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Chantilly’s party night
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Gary Barber Answers West’s War of Will Claim
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Observations: May 8, 2019
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A Rare Talent
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I'm currently about 10% TAB/Betcha, 60% various Oz providers, 30% UK/US. I'll probably double my TAB/Betcha to about 20% of current turnover but the rest will not be bet at all. I'll possibly stop betting altogether by the end of the year. -
By Wandering Eyes · Posted
The 2026 Fasig-Tipton Midlantic May 2-Year-Olds In Training Sale will feature several key changes, the company announced Tuesday. Per their release, these changes, centered around eliminating timed workouts and restricting whip use, are designed to better reflect the natural athleticism of the horses, and attract a wider pool of buyers to the marketplace. Key changes include: All under tack show performances will be untimed; Fasig-Tipton will not officially clock breezes. Use of the riding crop will be restricted: riders may carry a crop for safety purposes but may not strike horses during workouts. “These changes reflect our commitment to improving our two-year-old sales process,” said Fasig-Tipton President Boyd Browning. “We believe buyer focus has skewed too heavily toward stopwatch-based evaluations. This approach is intended to restore balance–emphasizing how a horse moves and presents itself on the track.” The modifications are also designed with long-term strategy in mind: to welcome a broader spectrum of buyers. “By focusing less on clock-driven evaluations and removing whip use, we believe we can create a more accessible and horse-first sales environment,” Browning continued. “Our aim is to better serve traditional buyers while also welcoming new owners, trainers, and end-users who are interested in acquiring horses that are physically ready and mentally sound for the racetrack.” Fasig-Tipton's decision was based in part on an unplanned but revealing trial during the 2025 Midlantic May Sale when severe weather prompted the company to adjust the final day of the under tack show to untimed gallops and breezes. According to Fasig-Tipton, the response was overwhelmingly positive. “It became an unexpected case study,” said Browning. “Not only did the show present well visually, but the horses came out of their workouts in excellent condition–and the feedback from leading buyers and consignors was extremely supportive. That experience, combined with the tremendous horsemanship of our consignors, gives us the confidence to make these changes.” The 2026 Midlantic May 2-Year-Olds in Training Sale will take place May 18-19 in Timonium, Maryland, following the running of the Preakness Stakes. The post Fasig-Tipton To Switch To Untimed Breezes, Other Changes To 2026 Midlantic May Sale Format 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
As noted last week, trainers can only amplify–not magnify–a horse's genetic legacy. D. Wayne Lukas was able to draw our attention to assets we might gladly replicate, but not even he could actually alter the genes available. In suggesting that he met his brief even more usefully with future broodmares than with sire prospects, this attorney admittedly left a star witness in the street in Serena's Song (Rahy)–whose 18-for-38 record, inside 30 months, advertised the toughness underpinning her class even more lavishly than Terlingua and others. But the point duly stands. In today addressing a very different legacy, then, we remind ourselves not just of the far more substantial legacy available to breeders, through their choice of matings, but also of the responsibilities we embrace as a result. For while the loss of R. Larry Johnson in February was a grievous one for the Mid-Atlantic Turf, his final bequest has quickly earned the chance to prove a lasting one. Famously his whole program towered on the precarious foundation of a filly he bought for just $2,400 at Timonium in 1978. She was by a son of Bold Ruler, The Big Boss. (A name that meant nothing to me, he presumably owed his opportunity at stud to full brother Tyrant, who won the Carter Handicap.) Ran's Chick, as Johnson called this filly, appears to have been one of three recorded foals by The Big Boss in 1976, and never made the starting gate. But she bred 11 winners, and before his death Johnson reckoned the stakes scorers proliferating beneath her to have exceeded 40. These included Special Kell (Parfaitement), a turf sprinter whose black-type success–by a nose at Laurel Park–is succinctly but expressively recorded in the form comment: “Hard used, driving.” Special Kell's first foal, Magical Meadow (Meadowlake), was unraced but injected due speed into her son Street Magician (Street Cry {Ire}) to win the GIII Hirsch Jacobs Stakes; while her daughter by distaff legend Bernardini became the dam of Future Is Now (Great Notion), who has matured into a smart turf sprinter for the Johnson program with three graded stakes over the past year. But Special Kell had a still more productive daughter in Star Kell (Star de Naskra), albeit her four wins came at such a moderate level that she might have been claimed for $12,500 when gaining one