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Alexis Badel in the right place at the right time as three smart youngsters fall in his lap
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John Size looks to snatch Happy Valley Million Challenge at last minute with unlikely contender
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Douglas Whyte weathers his worst drought: ‘thank goodness I’ve been in the game a long time’
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Golden Sixty takes giant step towards Silent Witness’ record after dramatic Gold Cup victory
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By muzenza365 · Posted
Another brilliant, bright sunny day on the coast. The council has done well in acquiring the course for $1, and I assume this is because it was sold to a Developer, with the sections being 170k. Have some good memories from riding there. -
By Wandering Eyes · Posted
By Dave Di Somma, Harness News Desk The legendary Jimmy Cassidy never does things by halves. So when the dual Melbourne Cup-winning jockey decided to get involved in his first standardbred he went all in. “I’ve always wanted one so decided to give it a crack,” Cassidy said from Sydney. Not only did he put his money where his mouth was but agreed to a suggestion by his “great mate” Graeme Rogerson that the colt be called “Go Jimmy Cassidy”. The two-year-old qualified at Cambridge Raceway last week. The son of American Ideal was bought by Hamilton-based Rogerson Bloodstock for $42,500 from the 2024 National Yearling Sales. So how did the deal come about? “I’ve known Rogie since I was 11 years old – he helped me throughout my career, we are great mates,” says Cassidy. “I go to Rogie’s three to five times a year and stay with him and Deb and he’s always got horses strewn everywhere on his table and I saw this one and said ‘that’s a good looking horse'”. “I didn’t know if it was a trotter or a pacer or a galloper and he said ‘it’s a pacer'” “I said “I’ll take a share in it”, says Cassidy, “it was just a good-bodied horse.” And it was Rogerson who came up with the name. “He said ‘why don’t we call it Go Jimmy Cassidy and I said ‘you’re an idiot.'” Known as “Pumper” because of his distinctive up and down riding style, Cassidy won over 100 Group 1 races in a colourful and highly successful career that included two Melbourne Cup wins. His “last to first” win with Kiwi in 1983 is racing folklore and was followed by his second with Might And Power 14 years later. He retired in 2015 aged 53 after a 36-year career and nearly 2000 winners. Over the years greyhounds and other horses have had names such as Jimmy the Pumper and King Cassidy and he knows he’s going to get some ribbing over this latest one, not that he’s worried in the slightest. “I’ve been copping it all my life mate.” Cassidy quickly got together his ownership group. It includes wife Vicki and some golfing mates (Cassidy is a 8 handicapper himself). “I syndicated it for him and I put a heap of my old mates in it from here in Sydney, a group of cotton farmers and others and we are just going to use it as a bit of fun.” Cassidy is already thinking about being trackside to see the youngster in the flesh. “Hopefully when he’s ready to go my mates who all play golf will come over and play some golf and then we’ll go to the races and watch him race.” “He had a bit of foot trouble but he’s got that right now, and he’s qualified – we’ll give him a couple of weeks and then start fresh.” And like his two-year-old namesake Cassidy is just taking it one step at a time. “It’s fun – if I do something I like to enjoy it. Whatever happens happens and that’s one of the great things about this game called racing.” View the full article -
By Wandering Eyes · Posted
There was a famous t.v. commercial in the 1970s where Victor Kiam tells the audience that he was a dedicated `wet shaver' until his wife bought him a Remington electric shaver. He was so impressed, he says, he bought the company. John Stewart knows how Kiam felt. “When I first got into the industry back in 2023, I was looking for tools and so I went through the traditional ones, nicks and all the different tools,” said Stewart. “And then I started going into pedigrees, looking at all the different products and doing research on the products. And then I found Pedigrees360.” In a meeting with the company's founders in 2024, he learned there could be an opportunity to purchase the company, and he closed the deal. Using AI and machine learning, Pedigrees360 identifies what is says are eight “clusters” that can help to identify both champions and unsuccessful horses, or what the site whimsically