, and experience has yielded some unexpected solutions. “We have put Thoroughbred stallions in there with weanling Arabian fillies, one each side,” Eric says. “And when we do, they'll never start any trouble in the plane. These guys, 17 hands, they fall in love with those little fillies. We quarantine them together and they don't see them as a threat; they become their protectors.” The antecedents of recent GII Beverly D. Stakes winner Charlene's Dream might seem similarly unconventional: she's a Texas-bred daughter of Qurbaan, sold as a short yearling for $22,000. But her emergence suggests that we might all have things to learn from this farm. “I feel we've an interesting advantage, just in having so many horses come through here for export,” Randi points out. “We have access to every single bloodline that there is, between weanlings, yearlings, 2-year-olds, broodmares. So we get to see patterns, things we like and things we don't. And then we can focus on those things when we're in the market.” Clara Kelly, dam of Charlene's Dream | Courtesy Moreau-Sipiere Family Sure enough, in expanding their broodmare band at the Keeneland November Sale of 2016, they turned up something special as deep into the catalogue as hip 3656. Clara Kelly (War Front) had cost $350,000 in the same ring as a yearling and won a Belmont maiden the previous summer. She was the only foal of a mare by Unbridled's Song out of a Grade I winner. Yet they landed her for $12,000. “We could just see a lot of versatility, a mare that could go any direction you wanted,” Randi recalls. “Short, long, turf, synthetic, dirt. She came through the ring, a big strong mare by War Front, of course at his peak at that time, so with that physical, that structure, she just had a lot of things going for her if everything played out down the road.” Charlene's Dream is Clara Kelly's fourth foal. As already mentioned, she achieved a modest return at Keeneland in 2022; a marginal gain, at $35,000, back in the same ring that September; and none at all when sold on at two. But that not only shows the kind of bargains available at auction, but also the way Eric and Randi, in taking the longer view, are often prepared to depart from commercial orthodoxies. “At the sales, it's all about which sires are hot at that moment,” Eric says. “And Qurbaan was not hot. To be fair, Charlene's Dream actually had a tremendous amount of shows. Everyone said the same thing: she was beautiful, amazing, but nobody was willing to take a chance on the sire.” “She'd been tall and leggy, kind of gangly, as a youngster,” Randi says. “But she didn't ever go through the kind of ugly stage that some do, and just really matured well. She always had good bone, a lot of balance. Obviously she left us at a fairly young age but we started following her when she showed up at Golden Gate Fields. And then, after she came to the Midwest, it was: 'Wow, something special's going on here.'” When they had first ventured into Thoroughbreds, the cynics all told them to forget about racing. The only way to make the game pay was to feed the pinhook market. But they have come around to the view that more sustainable commercial gains can eventually reward the development of families; especially through the control of the variables available when retaining stock to race. Sure enough, Clara Kelly's juvenile daughter by Echo Town is exciting their trainer Jayde Gelner as she nears a debut at Remington Park and the current plan is also to retain her yearling, a filly by Thousand Words. “Everybody told us that we had to breed to sell,” Eric recalls. “So at first we kind of tiptoed that way. We bred to first-year stallions. In those days, their fees were not so expensive. And then a colt we sold for $35,000 turned around and made $450,000 as a 2-year-old. And a filly we sold for $10,000 won $500,000. So then we decided to sell a few every year, breeding commercially, and to race the rest. We just said, 'Hey, now it's time to do what we actually want to do.'” The model was underpinned by their familiarity with a parallel market in the Middle East; and nor are they squeamish, for certain matings, about persevering with the expense of new sires. “So this year we'll be selling weanlings by horses like Taiba, Gunite, Zandon,” Eric explains. “But for racing, we've bred to stallions, like Midshipman, Kantharos, Dialed In and Frosted, that might not be super-hot in the sale ring but that produce a tremendous amount of winners. It is strange that people don't support these proven stallions. Because the first-year stallions are crazy expensive now. Now it's the ones we already know to be good that cost less, which makes absolutely no sense. But it's where the market goes, and people are going to follow the market. So you just do things a little bit different, depending what you're trying to do with each mare. You kind of have to go all over the place, to hit the mark.” Charlene's Dream at Keeneland January | Courtesy Moreau-Sipiere Family Eric benefited from an upbringing of unusual diversity by the standards of the Thoroughbred industry. His parents raised a mixture of half-breds, Arabians and jumpers in France, until he and his family emigrated to near Houston in 1979. One day a horse-mad girl from Missouri, in her first job working with Arabian show horses, brought a mare across town to the Moreau-Sipiere farm. A more significant mating would result and, after spells in California and Iowa, Eric and Randi returned to Texas to establish Centurion in 2003. After five or six years, having developed a rapport with Thoroughbreds through the transport division, they bought a couple of mares and things snowballed from there. Now their 20 Thoroughbred mares double the Arabian herd. But their stock, as noted, are raised side by side. “We usually put the young