of them over 4.5f at Charles Town. Star Kell's daughter Strike the Moon (Malibu Moon) achieved multiple placings in graded stakes company, included a head defeat in the GII Delaware Oaks, and also won a couple of stakes over seven at Charles Town. One of those was also won by Star Kell's final foal, Walk of Stars (Street Sense), who that showed the family's trademark speed before holding out by a neck. With the Ran's Chick dynasty flourishing against all odds, Johnson sought to seed it with some extra stretch. Hence the paternity of Walk of Stars herself, while her own second cover was Animal Kingdom. Admittedly the resulting filly has turned out to be another sprinter, albeit in the steadily progressive turf mold of Future Is Now. Now six, Hollywood Walk is persevering in her quest for a first stakes win: her many near-misses (recently placed at that level for a seventh time!) include a head defeat at Laurel last summer. Then, in 2020, Johnson joined the many breeders struck by Constitution's first juveniles the previous year, and sent him Walk of Stars. Their son, one of 187 live foals by Constitution in that bumper crop, was sold through Betz Thoroughbreds for $600,000 to Repole Stable & St Elias Stables at the 2022 Keeneland September Sale. His name is, of course, Mindframe–and last weekend he won his second consecutive Grade I prize in a vintage edition of the GI Stephen Foster Stakes. It's obviously huge that he should have confirmed his elite status round a second turn after being top sprinters last time. High fives all round for the team at Claiborne, recently announced as his future home. If Mindframe has struck that elusive equilibrium between running fast and running long, that's a tribute to Johnson's work in first developing sprint speed under his foundation mare; and then in introducing a complementary Classic flavor through the likes of Street Sense and Constitution. However poignant the timing, Mindframe's fulfilment aptly expresses the continuity bequeathed by the best breeders. Because if they do it patiently enough, eventually they bring us to the point where the future really is now. Honor A.P. | Sarah Andrew Clinging To Honor It was a big weekend for Maryland. On the same day that Mindframe did his thing, back in their native state Post Time (Frosted), a set-your-clock nugget wherever he goes, took his Laurel record to nine-for-nine in the Deputed Testamony Stakes. And the next day the baton was passed to state “compatriot” Romeo (Honor A.P.), who broke the stakes record in the Bashford Manor Stakes. Presumably quite a few people are now revisiting the notes that must have been entered against this colt when he failed to make his reserve at Timonium as a yearling, stalling at just $14,000. Because his was one of the more aristocratic pages in that catalogue, at least once you get past a dam, Fancy Love (Not For Love), who managed a single visit to the starting gate (actually running fourth in a state-bred stakes race) and whose production record had been largely discouraging. She did have a Super Saver colt who won the first three of just five starts, but only this year her owners were ready to move her on for just $10,000 at the Keeneland January Sale–despite the considerable bonus of an Oscar Performance foal aboard. Romeo's emergence since is a twist of fortune hardly untypical of this business, and maddening for the vendors. But the fact is that his dam has seriously blue blood, notably as the daughter of a Touch Gold half-sister (herself confined to one start, similarly showing above-average ability) to Midshipman and therefore also to Fast Cookie, the Grade II-winning dam of Frosted. Fancy Love's half-sister by Unbridled's Song, moreover, has produced two smart runners in Gouverneur Morris (Constitution), twice Grade I-placed in a brief career; and multiple graded stakes performer Final Jeopardy (Street Sense). If Honor A.P. has stoked up these genes more effectively than a couple of much more expensive mates, that wouldn't surprise me. I have always been in his corner: in terms of raw ability, he was arguably the most talented of his crop, while that physique promised an overdue fulfilment in his second career. In the feckless environment of commercial breeding today, Honor A.P. suffered the inevitable neglect of so many stallions on that nervous bubble before their stock is tested on the track. Yet his first crop contains the late A.P. Kid, six-length winner of the off-the-turf Pennine Ridge Stakes; GII Black-Eyed Susan Stakes winner Margie's Intention; and Heart Of Honor (GB), denied the G2 UAE Derby by just a nose. Only Vekoma (12), Complexity (seven) and Tiz the Law (six) can beat his five stakes winners to date, and he's working from around half the volume of some of his ostensibly “commercial” rivals. And Romeo is a startling marker for a horse of this profile, standing at $10,000, to lay down so early among his second crop. Horses like this are given a grotesquely brief opportunity, but it looks as though this one may be seizing it. Upstart | Sarah Andrew Upstart On An Upswing The sister race to the Bashford Manor, in contrast, showcased a stallion who has already fought his way through the other side. Percy's Bar, who followed up her spectacular debut with a five-length rout in the Debutante Stakes, represents the