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By Wandering Eyes · Posted
The 2025 Thoroughbred racing season at Woodbine Racetrack concluded Dec. 14 with jockey Rafael Hernandez, trainer Mark Casse, and owner Bruno Schickedanz emerging as the meet's leading performers.View the full article -
By Wandering Eyes · Posted
The dual Champion Stakes winner Cracksman will stand for a fee of £8,500 when he embarks on his first season at Yorton Stud in 2026. The son of Frankel recently relocated to Welshpool following seven seasons at Darley's Dalham Hall Stud, during which time he sired 12 black-type winners on the Flat, headed by the unbeaten Prix du Jockey Club and Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe hero Ace Impact. Cracksman, who has also produced a number of talented performers over jumps, including this year's Galway Hurdle winner Ndaawi, will stand in a dual-purpose role at Yorton Stud. “With four lovely stallions and some excellent results on the racecourse during the past 12 months we cannot wait for the 2026 covering season to begin,” said Yorton director David Futter. “Cracksman has settled in well since joining us from Dalham Hall Stud. He has sired a European champion and is compiling a growing list of winners over jumps. He is looking a picture of health and we feel that given his profile his fee is competitively priced at £8,500.” Cracksman is joined on the Yorton roster by another former Dalham Hall resident in Postponed. The sire of this year's Group 2 winners Amiloc and Waardah will stand for an unchanged fee of £6,000, while Gentlewave and Ito remain at £5,000 and £3,000, respectively. Futter added, “In June, Postponed was represented by his first Royal Ascot winner when Amiloc landed the King Edward VII Stakes. He is proving a marvellous dual-purpose sire. His fee is unchanged. “Gentlewave has been a fine servant to us – he remains fertile and he gets winners. His fee is unchanged, as is Ito's.” Yorton Stud is set to open its doors on Saturday, January 10 as part of the Thoroughbred Breeders' Association's NH Stallion Open Weekend. Additionally, breeders who cannot make the date are welcome at any time by prior appointment. The post Cracksman to Stand for £8,500 in Debut Season at Yorton Stud 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
For this first of four parts of our annual Value Sires series in Europe, we will be dealing with the elite tier of stallions standing for a fee in excess of £50,000, which is approximately €57,000. The names in this bracket don't change that much, except for when a grandee retires or a young upstart bounces his way in. In 2025, we lost an increasingly prolific member of this cohort when Wootton Bassett died in Australia from pneumonia at the age of 17. The consequences of his passing will doubtless have already been felt by those booking mares to other stallions on this particular list. Of the new intake for 2026, there are four Group 1-winning sons of Wootton Bassett: the French Classic winners Camille Pissaro and Henri Matisse, along with Maranoa Charlie and Unquestionable, who will be discussed in later instalments of this series. But first we will turn our attention to the heavyweights. In every era since Thoroughbred racing and breeding began there will have been memorable and influential horses who defined the times in which they existed. It is hard not to feel, however, that we have been immensely fortunate to witness the influence of Sadler's Wells, followed by his son Galileo. Within the space of two years, first we had Galileo's half-brother Sea The Stars and his astounding three-year-old season to enjoy, and then came Galileo's son Frankel. What a time to be alive. Those two magnificent racehorses tower over this group by the fact that when it came to their respective stud careers they started big and they stayed big. Sea The Stars never dropped below his starting fee of €85,000 in his first five seasons at Gilltown Stud and thereafter he has only ascended, eventually reaching his career-high of €300,000 for 2026, when he will turn 20. As ever, it is a case of lucky you if you have a mare good enough. He covered 140 mares in 2025 and that number will doubtless start to be reduced with his advancing years, but his was a banner year, with his son Daryz emulating his victory in the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe, and Sosie and Aventure adding to a list of Group 1 winners which now runs to 24. It includes his stallion sons Stradivarius and Baaeed, of whom there will be high hopes when