calls “slow 'uns.” The company's CEO, Mike King, said that the program looks at nine generations of a horse's pedigree. “Using a machine learning model trained on thousands of fast and slow horses, it builds a unique performance profile for each horse,” said King. “The system highlights bloodline combinations that are most likely to produce top performers and flags those that are less likely to yield champions. Unlike traditional nicking theories, Pedigrees360 goes deeper, drawing on the sixth to ninth generations of a pedigree to uncover insights that would otherwise remain hidden.” At the core of the Pedigrees360 site are the cluster graphs, with a horse's breeding or a potential match appearing on the graph under a traffic-light system. Each dot represents one of eight line-breeding attributes that their research shows are different in fast horses and slow ones. The traffic-light system makes this easy to interpret, its creators say. 1. Green = the attribute aligns closely with proven patterns in fast horses. 2. Yellow = neutral alignment. 3. Red = the attribute resembles patterns more typical of slow horses. The higher a dot appears on the page, the stronger that attribute is expressed. A green dot “off the chart” signals the strongest possible alignment with champion pedigrees. The cluster graphs are what first drew Stewart to the program. “I really liked the visualization of the tool,” said Stewart. and then started meeting with the team that founded it to understand more about it and how they were using the data.” “From the very beginning, Pedigrees360 set out to reimagine pedigree analysis, harnessing emerging technologies to apply proven methods with a level of depth and scale that was previously never possible,” said King. “This led to the development of a product grounded in line-breeding fundamentals, refined through advanced analytics to deliver sharper insights and stronger predictions which took to market in 2022.” The extension to nine generations is important, says King. “Pedigrees360 identifies the critical mass of key ancestor genetics that remains hidden within the deeper generations of a pedigree insights not visible in the first five generations alone,” he said. “The platform also allows users to run bulk mating analyses, streamlining the search for the best potential matches, and saving valuable time in the decision-making process.” The system is designed to serve both breeder and buyer. “Stud farms, major broodmare programs, and bloodstock agents have reported significant efficiency gains by running multiple stallions against their mare lists at scale,” said King. “The platform then highlights key ancestors within potential matings, showing not just who they are but where they appear in the pedigree.” “For buyers, Pedigrees360 simplifies purchase decisions at major sales,” he continued. “The enhanced Sales Catalogue feature allows users to filter, search, and shortlist potential purchases with precision. And coming in 2025, a further upgrade will extend this functionality to include breeding stock sales, expanding the scope of opportunities supported by Pedigrees360.” And they're just getting warmed up on sales functionality, said Stewart. “We're planning a pretty big upgrade in January to the tool that will really help people who are buying horses and going to the sale and customizing dashboard. Because when you go to a sale, you have to find some way to filter the horses. You can't go to Keeneland and look at 4,000 horses. Nobody can. You have to have some way to filter them down. And so we can take their criteria and filter through the horses and help them have a better shortlist.” Stewart said that the company has already attracted several large, global clients, and has a big international following. He envisions future upgrades which will turn Pedigrees360 in a comprehensive tool for anyone's business, helping users to not only plan matings and evaluate bloodstock, but to decide where to run their horses. Said Stewart, “I want to turn it into a complete 360 tool.” The post Stewart: `I Liked Pedigrees360 So Much, I Bought the Company’ 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 team at Thoroughbred Daily News is proud to sponsor, in association with the British EBF, the opening race of Yarmouth's three-day Eastern Festival on Tuesday. Nine two-year-olds will go to post for the six-furlong Thoroughbred Daily News EBF Novice Stakes, headed by Division, the sole previous winner in the line-up for James Doyle and William Haggas. A running-on second when making his debut at Windsor last month, the son of Kingman showed the benefit of that experience