first crop conceived by Upstart following his breakout in 2022. That was the work of two second-crop sophomores: Zandon won the GI Blue Grass en route to third in the GI Kentucky Derby, while Kathleen O. similarly found herself among the Oaks favorites after winning Grade II rehearsals at Gulfstream. That same spring, Upstart had been down to 49 live foals. These nonetheless include impressive GIII Delaware Oaks winner Fondly, whose only defeat remains her disappointing Classic run at Churchill. But Upstart was fully subscribed (by the standards of a farm that scrupulously protects clients from catalogue inundation) at around 150 mares in both the next two years. In other words, he is now beginning to ride a wave that looks worth catching, with a much broader footprint guaranteed across the coming years. The extra quantity, remember, will be matched by quality after the trebling of his fee in 2023 to $30,000. It feels auspicious that a filly bred this way should be showing such precocious flair. Her unraced dam is by Super Saver out of a Silver Charm mare, and Upstart himself was as good as ever at four. But that's saying plenty: he had started out as a Saratoga debut winner (also won a stakes at the Spa), before beginning his annual sequence of multiple Grade I placings at two, three and four. Percy's Bar, a $52,000 find by Hat Creek Racing deep in the September Sale, has a seam of gold in her granddam's half-sister, who produced Off The Tracks (Curlin) to win the GI Mother Goose plus dual graded stakes winner Concord Point (Tapit). The only puzzle is that her owners seem to have found a bar they prefer to the Dry Bean Saloon… The post Breeding Digest: Mindframe A Fitting Memorial To His Breeder 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
Wednesday, Tipperary, Ireland, post time: 18:10, COOLMORE STUD LITTLE BIG BEAR TIPPERARY STAKES-Listed, €27,000, 2yo, 5f 0y Field: First Approach (Ire) (No Nay Never), Fresh Fade (Ire) (Cotai Glory {GB}), Arugam Bay (Ire) (Soldier's Call {GB}), Gelato (Ire) (Coulsty {Ire}), Spring Is Here (Ire) (Starspangledbanner {Aus}). TDN Verdict: Aidan O'Brien last won this in 2018 with No Nay Never's Land Force and is represented here by First Approach, who is another son of the prolific Coolmore sire. He enjoys a similar racing profile to Land Force, in that he shed maiden status in his second start, earned prize-money in the Marble Hill before taking on a five-furlong task at Royal Ascot. The January-foaled bay, 10 lengths adrift of the winner when 19th in the Listed Windsor Castle Stakes, encounters the Joseph O'Brien-trained Listed First Flier Stakes fourth Spring Is Here and three-race maiden Fresh Fade, who was a debut third to G2 Norfolk hero Charles Darwin and G2 Queen Mary fourth Cardiff By The Sea. Gelato, a nose shy of Spring Is Here when a debut fourth over course and distance in May, and Fairyhouse maiden winner Arugam Bay complete the line-up. [Sean Cronin]. Click here for the complete field. The post Black-Type Analysis: No Nay Never’s First Approach One to Note at Tipperary 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
Two-year-olds for both codes were the order of the day as the Arqana Summer Sale began its three-day run in Deauville on Tuesday. It was the young store horses who held sway over their Flat counterparts, and the opening session's top lot (159) was a son of No Risk At All, offered by The Channel Consignment. Named Ironhorse Has and sold on behalf of his breeder Hamel Stud, the two-year-old half-brother to Grade 3-winning chaser Irouficar Has (Dream Well) was signed for by Guy Petit at €180,000. “Pedigree, conformation, attitude—he's a colt with everything going for him,” said the agent. “I bought him for David Maxwell, and he will be trained by Noel George and Amanda Zetterholm.” For Petit, it was a case returning to an outfit with which he has already enjoyed success. At the same sale two years ago, he bought the future multiple black-type winner Nietzsche Has for €240,000 and he too was from the same consignor and breeder. The winner of the G2 Coral Finale Juvenile Hurdle for Marcel Rolland, Nietzsche Has, by Zarak, is now standing at Haras de Montaigu. Alban Chevalier de Fau's Channel Consigmnent was responsible for three of the top five stores sold on the day, including the second-most expensive store. Also two, the son of Walk In The Palk is out of a three-parts-sister to the outstanding hurdler State Man (Doctor Dino) and was bought by Gerry Aherne for €160,000. The breeze-up section which opened the sale was led by Knockanglass Stables' Sea The Stars colt out of the Italian Listed winner Bridge Royal Game (Royal Applause), who sold for €80,000 to Royal Ascot-winning owner OTI Racing with Hubie de Burgh. A much improved clearance rate of 79.4% saw 162 of the 204 lots offered find a buyer from a session in which 51 fewer horses passed through the ring compared to last year. The tightening of numbers clearly helped as the day's aggregate was up by 3.5% at €5,557.000 and the average rose by 2.8% to €34,099. The Summer Sale continues over the next two days with horses in training followed by broodmare prospects and in-foal mares. The post Positive Start for Arqana’s Summer Sale 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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