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By Wandering Eyes · Posted
Sheikh Mohammed Obaid Al Maktoum's homebred 2-year-old colt Bow Echo (Night Of Thunder), who hails from the family of Dubawi, went postward as the 2-1 joint-favourite for Friday's TPT Fire Supports St Michaels Hospice EBF Maiden Stakes at Newbury and returned with a TDN Rising Star rosette after delivering a mightly impressive wide-margin triumph in the straight one-mile test. The eventual winner dwelt at the break and lobbed along in rear through the initial fractions of this debut. Tanking forward on the bridle once past the halfway mark, he cruised to the fore approaching the furlong pole and thundered clear in taking style to easily outclass Be The Standard (Galiway) by an unextended 4 1/2 lengths. Bow Echo, a G2 Champagne Stakes entry, is the second of three foals and first scorer produced by a multiple-winning half-sister to dual Group 1-placed G3 Brigadier Gerard Stakes winner Royal Rhyme (Lope De Vega), Height Of Fashion Stakes victrix Victoria Harbour (Frankel) and G2 May Hill Stakes third Zabeel Queen (Frankel). The March-foaled homebred bay's stakes-placed second dam Dubai Queen (Kingmambo) is a half-sister to five black-type performers headed by multiple Group 1-winning sire Dubawi (Dubai Millennium). Bow Echo is half to a yearling colt by Starspangledbanner. The post Bow Echo Dazzles With TDN Rising Star Display at Newbury appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions. View the full article -
Gamma, each to their own with how you punt! Brodie doesn’t punt on tight class racing for obvious reasons. I would be surprised if there are many restricted harness punters that are betting on tight class racing, but you never know? Lol Anyway always money to be made even if TAB try to shut you down. -
By Wandering Eyes · Posted
Renowned international bloodstock agent Michael G. Motion, who was an innovator in his field, passed away peacefully with his family by his side at his home in Middleburg, Virginia Aug. 14, 2025. He was 95. Although he grew up involved in pony club and foxhunting in England, Motion's interests initially were in cattle and farming. He attended the Royal Agricultural College at Cirencester before migrating to Canada where took a job working with pedigreed livestock. The position led him to a two-year stint in South America running a receiving center for imported cattle. Returning to England in 1956, Motion reconnected with Josephine Wells and the pair became engaged. 'Jo' was the first female to groom a winner of The Grand National at Aintree–Nickel Coin in 1951. The couple married in October 1956 before heading to America. Motion's knowledge of South America and his Spanish language skills landed him a job with an import-export company. Bored with that desk job, he decided to pursue other employment. In New York City in 1957, Motion asked a woman in a small bookshop where he might find an auction house. She directed him to Fasig-Tipton which was around the corner. There he interviewed with Humphrey Finney who hired him as a bookkeeper. He became the office's sixth employee. Motion left Fasig-Tipton after a year, but that brief tenure afforded him valuable experience when it came to the financial side of the Thoroughbred breeding industry. At 27, he secured a job at Mrs. John Burgwin's Barberry Farm in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. It was Mrs. Burgwin's keen interest in horses that pushed Motion to create a proposal re-branding Barberry Farm as a viable Thoroughbred entity. He made his first purchase–two weanling fillies–at the 1958 Keeneland Fall Sale. In what was perhaps one of the first pinhooking ventures, he sold both as yearlings at Saratoga in 1959. Motion returned to Keeneland a few months later and purchased four in-foal mares, which officially brought Barberry into the Thoroughbred breeding business. Five years later, they were among Saratoga's top three consignors by average. In 1962, the Motions and their first two children–American-born daughters Claire and Philippa (“Pippa”)–returned to England. The Thoroughbred bloodstock industry was not yet international, so the reputation Motion developed in North America was unknown in England. That all changed when American clients started to come calling. Motion's understanding of the American buyers and the markets became an asset. The husband and wife team then moved to Herringswell near Newmarket in 1964, developing their own