when justifying short odds at Haydock next time, making all to win by three lengths in the style of a colt going places in a hurry. That breakthrough success also saw Division become the third winner from as many runners out of the Listed scorer and G3 Summer Stakes third Pepita (Sir Prancealot), with the others including last year's G2 Lowther Stakes heroine Celandine, also by Kingman. Whereas Celandine sports the silks of owner-breeder Rockcliffe Stud, Division was an expensive yearling purchase for Wathnan Racing when fetching 800,000gns at Tattersalls October Book 1. A Group 1 entry in the Middle Park suggests this colt is thought capable of rewarding that investment somewhere down the line, albeit he probably won't need to improve to double his career tally on Tuesday. For context, that performance at Haydock earned him a Timeform rating of 89p, whereas his chief rival on form, King Of Chaos (Showcasing), is rated just 72. At least the form shown by King Of Chaos last time looks better now than it did when he was declared on Sunday morning. Beaten less than five lengths in a Salisbury novice back in June, after pulling too hard, he finished behind none other than Zavateri (Without Parole), Sunday's unbeaten winner of the G1 National Stakes. The fourth and fifth from that race have also won since, while George Scott will be hoping a recent gelding operation can eke out further improvement from this breeze-up buy. Of the rest, Cheveley Park's Lifeguard (Mehmas) and Shadwell's Shahik (Showcasing) both need to leave behind underwhelming debut efforts, likewise Fine Art Dealer (Blue Point), a stablemate of Division, and James Fanshawe trainee Obsidian Verse (Lope Y Fernandez), who is out of a full-sister to the stable's multiple Group 1-winning sprinter The Tin Man (Equiano). Then there's the two newcomers in the line-up, Ballybunion (Footstepsinthesand) and My Shagaf (Sioux Nation). My Shagaf, the only filly in the field, was picked up for 100,000gns at Tattersalls October Book 2 and is out of a half-sister to the G2 Queen Mary Stakes heroine Ceiling Kitty (Red Clubs), while Ballybunion is a half-brother to the Listed scorer and Queen Mary third Maria Branwell (James Garfield). He was a 68,000gns purchase at the Tattersalls Somerville Yearling Sale. Four years ago this novice went the way of Light Infantry (Fast Company), a six-and-a-half-length winner on his racecourse bow. Trained back then by David Simcock in Newmarket, he went on to be placed in five Group 1s on European soil, before moving to Australia where he's won a pair of top-level prizes for Ciaron Maher under the name of Light Infantry Man. It all started for him in the delightful surroundings of Great Yarmouth, like so many other top-class performers both before and since. From the legendary Dubai Millennium in 1998 to Europe's champion two-year-old Shadow Of Light just last year, you never know where those formative steps on a racecourse might lead. Only time will tell there's another superstar lurking in Tuesday's line-up but, with the weather looking set fair, it's guaranteed to be a terrific day to kick off the popular Eastern Festival. Why not come along for the seaside air, the fish and chips and, of course, to see our very own Alayna Cullen Birkett present the prize to the winners of the Thoroughbred Daily News EBF Novice Stakes? The post Exciting Division Headlines the Thoroughbred Daily News EBF Novice Stakes 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
There was much consternation when only three new Flat stallions retired to stand in Britain for the 2025 season. It remains to be seen whether this was a blip, but if it becomes a trend then obviously it is cause for concern. It is easy to understand why, in an increasingly commercial sphere, breeders would either flock to the proven elite (for those with mares good enough and pockets deep enough) or to the next first-season sire on the block who may be forgiven for a year or two until we know whether he can do the job well or only passably. In this racing season in particular, however, we have had frequent reminders of those stallions who can get you a Group 1 winner while not necessarily breaking the bank with his covering fee. Naturally the top-tier stallions Sea The Stars, Frankel, Dubawi, Wootton Bassett, Kingman, Night Of Thunder, Camelot, Too Darn Hot and Siyouni all feature on the list of Group 1 sires in Europe this year, but so too do Australia (sire of Lambourn and Cercene), Almanzor (Gezora), Massaat (Docklands), Washington DC (American Affair), Golden Horn (Trawlerman), Sands Of Mali (Time For Sandals), Territories (Lazzat), Gleneagles (Calandagan), Polish