their first runners start appearing next year. Frankel retired to stud in 2013, three years after Sea The Stars, and is already up to 40 Group/Grade 1 winners, with a growing cohort of sons at stud. These include the National Stud's new recruit Diego Velazquez, one of six top-level winners this year for Frankel along with the Classic-winning fillies Minnie Hauk and Lake Victoria. He has been a superstar for almost all of his near-18 years on earth and, twice the champion sire of Britain and Ireland, he remains a modern-day wonder. At £350,000, he is deservedly the most expensive stallion on the planet, along with his Newmarket neighbour Dubawi. Dubawi's dynasty gaining traction Dubawi is older of course – approaching 24 as we shake our heads and wonder where those years have gone since he was given a lukewarm reception at stud. He had to work harder for his own championship, which he achieved in 2022, but he has now done something that Frankel has not – so far – in siring a champion sire, Night Of Thunder. Darley's two fellow behemoths in the owner-breeder ranks, Coolmore and Juddmonte, have a son of Dubawi apiece to launch in 2026, with Delacroix joining the gang in Tipperary and Lead Artist retiring to Banstead Manor Stud. Both exceptionally good-looking colts, they were two of Dubawi's six Group/Grade 1 winners of 2025. It is odd to talk about value at this level of fee, but if you consider the averages for Frankel, Dubawi and Sea The Stars at Book 1 of the Tattersalls October Yearling Sale, a sphere in which their offspring naturally sit, then at 808,889gns (Frankel, 18 sold), 520,000gns (Dubawi, five sold) and Sea The Stars (451,067gns, 30 sold) there is still profit to be made if you hit on a good one which jumps through all the sales hoops. As for Night Of Thunder himself, who is up to a career-high fee of €200,000, having twice stood as low as €15,000 in his third and fourth seasons, buyers just couldn't get enough of him at the sales this year. Twenty-two Book 1 yearlings, conceived at €100,000, combined for an average of 611,136gns on the back of a season in which he was represented by Group/Grade 1 winners Ombudsman, Desert Flower, Gewan, Dynamic Pricing, and Choisya. The latter made 2 million gns when sold at the December Mares Sale. Darley's Dubawi club stretches further in this sector to Too Darn Hot, whose fee reaches six-figures for the first time in 2026 at £100,000, with his daughter Fallen Angel continuing to advertise his prowess, while Tornado Alert brought his number of Group 1 winners to three in the northern hemisphere from three crops of racing age. His 18 Group winners globally are equally divided between the hemispheres. The eldest runners of Haras de Bonneval's Zarak are currently six and he has made steady progress through the ranks and fee brackets from €12,000 to €80,000 where he remains in 2026 for the second season. Several of his sons are now also at stud – the Poule d'Essai des Poulains winner Metropolitan and Zagrey on the Flat, while another, Nietzche Has, who is out of Martaline mare, gives him an extra dimension in the National Hunt division, where Zarak has also been represented by the Grade 1-winning hurdler Lafayette. (It didn't do Dubawi any harm when Dodging Bullets won the G1 Queen Mother Champion Chase.) Then there's Ballylinch Stud's New Bay, who is a year ahead of Zarak in the stud ranks and who was represented this year by the G1 Grosser Preis von Berlin winner Bay City Roller and dual Group 2 winner Pride Of Arras. He served a couple of stints at €15,000 before Saffron Beach, Bay Bridge and Bayside Boy altered breeders to his talents. He has been a solid €75,000 for the last three years and that's where he stays for 2026. And don't forget Shamardal's influence New Bay has to play second fiddle at his own farm to Lope De Vega, the swaggering chesnut with a Shamardal bonce who may not always get them pretty but often gets them pretty good. In years three and four he was €12,500 but those days are long gone. The backing of his powerful syndicate and his global success mean that, as he turns 19, Lope De Vega will command a fee of €200,000. Blue Point has pretty much bossed the intake of stallions who retired to stud in 2020, though he has had stiff competition from within from the aforementioned Too Darn Hot and, from smaller numbers, Study Of Man continues to tick over at an impressive strike-rate of black-type horses to runners. Having had just three crops of runners to date, Blue Point already has two sons at stud – Big Evs at Tally-Ho, while