together and they get along just fine, no problem at all,” Eric says. “To be honest, Arabians are much smarter. They can be a bit hyper, but they're the easier keepers: really tough and sound, much easier to maintain. We used to joke that they're like mountain goats, in their feeding and foaling. They race over the desert at 20/22kph for 10 hours! A Thoroughbred, doing that, would be dead in two hours. They're much more fragile.” In either case, they clearly share a thoughtful and attentive grounding. “We live here on the farm,” Randi emphasizes. “It's all hands-on. It's not like we come in, give a few orders, leave. We live with them every day, and that means you can adjust according to the little things that you learn. Clara Kelly is an easy-enough mare to live with, for instance, but she's got a little bit of attitude and the foals tend to pick up on that. You don't push the wrong button.” “But they've done a very good job with Charlene's Dream,” Eric says with enthusiasm. “After she didn't run so well, at Kentucky Downs last year, they turned her out for seven months. And she has come back as a monster. Most people won't do that. Unfortunately, I think the system forces horsemen to push those 2-year-olds, especially. And when you put young horses under stress, bad things happen. That's why so many horses are retired after only a few races. Sheikh Mohammed never wanted to race his Arabians until they were 4-year-olds. He has always given horses time to mature. But that's because he's a horseman.” Eric and Randi have great faith in the environment where they raise horses; and also in the benefits of cultural exchange, whether between breeds, or through their transport division. So if others might consider Como, Texas, an isolated backwater of the Thoroughbred industry, the other side of the coin is wide horizons and freedom from disease and overcrowding. As for the shipping, around every 45 days they run flights to Saudi Arabia, Dubai or Qatar, and at least monthly to Europe, everything from endurance or equestrian competitors to breeding stock. “We have a quarantine facility that lets us get acquainted with horses and their needs,” Eric explains. “And they also leave here in peak condition. We exercise them, and make sure they'll be ready to roll when they arrive, and won't need a month to recover.” “Knock on wood, we've earned a reputation for being able to handle difficult horses and get them there in one piece,” Randi adds. “I get them ready, and Eric has his crew that he flies with. Again, it just boils down to giving them time: figuring out the personality, so we can buddy them up.” But it's a resident mare that has now put them on the map. “We've made some good deals on mares,” Eric notes. “We bought one a few years ago, Debutante Dreamer (Proud Citizen) for $2,500 [KEENOV 2017]. Her yearling, who'd been sold for $9,000, became a graded stakes winner [Proud Emma (Include)] and was eventually sold for $1 million. “If you know what you're looking for, and sit there long enough, you'll find some very good physicals that don't cost too much. And if they're young, and by good broodmare sires like Bernardini or Speightstown, you have a chance that they will then go on and prove themselves. That's happening with several of ours now, with babies all of a sudden starting to step up to the plate.” Charlene's Dream winning the Beverly D | Charlotte Camp “We had a lot of calls about the mare after the Beverly D.,” Randi admits. “And yes, they make it sound tempting. But we're sitting on a good opportunity for some notoriety, some recognition. She's still young enough [13]. We could get a good price, but when are we going to have another one come around? Maybe there's a mare here that hasn't yet shown us what she can do. But that's part of it, too. You always look ahead–the next foal, the next race–and build from there.” As mares prove themselves, moreover, their covers are upgraded. Clara Kelly is in foal to Nashville, maintaining the Speightstown nick. And who knows what that foal might be worth, should Charlene's Dream happen to emulate the last Beverly D. winner, Moira (Ghostzapper), at the Breeders' Cup. The uncertainty is everything. It's a double-edged sword, of course, but it also gives everyone hope. “How many times do we see a horse sold for small money becoming a star?” Eric asks. “And then you'll see $1 million yearlings running in $10,000 claimers. That's because you cannot breed the heart, or train it. If a horse doesn't want to run, it won't run. Doesn't matter how good-looking it may be. I remember a football coach told me once, 'Not every kid that's six feet tall and 250 pounds can be a linebacker. If he doesn't have the heart, he'll never make it.' And I think it's the same with horses. “If every time you bred a Grade I horse to a Grade I horse, you got a Grade I horse, it would be awfully easy. And awfully boring. But it doesn't work that way. And that means anyone can come in and take a chance.” The post Keeneland Breeder Spotlight: Dream Result Rewards Centurion Versatility 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
