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446 Graded Races in 2025: What Did We Learn?
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By Wandering Eyes · Posted
Group 1 Saudi Cup hero Senor Buscador (Mineshaft) is represented by his first foal, a colt out of Oriole (Medaglia d'Oro), who hit the ground at Shawhan Place Monday, it was announced via press release. The new arrival, bred by the farm who raised the stallion, is out of a daughter of multiple stakes winner Free as a Bird (Hard Spun), herself a half-sister to SW Let Me Entertain U (Nobiz Like Shobiz) and to the dam of full-siblings SW Dancing Magic (Good Magic) and SP Thunder Chuck. Oriole is a winner producer with two of racing age. “To say that I'm excited to have the first Senor Buscador foal would be an understatement,” said Shawhan Place's director of sales, Courtney Schneider. “It's really a full circle moment for all of us here at Shawhan Place. We foaled and raised Senor Buscador, as well as all of his siblings here.” “This colt has a great hip and shoulder, just like his sire. He is tenacious with a positive attitude and a good mind. We are expecting several more Senor Buscador foals this spring and we are anxiously awaiting their arrival.” The sire finished off an undefeated two-year-old season with a commanding win in the Springboard Mile, earning a 93 Beyer Speed Figure. The aforementioned win in the G1 Saudi Cup topped his career with seven wins in 23 starts and earnings just shy of $13-million. Senor Buscador stands for $7,500 at Lane's End. The post Senor Buscador’s First Foal is a Colt Born at Shawhan Place 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 pari-mutuel field of “All other 3-year olds” closed as the 7-2 favorite in Pool 3 of the Kentucky Derby Future Wager (KDFW) while unbeaten GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile champion Ted Noffey (Into Mischief) was the 6-1 second choice, announced Churchill Downs via press release. The GI Kentucky Derby is 15 weeks away, and others who attracted interest include GSW Paladin (Gun Runner) at 14-1 and 'TDN Rising Star, presented by Hagyard' Chief Wallabee (Constitution) at 17-1 odds. The former is trained by Chad Brown while the latter is in the barn of Bill Mott. Total handle for the Jan. 16-18 KDFW pool–the third of six scheduled wagering pools in advance of the 152nd running of the $5 million GI Kentucky Derby presented by Woodford Reserve Sat., May 2–was $355,060 ($272,202 in the win pool and $82,858 in exactas), an 8.2% gain from last year's $328,150 ($254,139 in the win pool and $74,011 in exactas). A total of $856,987 has been bet on Derby future wagers thus far compared to $841,165 at this stage last year–a 1.9% increase. Other Future Wager dates are set for Feb. 13-15 (Pool 4); March 13-15 (Pool 5) and April 2-4 (Pool 6). Pool 5 will include the Longines Kentucky Oaks Future Wager. The full list of horses, their odds and payoffs, may be found here for Pool 3. The post Derby Future Pool 3 Closes with ‘All Others’ 7-2 Favorite, Ted Noffey 6-1 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
Jake Ballis and a group of partners finalized the purchase of the Dubai-based Six Speed (Not This Time) Monday morning with hopes that the colt can continue to move forward and make it to the GI Kentucky Derby. Ballis noticed the horse, who sold for 220,000 guineas at the 2025 Tattersalls Craven Breeze Up Sale, when he won a Jan. 2 prep for the 2000 UAE Guineas. Now in the Ballis stable, he will start in Friday's GIII 2000 UAE Guineas at one mile. The race awards 20 Kentucky Derby points to the winner. “I was actually flying and had a layover and was watching the Dubai races on my phone and saw this horse win a trial race in Dubai,” Ballis said. “Visually, he was impressive. He sat on the rail, took dirt, and was behind horses and finished strong. I flew to Gulfstream and I looked him up and saw that it was an expensive 2-year-old purchase, and I figured he wouldn't be for sale. I flew home the next day and my wife said, 'Did you see this Not This Time colt win? We should inquire about it.' I told her that I did see the race but that I didn't think the horse would be for sale. I ended up getting in touch with the trainer via a friend of mine, Adam Potts, who works for BBA Ireland, and I asked him to reach out and try to negotiate a deal. He's a Not This Time colt with a very good pedigree. Usually, we don't buy enough yearlings to get the sire-type pedigrees when it comes to colts. We may go and get one a year. The fact we could take on partners with this horse was important. We're hoping he can get some Kentucky Derby points and, hopefully, he can stretch out and get on the Kentucky Derby trail, which is what our partners all want.” Should Six Speed, a Kentucky-bred who was bred by Katie Rich Farms, have a successful run in the UAE 2000 Guineas, he will be pointed for the GII UAE Derby on March 28. Ballis said the colt will remain with trainer Bhupat