Rosallion joins the Darley roster this year. Blue Point's own rate of stakes horses to runners is a healthy 6.5 per cent (behind only Study Of Man's 7.21 per cent among the third-crop sires and just ahead of Phoenix Of Spain on 5.83 per cent) and he has 46 per cent winners to runners. A top-notch racehorse who improved with age, like all the good ones do if given a chance, he's plainly a good stallion, too. This fact is reflected in his gradual rise in fee from €45,000 to €100,000 for 2025 and 2026. Established big-hitters Siyouni has done wonders in carrying the Pivotal male line and he has been given a trim this year, back to his 2023 fee of €150,000, having stood for €200,000 in the last two seasons. That must have come as welcome news to his many fans among the breeding ranks after a year in which he provided another Classic winner, Zarigana. Kingman, too, provided one of the best three-year-olds of the season in Field Of Gold, who could yet prove to be one of the star older horses of 2026. Having had three seasons at £150,000, he has now been held at £125,000 since 2023 and remains a solid top-ten performer in the general sires' list. From being champion sire of Europe in 2024, when his daughter Bluestocking won the Arc, Camelot has lost that title this year to Wootton Bassett. If his young son Pierre Bonnard can follow through on the promise shown in winning the G1 Criterium de Saint-Cloud and G3 Zetland Stakes then Camelot could be in for another big year in 2026. Los Angeles also handed him another Group 1 in the Tattersalls Gold Cup and will himself now join the ranks at Castlehyde Stud. As a long avowed fan of Montjeu, this column is naturally positively predisposed towards Camelot, who is as close to the picture of physical perfection as a racehorse could be. His fee is back down to €60,000 this year, from €75,000. We'll be taking a more in-depth look at the life and times of Starspangledbanner in TDN later this week, but for now it is worth noting that his yearling average for 2025 was 115,000gns for 80 sold. Those youngsters were conceived at a fee of €50,000, his previous high in 2023. For 10 of his 13 seasons in the northern hemisphere, Starspangledbanner has stood for €25,000 or less, which may well be tied to his well-documented fertility issues earlier in his stud career. He has earned his way up to this 2026 high of €60,000 on the back of supplying the two Cartier juvenile champions of 2025 in Gstaad and Precise, who brought his tally of Group 1 winners to 10. One of No Nay Never's main responsibilities has been to keep the Scat Daddy line thriving in this part of the world and this he has done with aplomb. He continued in 2025, when his daughter True Love won the G1 Cheveley Park Stakes and Never So Brave took the newly upgraded G1 City Of York Stakes. Four of his 10 Group 1 winners – Blackbeard, Ten Sovereigns, Little Big Bear and Whistlejacket – are now at stud themselves, and we hope to see the impressive Norfolk Stakes winner Charles Darwin back in action in 2026. No Nay Never has returned to his 2019 fee of €100,000, having been as high as €175,000 in 2023. The younger crowd Mehmas was described by Eddie O'Leary in Sunday's TDN as one of the 'breakout sires' and we don't disagree with his assertion. He came from left field to take the first-season sires' championship of 2020 and since then Mehmas has remained centre stage without ever being too heftily over-promoted on the fee front by Tally-Ho Stud. He is at €70,000 for the second year running and he has earned it. We are going to guess that Havana Grey, whose fee is listed as private and has mare height restrictions attached to his covering arrangements, is at a roughly similar fee. All the above comments bestowed upon Mehmas apply also to Havana Grey, who retired to stud two years later and for this third and fourth years had stood at £6,000 at Whitsbury Manor Stud. His fee is now more than ten times that amount and he remains popular in the sale ring, where his average this year was 124,229gns for 92 sold. We'd like to see another Group 1 winner to follow Vandeek, who is one of three sons of Havana Grey at stud, along with Shouldvebeenaring and Elite Status. Baaeed was a splendid racehorse, defeated only once on his swansong in the Champion Stakes, but otherwise the winner of six Group 1 contests in a row, including the Juddmonte International and the Queen Anne. On his retirement to Shadwell he was naturally given a fee in line with these achievements and his pedigree but that £80,000 is now down to £55,000 for his