The program “Students to the Starting Gate”, an initiative tied to the donation of 500 backpacks containing essential school supplies to community-based organizations serving families in Queens, Nassau and Saratoga Counties, has been launched by the New York Racing Association, according to an organization release Monday. Beginning Tuesday, Aug. 26, NYRA staff and Saratoga's, Gallop, will visit Saratoga City Center at 5 p.m. to help distribute backpacks and school supplies to students at the 2025 Salvation Army Back to School Expo. Downstate, NYRA provided students in the Elmont Union Free School District in Elmont, NY, with backpacks during an event on Aug. 9 organized by the Jamaica Square Improvement League. “New backpacks can help children feel confident, especially when they pick it out themselves, which they do,” said Claudine Hall, President of the Jamaica Square Improvement League. “This program is helping to make a difference in the lives of a lot of students and their families.” In addition to the Salvation Army, NYRA is donating backpacks to communities and non-profit organizations including: Showing Hearts Foundation (Queens County) Corinth Central School District (Saratoga County) Mechanicville Area Community Services Center (Saratoga County) Gateway Youth Outreach, Inc. (Nassau County) Franklin Community Center (Saratoga County) Universal Interactions (Nassau County) Prior to the conclusion of the 2025 summer meet on Labor Day, Sept. 1, NYRA will provide special offers on tickets and hospitality at Saratoga during the final week of the summer meet, Wednesday, Aug. 27 to Monday, Sept. 1. The post NYRA’S ‘Students to the Starting Gate’ Kicks Off in Saratoga 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
The Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority's 2025 Second Quarter Metrics Report was released Monday, according to the organization Monday. The report offers a detailed analysis of key performance indicators tied to the safety and integrity of Thoroughbred racing in the United States. Between Apr. 1 and June 30, racetracks operating under HISA's rules reported 1.24 racing-related equine fatalities per 1,000 starts, up from 0.76 fatalities per 1,000 starts reported during the same period last year. Providing a broader context for quarterly fluctuations, the nationwide racing-related fatality rate was 1.06 per 1,000 starts for the first half of 2025 and was 1.02 per 1,000 starts for the last 12 months as of June 30, 2025. Of the racing-related fatalities recorded this quarter, 85% were attributed to musculoskeletal causes, 13% to sudden death and 2% to other causes. HISA already has observed several issues that may have contributed to this rise in fatalities, including: Data from HISA's digital decision-support tool, HISA CHECKv, revealed an increase in several risk factors among affected horses, including long layoffs before return to racing, history of Shock Wave Therapy, repeated unsoundness and joint treatments and prior injuries. HISA also observed a rise in the relative percentage of fatalities involving the fetlock. These injuries, often the result of accumulated microdamage, accounted for over 75% of musculoskeletal racing-related fatalities in the second quarter of 2025, up from approximately two-thirds in 2024. Researchers on HISA's Exercise Associated Sudden Death Working Group found some racehorses had atrial fibrillation at rest and during exercise, leading to fatal heart arrhythmias. While historically considered performance-limiting but relatively benign, this finding suggests that early detection through routine heart screenings could help prevent sudden deaths and improve safety outcomes. While this quarter reflects an increase from the racing-related fatality rate reported during the same quarter last year, the rate is a 16% decrease from the 1.48 fatalities per 1,000 starts recorded in the second quarter of 2023–HISA's first year of data collection. As data collection and analysis become more advanced, they are enabling more targeted interventions to address areas of concern and improve outcomes across the sport. “Progress isn't always linear and it doesn't happen passively–it takes discipline, a commitment to transparency and a shared daily focus on doing what's right for our horses and our sport,” said HISA CEO Lisa Lazarus. “Now is the time for every stakeholder to step up. Safety is a non-negotiable priority. The future of Thoroughbred racing depends on our collective will to embrace change and to adapt to improved standards across the industry.” “Our team continues to work closely with stakeholders to strengthen track safety,” said HISA Director of Racetrack Safety Ann McGovern. “Through the creation of our Racing Office Advisory Group and Medical Advisory Committee, we've opened new lines of communication with horsemen and medical professionals to better protect both racehorses and jockeys.” At the racetrack level, nine tracks improved their year-over-year racing-related fatality rates in the second quarter, and four tracks recorded a 100% decline year over year–including Turf Paradise in Arizona, a facility that collaborated with HISA over several months to institute practices designed to reduce equine fatalities. During the second quarter of 2025, racetracks reported 0.52 training-related fatalities per 1,000 workouts. Of these, 80% were attributed to musculoskeletal causes, 16% to sudden death and 4% to other causes. In total, 28,707 unique Covered Horses recorded either a published workout or a start in a Covered Race during the first half of the year. Combining racing and training fatalities, the fatality rate for the Covered Horse population stands at 0.36%. The full 2025 Second Quarter Metrics Report is available here. The Horseracing Integrity & Welfare Unit will also publish a separate quarterly report detailing metrics from the Anti-Doping and Medication Control Program. The post HISA Publishes 2025 Second Quarter Metrics Report 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
Live racing returns to Laurel Park Sept. 5. The 52-day fall meet features the 40th edition of the Jim McKay Maryland Million, premium live events throughout the season, and a bettor-friendly 12% takeout on "Value Pick 5" wagers.View the full article -
By Wandering Eyes · Posted
As the meet opens Aug. 28, Kentucky Downs will be using a new timing mechanism born from a strategic partnership between McLloyd-and StrideSAFE.View the full article
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