Seemar, who worked for Bob Baffert for about five years. “If he makes it to the Kentucky Derby, I don't know if I'll switch to an American trainer,” Ballis said. “I would like to. But I guess if he were to win the UAE Derby and qualify for the Derby, it would be hard to switch trainers before the Kentucky Derby.” Ballis admits it was a pleasant surprise that he was able to pull this deal off. “We play in the private market a lot,” he said. “We inquire about buying horses privately a lot and we have had a lot of success doing that. But the private market has become way more difficult. People are just not willing to sell. It's a product of the yearling market being so strong. You see a really good yearling and you know it's going to sell for at least $750,000 or $1 million. If people are tempted to sell a horse, they put such a crazy number on it that it doesn't make sense to buy the horse. I was very surprised we were able to buy this horse.” He said one of the deciding factors was the horse's sire, Not This Time. “One of the biggest lures for us is that this will be the fifth Not This Time that we have purchased,” Ballis said. “Sacred Wish won a Grade I for us. Cy Fair won the Grade I Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint. Believe in Magic just turned three and she is stakes-placed. Flat Out Time is graded stakes-placed on the turf and dirt. So far, Not This Time has been very good to us.” For Six Speed, the key question going forward will be his ability to get a distance as he has yet to race beyond seven furlongs. “It's not often that you can get a colt at this time of year that has a shot of making it to the Kentucky Derby,” Ballis said. “But the Derby is not the be-all-and-end-all. If he proves that he can't get the distance, there are plenty of important one-turn races in the U.S. for him.” The ownership group is Ballis' Black Type Thoroughbreds, Brunetti Dugan Stables, Swinbank Stables, and Steve Adkisson. The post With An Eye on the Kentucky Derby, Ballis and Partners Buy Dubai-Based Not This Time Colt 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
Anyone who hit the Irish Stallion Trail over the last weekend would have noticed the plethora of sons of Wootton Bassett to have joined the throng this year. Five to be precise, standing at five different studs, with two of those, the French Classic winners Camille Pissarro and Henri Matisse, based at Coolmore's main farm near Fethard and at Castlehyde Stud in Fermoy. Their illustrious sire joined the Coolmore roster in 2021, having stood his first nine years in France at Haras d'Etreham, rising from a €6,000 debutant to €40,000. Wootton Bassett hit the stratosphere in stallion-fee terms on arrival in Ireland, where he started out at €100,000 and, in 2025, covered at €300,000. It is fair to say that his death from acute pneumonia last September rocked the bloodstock world. “It was a big disaster,” admits Coolmore's director of sales David O'Loughlin. But, of course, in the wake of any active stallion's death, there are still consolation prizes to come. “We're glass-half-full people. We've got four crops in the can, and we're very lucky to have had him. We've two stallions already and four or five in the pipeline if we're lucky and things play out the right way.” O'Loughlin acknowledges the role played by Etreham's Nicolas de Chambure in taking a chance on Wootton Bassett in the first place and points to the growing number of horses who will attempt to extend his sire-line. “Tally-Ho has King Of Steel and Maranoa Charlie,” he says. “Then there's Unquestionable, Topgear and we've a couple. All these horses have come into Ireland, so he's going to get a great chance. “[In training] we've Puerto Rico, Hawk Mountain, Albert Einstein, Constitution River, all very promising horses. And Twain is on the way back, so he's going to go on as a four-year-old and he's from the family of Galileo, so he would be a very exciting stallion prospect.” He adds, “Wootton Bassett was really an outcross. He's Iffraaj, Gone West, Mr Prospector, so I'd say that's a big part of his success. And he was out of a Primo Domini mare; it's a bit out there, so maybe that's one of the reasons why he's working.” O'Loughlin's colleague Mark Byrne says that he can't remember the respective farms having been so busy with visitors since the culmination of the breeding stock sales. It's not just Camille Pissarro and Henri Matisse they've come to see of course. Delacroix, winner last year of a scintillating Eclipse as well as the Irish Champion Stakes reinforces the Dubawi blood introduced to Coolmore last year in the form of Henry Longfellow. A son of the top-class miler Tepin (Bernstein), Delacroix is also, crucially for this operation, free of Galileo blood. He says of the Wootton Bassett pair, both of whom are out of mares by Pivotal, “They're hugely exciting horses. Henri Matisse probably really came to prominence when he won the Railway and he beat Hotazhell, who went on to