fourth season. Yes, it's a risky year ahead with his first runners set to emerge, and while his first yearlings didn't create the buzz one might have expected they still returned a decent average of 165,528gns for 36 sold and it is fair to imagine that a number of well-bred youngsters will be emanating from the ranks of the owner-breeders in time. Take a bet on some of his stock starting to show prowess later in the 2026 season and you may well have ended up using Baaeed at what could look a bargain price in the years to come. The joint-best horse on ratings in the world in 2024, City Of Troy now picks up the baton for his Triple Crown-winning sire Justify in the European stud ranks. Well bred, well performed: there's not a lot to dislike about him as a stallion prospect, especially when his fee has been trimmed to €60,000 from his opening €75,000. Value Sires Podium Gee, this is like choosing a favourite child (or, even worse, a favourite dog) over another. Because let's face it, it's hard not to admire every single stallion on this list. Whether through consistent support at the top level, or through earning that support 'the hard way' through upgrading their mares, these boys are the best and stand for fees which acknowledge their achievement either at stud or on the racecourse, or both. Value, at this level, is, rather like beauty, in the eye of the beholder. Plenty of people will have other names they'd have put forward ahead of these three but the writer's choice is as follows. GOLD Camelot, Coolmore, Ireland Run, don't walk, to use him at €60,000. You'd simply be mad not to. SILVER Baaeed, Shadwell, Britain A chancy year, but at £55,000 the chance is this could be looking like good value once he's had several crops to race. BRONZE Starspangledbanner, Coolmore, Ireland He has succeeded against the odds and is still reasonably priced at his career high of €60,000. The post Value Sires 2026 Part I: The Major League 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 2025 Thoroughbred season at Woodbine concluded with a weather-shortened afternoon of racing Sunday, Dec. 14, with jockey Rafael Hernandez, trainer Mark Casse and owner Bruno Schickedanz finishing the meet as leading jockey, trainer and owner, respectively. A native of Puerto Rico, Hernandez rode 149 winners and was taking out the jockeys' premiership for the second time in his career, having topped the standings in 2020. He was also on top by purse earnings with US$6.4 million and was the leading rider of stakes winners (23), including 11 at the graded level. Pietro Moran, who rode Mansetti (Collected) to victory in the King's Plate, was second on 140 winners, while Fraser Aebly registered 95 victories. Hall of Famer Mark Casse won his 17th trainer's title in 2025, sending out 97 winners, 12 at stakes level, for purse earnings of US$5.7 million. Martin Drexler was runner-up with 82 and Kevin Attard third on 65. The Attard stable finished with US$4.2 million in earnings. It was an 11th consecutive Woodbine owner's title for Schickedanz, whose runners won 80 races and more than US$2 million during the course of the season. Next closest was Chiefswood Stables with 27 and Gary Barber with 22. The post Hernandez, Casse, Schickedanz Among Woodbine Meet Leaders 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
For the sixth time since December Thoroughbred racing on the Southern California circuit has been staged at Los Alamitos Race Course in Orange County, juveniles trained by Bob Baffert swept the winter meet's featured events–the GII Starlet Stakes and GII Los Alamitos Futurity Stakes. One week after Juddmonte homebred Consequent (Into Mischief) took out the fillies' event, earning 10 points on the Road to the Kentucky Oaks, favored Litmus Test (Nyquist) followed suit in the Dec. 14 Futurity and picked up 10 points on the Road to the Kentucky Derby. Baffert's first sweep came in 2017 courtesy of Dream Tree and McKinzie. Despite those successes, Baffert was forced to settle for second in the trainer's standings, as Chief Stipe O'Neill sent out six winners to Baffert's four. With a closing-day double, Kazushi Kimura created a three-way tie for leading jockey with Armando Ayuso and Juan Hernandez. Each rode six winners. Daytime Thoroughbred racing returns to Los Alamitos in 2026 with the LA County Fair Meet scheduled to begin June 19 and run through July 5. The post Baffert Starlet/Futurity Sweep Highlights Los Al Winter Meet 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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