operation as Herringswell Manor Stud. Those same American clients sent horses to them, contributing to its prominence as a boarding facility in England for 15 years. During the 1970s, Motion expanded his business and solidified his status as a pathbreaker; he was one of the first bloodstock agents with clients in both on both sides of the Atlantic. His roster included Nelson Bunker Hunt's Blue Grass Farm; Taylor Hardin's Newstead Farm; William Hackman's Orange Hill Farm and Thomas Mellon Evans's Buckland Farm. In Europe, Daniel Wildenstein's Allez France Stable, Robert Sangster and Jean Ternynck. By the late 70s, Motion extended his base to include Japanese and Australian interests. He became Tattersalls's North American representative in 1976. Motion's friend Bill Oppenheim said, “Michael Motion was a Transatlantic pioneer as a farm manager and bloodstock agent who early on was active on both sides of The Pond. Among his smaller accomplishments was offering me, a young journalist, a no-obligation opportunity to attend the Tattersalls Yearling Sale in Newmarket in 1980 when he was the Tattersalls representative in America. “It was truly a life-changing experience for me, and we remained friends and occasional colleagues for decades until his retirement,” he said. “I regard him as one of my most influential mentors. He was a great man.” Motion is the father of leading trainer Graham Motion as well as Andrew Motion, who owns Old Chapel Farm in Virginia and develops horses for sales. Eldest daughter Claire is an educator in Middleburg, while his other daughter Pippa is involved in gourmet food and the catering business in Washington D.C. Funeral arrangements for Michael Motion are forthcoming. The post Pathbreaking International Bloodstock Agent Michael Motion Passes Away At 95 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
“She has played her part,” says Pierre Gasnier with some understatement as a gaggle of visitors to the Aga Khan Studs gazes at Zarkava, now enjoying her retirement at the age of 20. With Thoroughbreds, it is the race records that separate the great from the good from the downright ordinary. Zarkava's stands her apart from the crowd by some wide margin. Seven wins, seven runs, with her parting gift on the track to her owner-breeder being her sensational Arc victory. Seventeen years have rolled on since then, and the gifts have kept coming. Zarkava is there in the background as the granddam of Zarigana, the best three-year-old filly in France this season, and another jump back in the pedigree of arguably the best two-year-old in Britain, Zavateri. All the while, her Group 1-winning son Zarak is giving kingpin Siyouni a run for his money as the operation's leading stallion. She has played her part indeed, and continues to do so. Zarkava now is not so reminiscent of the feisty filly she once was on the track: blood up, fire in her belly, testing the innate horsemanship of her trainer Alain de Royer-Dupre and jockey Christophe Soumillon. Here she stands, a pensioner, quiet as a lamb with her best friend Daltama, whose brother Dalakhani marked Zarkava's dance card upon retirement to stud. Two homebred Arc winners: what a first date. Zarkava in retirement at 20 | Emma Berry But that's the funny thing about this game, as the unassuming, smallish bay mare reminds us today. When racehorses are let loose in the paddock, unbound from the names that speak to their greatness, they are really just flesh and blood, the good ones and the the less good ones equally deserving of our care and respect. Zarkava is evidently content in this new phase of her life. She looks terrific, barely showing her age bar a slight dipping of her back. He final foal is now a yearling filly, appropriately by Siyouni, a mating that has already produced the Listed winner Zaykava. With Daltama her constant companion, she spends her days in the picturesque surroundings of Haras de Saint-Crespin, whose ownership by the Aga Khans stretches back almost as fair as their involvement with Zarkava's female forebears. Eight generations before she came along, her ancestress Mumtaz Mahal was bought by HH Aga Khan III in 1922. Five years later, he purchased Saint-Crespin, which borders the more recently acquired Haras de Bonneval, though even this dates back to the 1960s. The family's tenancy of the land is indicative of the long-term thinking behind Aga Khan III's venture into Thoroughbred breeding, and is is echoed by his great granddaughter Princess