win a Group 1. He danced a lot of dances at two and finished up by winning the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf. “And then to be the fastest ever French 2,000 Guineas winner is an incredible record. You just have to look at his pedigree. He's out of a champion mare who's already produced a champion in Tenebrism. So he's bred in the purple and he's free of Galileo blood as well, so he can cover a lot of mares around Ireland, England and France.” Henri Matisse with Paul Quinn | Coolmore His dam is the brilliant Immortal Verse, a representative of the deep and successful Mill Princess family nurtured at Kilfrush Stud over decades. Henri Matisse's pedigree could even be enhanced this year by the aforementioned Hawk Mountain, winner of the G1 Futurity Trophy and a son of dual Group 1 winner Hydrangea (Galileo), who also descends from the Mill Princess family. Camille Pissarro on the other hand emulated Wootton Bassett by winning the G1 Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere before finishing third to Henri Matisse in the G1 Poule d'Essai des Poulains then winning the Prix du Jockey Club. “He won his maiden in April and through his two-year-old career ran every month all the way to October,” Byrne says. Of the decision to stand Camille Pissarro, a half-brother to fellow Group 1 winner Golden Horde, at Coolmore Stud and Henri Matisse at Castlehyde, he adds, “We have to balance them out, the two Wootton Bassetts out of Pivotal mares, but at the same time, there's been an awful lot of investment in Castlehyde in the last few years and they have a lovely yard, lovely stallions. It's a really good stud farm: they've produced a lot of good racehorses for clients. Ace Impact was born and raised there for a while, and so was Barnavara. So there's been very good horses that have come off their farm. It's only fair that they get a horse like Henri Matisse.” Byrne continues, “We're looking at three very exciting first-season sires and they all have huge importance. Any one of them, or all three of them, could be super stallions. Delacroix is by Dubawi and he's out of a super race mare and brilliant producer. “That day in the Coral Eclipse, he was very exciting in the finish. His final furlong was the the fastest ever run in the race and he has a lot of key ingredients. Dubawi out of those super race mares is a really good ingredient for sires. You've got the same with Zarak and Too Darn Hot. Let's hope history repeats itself.” Delacroix -300x214.jpg" alt="" width="636" height="454" /> Delacroix settles in at Coolmore Knowing how hard it is for the smaller independent studs to secure a stallion in the first place, one wonders if the team at Coolmore ever gets blasé in welcoming new recruits. After all, this year's pair of Wootton Bassetts plus a Dubawi follows on from last year's pair of Derby winners plus a Dubawi. It's a pinch-me line-up for any operation, and this sextet has been assembled in only the last two years. “You never get used to it,” Byrne says firmly. “Of the six, their dams have either produced or won Group 1s themselves, and some of the dams have even done both. That's incredible. The distaff side of the pedigrees, and then the stallions they're by – Justify, Wootton Basset, Dubawi, Deep Impact. They could be anything.” O'Loughlin adds, “John Magnier, Michael Tabor, Derrick Smith, George von Opel – they have been doing that for a long time, buying all those mares, buying yearling fillies, racing them, and we're starting to see results. It's taken a long time, but we're seeing the results in the stallion yard. It's a lot of investment, but there's such a passion for it, a determination to get the best they can. “We're so lucky in Ireland to have what we have. Like Gay O'Callaghan, what he gave for Sands Of Mali, and Tally-Ho, what they've given for Maranoa Charlie. It's incredible to have these Irish families, and they've poured in so much money. “It all goes back in. There's no one taking dividends and heading off into the sunset with it. We're very lucky in Ireland that we have organisations, individuals, families like that, that are prepared to keep putting it back into the industry they love.” He continues, “It's a passion for it, and when you really see it is at the Goffs November Foal Sale. The amount of young people, running around looking at foals, and if we're lucky those people are going to stick with the game. “The pinhooking is the entrée because it's affordable, and the out is fairly soon, so if they do well at that, they go again, and then eventually they buy mares, but the mares have become so expensive. It's very hard for young people to get into a nice mare, but they build up their pot. Nobody takes out, everybody puts it back in, and before long you see them with a couple of nice mares. “Pinhooking is a great education for them. They're learning about conformation, they're learning about what works, they're learning how to buy a horse, sell a horse. They lose