Vulcano (Hochkonig), Wooded (Woodshauna), Cable Bay (No Half Measures), Brametot (Nicoreni), Make Believe (Sajir), and Mohaather (Big Mojo). To that list we can now add Sergei Prokofiev and Without Parole, whose respective sons Arizona Blaze and Zavateri each played their part in adding some valuable variety to an excellent Irish Champions Festival. From the latter group, leaving aside Territories, Almanzor and Cable Bay, who were not standing in Europe this season, nine of the remaining 10 were available for £10,000 or less, with Gleneagles being the outlier to a degree at €20,000. We are edging towards the time of year when stallion announcements start to be made, followed by the unveiling of fees. Though the figures are yet to be officially announced, there has reportedly been another drop in covering numbers this year in Britain and Ireland of around 10 per cent. Stallion owners will undoubtedly be thinking hard when it comes to pricing their sires, and breeders too should think hard about where the value lies. Is it worth running the risk of your mare being one of several hundred to be covered by a particular stallion if you end up with an ordinary-looking individual? Granted, it is also a gamble to use an under-the-radar sire and then risk being denied a sales slot simply because of the vagaries of fashion. Inevitably, if a crystal ball is not to hand, it comes down to believing in your own stock and, if the market doesn't like them, being prepared to put horses into training and proving them all wrong. Clearly, though, for those thinking a little outside the box, the cheaper stallions don't necessarily mean smaller returns in the long run. Gunther Graduates Making Their Mark Eight days apart in 2015, John and Tanya Gunther welcomed foals by Frankel and Scat Daddy to their breeding operations in Britain (at Newsells Park Stud) and Glennwood Farm in Kentucky. The first to be born became known as Without Parole after he had been retained by his breeders at 650,000gns at Book 1 of the October Sale at Tattersalls and put into training with John Gosden. The Scat Daddy colt was sold for $500,000 at Keeneland September and raced for a partnership which included the China Horse Club under the name of Justify. We all know what he did on the track, and 10 days after Justify secured his Triple Crown, Without Parole gave the Gunthers a memorable day at Royal Ascot when winning the G1 St James's Palace Stakes. What reflected glory these two stallions still heap on their breeders. On Saturday, Scandinavia battled hard to take the St Leger, following fellow Justify colts City Of Troy and Ruling Court in becoming a British Classic winner. The following day, the name Gunther appeared again as the breeder of the plucky little chestnut colt named Zavateri, who bowed neither to size nor reputation when it came to digging deep to see off three colts from Ballydoyle in the G1 Goffs Vincent O'Brien National Stakes at the Curragh. Without Parole's two crops of racing age, conceived at Newsells Park from fees of £10,000 and £8,000 respectively, number less than 100. He had 52 foals in his first crop and 42 from his second. Of the 56 to have raced to date, 27 have won (48 per cent), including the Group 3-placed Fiery Lucy and Listed-placed Sea To Sky from his first crop, while current juvenile Genchev was third in the Listed Pat Smullen Stakes on debut behind the previous winners Daytona and North Coast. The unbeaten Zavateri is of course Without Parole's star performer, jumping from his Salisbury novice win in June to the G2 July Stakes and G2 Vintage Stakes to become a Group 1 winner. The Dewhurst beckons and, as a descendant of the great Zarkava, Zavateri has the family behind him to allow owners Mick and Janice Mariscotti and trainer Eve Johnson Houghton to dream of next year's Classics. Sergei Prokofiev Calls The Tune The statuesque Sergei Prokofiev retired to stud at the same time as Without Parole, joining Whitsbury Manor Stud at an opening fee of £6,500. A son of Scat Daddy, his best victory came in the G3 Cornwallis Stakes over the minimum trip, and over that same distance he is now a Group 1 sire after his son Arizona Blaze took Sunday's Flying Five Stakes for Amo Racing. David Egan and Kia Joorabchian celebrate Arizona Blaze's win | Racingfotos An admirably tough colt, Arizona Blaze, who was bred by Andrew Bengough and Partners, had been his sire's first winner on March 18, 2024, and he ran a further eight times last year, never finishing out of the first four and beating subsequent Classic winner Camille Pissarro when winning the G3 Marble Hill Stakes. In his final start of last season