Zahra, who, when asked what advice she might impart to other breeders, replied instantly with one word: “Patience.” Expanding on this, she added, “A filly like Ridasiyna, or Ridari, their family hasn't produced much in the last years, so it's always about trying something different, working out what you did wrong last year, or the year before, or 10 years ago, and then going again, discussing the various elements. “I mean, there are so many variables, from the pedigree to the physical attributes, so it's spending the time, and it takes us a lot of time to get through the mares. But it's really about patience and reflection, and really evaluating all of the different aspects of your mare, and then sometimes you get surprises from the families that you don't expect, and it's always nice when that happens.” That slow and steady quest resulted in a Group 1 victory for Ridasiyna (Motivator), a fourth-generation Aga Khan Studs homebred who traces back to the acquisition, by HH Aga Khan IV, of the stock of Marcel Boussac in 1978. Her son Ridari (Churchill) is already a Group 3 winner this year and runs on Sunday in the G1 Aga Khan Studs Prix Jacques Le Marois, a new sponsorship arrangement which has prompted this week's press gathering at Haras de Bonneval. It was another of the 'lock, stock and barrel' purchases of a major owner-breeder's operation which has resulted in the stallion which Princess Zahra refers to as a “game-changer”. Siyouni, the multiple champion sire and one of the great success stories of the French stallion scene in many a year, emanates from the breeding empire of Jean-Luc Lagardere, who bred his dam Sichilla (Danehill). Appropriately, Siyouni first put his name on the map when winning the Group 1 two-year-old race named in Lagardere's honour back in 2009. The 18-year-old stallion's record at stud now runs to 11 Group 1 winners, the latest being the aforementioned Zarigana, his third daughter to win the Poule d'Essai des Pouliches after Ervedya and Dream And Do. Ervedya has herself now supplied a son to the home stallion ranks in the elegant Erevann, whose first foals are on the ground. He is a hope for the future, along with Vadeni, the Eclipse and Jockey Club-winning son of Churchill who is at the same stage in his career. Both stallions have covered three-figure books in their first two years at Bonneval, with Erevann being notably well supported by 168 then 153 mares in those two seasons. Siyouni, a little lower in his hind pasterns these days, is being sensibly managed, but he himself can certainly still manage, and he covered 125 mares this season. They included 23 from the Aga Khan Studs and three Arc winners: Enable, Alpinista and Solemia. “I think that Siyouni is a bit of a game-changer for us,” said Princess Zahra. “He has brought something completely different to our broodmare band, as have some of the other Lagardere families that have inherent speed, and we're just trying to treat those appropriately.” Arguably the most commendable aspect of the stallion careers of Siyouni and Zarak is, to use that old saying, that they have 'done it the hard way'. Neither arrived at Bonneval commanding a huge fee. Siyouni, as Georges Rimaud once noted in TDN, had come close to being gelded and sent to race on in Hong Kong, but he was spared that snip and was syndicated to stand at what now looks a real snip, with an opening fee of €7,000. These days, he doesn't get into bed for less than €200,000. Zarak -300x218.jpg" alt="" width="482" height="350" /> Zarkava's stallion son, Zarak | Emma Berry Then there's Zarak, on his upwardly sliding scale from €12,000 to €80,000, with a profile rising just as fast around the world, and his latest big winner, Laurelin, coming in Saturday's Saratoga Oaks. What immense pride it must give all of those people who spend their time pondering the matings, and nurturing the youngsters, that Zarak's success is built on more than a century of careful deliberation, liberally spiced with patience. That, in the end, is the most important ingredient of all. The post ‘Siyouni Is A Game-Changer For Us’: Homebred Quartet Underpins the Aga Khan Studs’ Stallion Wing at Haras de Bonneval 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
Following a sharp workout at Keeneland Aug. 15, BBN Racing's Bracket Buster has joined the expected field for the $1.25 million Travers Stakes (G1) at Saratoga Race Course Aug. 23.View the full article
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