money. That would be the best education they get. They learn from their mistakes, and they go back in. “If you think of the older brigade, the Eddie O'Learys, the Paul Shanahans. We all remember them being around – they were the young pinhookers 30 years ago. And more Eddie O'Learys, Tony O'Callaghans, Gay O'Callaghans, Paul Shanahans will come from these young people.” Let's adjust the title of the older brigade to the experienced brigade, and among that we can certainly add the name of David O'Loughlin, a Classic-winning breeder in his own right thanks to Authorized among a number of classy horses with which he has been associated. Lest we think of this brigade as a hard-nosed commercial bunch, O'Loughlin admits to having shed a few tears when Auguste Rodin won the Derby. Later this year, it will be his first foals, along with those of the following year's Derby winner City Of Troy, among those being keenly inspected by the pinhookers. “The vision of the boss, loading up the mare, sending her off to Japan,” he says of Rhododendron's trip to Hokkaido in what would transpire to be Deep Impact's final season at stud. “We were so lucky that the mares were out there and they got covered before he got injured, and the Yoshidas were so good to us.” Auguste Rodin and City Of Troy have each had a first foal arrive within the last week. “City Of Troy's first foal is here [on the farm], and he's a very good first foal, so it's a really exciting start, because he's obviously a very important horse,” says Byrne. “He's in rarefied air for what he did as a racehorse, and he covered a great book of mares from world-class breeders, owner-breeders, commercial breeders. “We touched on the importance of the Derby but it's not just us, you see what Japan are doing, and they're building their stallions off one-and-a-half miles to two miles. Deep Impact won over two miles, so they're big believers in class and ability, and they're not worried about distance, and I think that's showing on the racetrack now, from years of investing in those top-class mares and top-class racehorses.” He adds, “Over the years, I think two of the best stallion prospects we've ever had, even before they covered a mare, were City Of Troy and Auguste Rodin, for what they won between them, the quality of those Group 1s, the pedigrees and the physicals. They're remarkable horses.” O'Loughlin emphasises his colleague's point. “Coolmore is very much about the Derby,” he says. “We strongly believe in it as the most important stallion-making race. Galileo and Montjeu, the incredible success Coolmore has had, came from the Derby, and the Derby-type stallions. We can see that legacy going on with Auguste Rodin, City Of Troy. And for me, Wootton Bassett's legacy will not be complete unless he gets a Derby winner. “I remember when we were talking as a team about buying the horse, that was one of the first questions we asked. Would he be able to get a horse to win at a mile and a half? And we took a view that with all the Galileo mares, maybe that would happen.” In King Of Steel and Whirl, Wootton Bassett's offspring have already gone close at Epsom, with a runner-up in the Derby and the Oaks. The final crop of Wootton Bassett to be born in the coming months will of course feature some very special dam-lines, too. It is unfair to pick just one from such illustrious mates, but in Fennela, a Sea The Stars half-sister to City Of Troy's dam Together Forever (Galileo), there is written more than one Derby storyline. O'Loughlin adds, “Hopefully, in the four crops we have in the can, there's a Derby winner. But as long as we're here, we will be trying to breed a Derby winner. It's the race we want to win. We want to stand the winner of the Derby. It's very much what our entire racing and breeding operation is about.” The post The Art of Breeding: Camille Pissarro, Henri Matisse and Delacroix Bolster the Coolmore Ranks 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 26 Racing on Demand slot machine-style parimutuel games—with distinct similarities to Historic Horse Racing—that were removed from Santa Anita by Department of Justice law enforcement officers Saturday afternoon will be destroyed after 30 days unless there's some intervening court action, according to a California Department of Justice “notice of intention to destroy machines and devices.” The 30-day window began the day the notice was posted, which is dated January 17. The notice was provided by the CA DOJ in response to a series of questions by the TDN about the reasoning behind Saturday's action to confiscate the machines. Los Angeles Turf Club senior vice-president Scott Daruty confirmed that Santa Anita had been provided with the notice Saturday. According to the notice, “The destruction of said machines and devices will proceed, unless on or before the expiration of 30 days from the posting hereof, an action is commenced in a court of competent jurisdiction to recover the possession of said machines and devices.” Lower down in the notice, it states that legal jurisdiction for such endeavors is given over to the Superior Court. If the machines are ultimately destroyed, any money seized in connection with them will be turned over to the treasury of the city or county where they were seized. Santa Anita is in the City of Arcadia. Daruty stated on both Saturday and Sunday that they intend to take the matter to court. “We will be seeking a court confirmation that our view of applicable law is correct,” he told the TDN Sunday. “Based on the very limited, almost non-existent investigation they did into how those Tote terminals actually work, I think our legal position is much better than theirs. And frankly, I'm not sure they even understand that they took Tote terminals.” These remarks mirror in tone what Daruty had stated in a short statement issued Saturday evening. In it, he maintained that the terminals operated under longstanding pari-mutuel wagering laws using a wager that regulators had already approved, and after the AG's office had apparently received fore-warning about the machines nearly a year ago before they were made operational. “Attorney General Bonta received our comprehensive legal analysis nearly a year ago. His office had ample time to raise concerns. They did not. We proceeded on solid legal ground, and since the state is choosing to challenge that now, we're fully prepared to defend ourselves. We're confident the law is clear,” Daruty wrote. The very public operation saw state DOJ personnel wheel the machines out the back of the Santa Anita grandstand on gurneys during racing. Given the apparent abruptness of the law enforcement operation, little information was initially shared publicly about who and what precipitated the action. Reached briefly on Sunday morning, Daruty explained that the state Attorney General's office, under Rob Bonta, gave the order. “There was no court order. There was no court action. There was no seizure warrant. This was an action of the Department of Justice under the direction of the Attorney General's office,” said Daruty on Sunday. Courtesy California AG Office There had been 26 machines in total operating in the grandstand pavilion since Thursday. They offered $1 bets and required gamblers to select the first three finishers of three random six-horse previously-run races. The ultimate purpose of the machines was to provide a much-needed additional source of income for Santa Anita's purses, which have struggled to compete with other states whose purse accounts are juiced by supplemental revenue sources like HHR machines. The question had been whether the machines were legal or not without explicit approval from Tribal entities in the state who hold a lock on non-pari-mutuel wagering in California. Indeed, a politically powerful Tribal entity told the LA Times Thursday that they would have a “full throated” response to machines going in at Santa Anita, arguing that they violate the tribal compact on gambling. On Thursday when they were launched, Daruty explained to the TDN that he believed the California Horse Racing Board (CHRB) had already provided cover for the machines when they approved the “Three-by-Three” wager in 2024. “As for the CHRB, they have already approved Santa Anita Park to conduct wagering on out-of-state simulcast signals and have already approved the Three-by-Three wager, which approvals cover the Racing on Demand activity,” he said on Thursday. When asked on Sunday if there were other political forces that had precipitated Saturday's action by the state AG's office, Daruty pointed to the sway that Tribal entities wield. “What exactly triggered the actions yesterday? I don't know. However, I will say that anybody who keeps an eye on California politics knows how much money the Tribes spend and knows how, let's say, influential they can be to politicians,” he said. Daruty was tight-lipped Sunday morning about what the next steps would be, other than to say they would take the matter to court and that he still believed theirs was a strong case, describing the machines as “Tote” terminals. The state AG's office is similarly tight-lipped about what legal triggers precipitated Saturday's action. An AG spokesperson wrote only the following in Monday's email that contained the notice: “We have seized the machines at the Santa Anita racetrack pursuant to California Penal Code 335a.” Other than to indicate “prohibited lotteries or gambling,” the language of that statute deals primarily with a set of actions once the machines have been seized. While Tribal entities are a political behemoth in the state, they suffered a rare reversal of fortunes in the courts last year in their attempt to sue and ultimately shut down gambling halls called card rooms in the state. The post State AG’s Office: Intent is to “Destroy” Machines Confiscated at Santa Anita After 30 Days 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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