he was a close second to Magnum Force in the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf. This year, four of his eight starts to date have resulted in victory and he now has a deserved Group 1 tag against his name. Sergei Prokofiev is also responsible for the Listed winner Enchanting Empress and four other black-type earners, but arguably his most impressive horse of this campaign after Arizona Blaze has been Song Of The Clyde. An £85,000 yearling from Goffs UK by his trainer Clive Cox, the Middleham Park Racing colour-bearer has earned £438,790 from five starts this year, chiefly from his victory in the Harry's Half Million at York, and he was also runner-up last week to Calendar Girl, a daughter of Advertise, in the Weatherbys Scientific £300,000 2-Y-O Stakes. Burke's Shining Example While Aidan O'Brien had to concede the National Stakes to Eve Johnson Houghton, narrowly missing out on making Gstaad (Starspangledbanner) a Group 1 winner like his half-brother Vandeek (Havana Grey), the master of Ballydoyle did collect three of the weekend's top-level contests. With the help of Tom Marquand, he landed the St Leger for the third consecutive year and ninth time in total with the aforementioned Scandinavia, the Irish Champion Stakes with Delacroix (Dubawi), and the Moyglare with Precise (Starspangledbanner), whom he and his wife Annemarie also bred. Karl Burke laid down the most impressive challenge for Britain at the Irish Champions Festival, with Fallen Angel (Too Darn Hot) claiming her fourth Group 1 victory in the Matron Stakes, Convergent (Fascinating Rock) winning the G3 CMG Group Stakes and Royal Champion (Shamardal), Venetian Sun (Starman) and Al Qareem (Awtaad) each finishing third in the Irish Champion, Moyglare and Irish St Leger respectively. Burke and his jockey Clifford Lee also scooped €135,500 for the victory of Alparslan (Dandy Man) in the Tattersalls Ireland Super Auction Stakes. Burke's five runners in five Group 1 races over the weekend sets an example to plenty of other major stables. Fruitful Partnerships Last year's spending spree by Amo Racing at the yearling sales also saw the emergence of a new partnership between Kia Joorabchian's operation and Al Shaqab Racing. One of their joint-acquisitions was Aylin, from the first crop of St Mark's Basilica, for 600,000gns from Yeomanstown Stud. Another promising young individual from Karl Burke's stable, Aylin posted her second win when taking the G2 May Hill Stakes on Thursday and will likely bid to go a grade higher in the G1 Fillies' Mile. Along with Amo Racing's Group 1 strike with Arizona Blaze, Al Shaqab has also enjoyed a major winner in its own right of late courtesy of the G1 Prix du Moulin win of the homebred Sahlan (Wootton Bassett). Another partnership which has been in clover of late is that of Tony Bloom and Ian McAleavy. Following a treble on September 6 with Old Borough Cup winner The Reverend, Crown Of Oaks and Dash Of Azure, the duo was represented on the opening day of Doncaster's St Leger meeting by the victory of the progressive stayer Santorini Star in the G2 Park Hill Fillies' Stakes. The daughter of Golden Horn is a half-sister to Group 1 winner Dreamloper (Lope De Vega) and was bred by Olivia Hoare from Livia's Dream (Teofilo), whose female-line ancestors include the 1980 Oaks winner Bireme (Grundy), who also features as the great granddam of another Oaks winner, Talent (New Approach). The William Haggas-trained Santorini Star will in time make a lovely addition to the burgeoning broodmare band of her owners, as will the G1 Prix Morny winner Venetian Sun, who leads the charge for the Bloom and McAleavy team this year. Gold-Star Performers This may not happen any more, but in the schooldays of the 1970s children used to be awarded a gold star for doing something well, or perhaps for not misbehaving. Not so long ago, the daughter of a friend of this column used to be awarded stickers on a kitchen chart if she had got through a whole week without biting anyone. We saw said child at her grandmother's 80th birthday party recently and she appears to have grown out of such behaviour, so the reward charts clearly have a place in civilised society. It is not known whether Convergent and/or Al Riffa are prone to biting people, but they may be forgiven if they are, particularly after their respective gold-star performances at the weekend. Convergent and Clifford Lee, third left | Racingfotos Convergent was simply a joy to watch – and perhaps even more so after the winning post than before. Some excellent camera work followed him bowling on round the bend at Leopardstown after he had won the G3 CMG Group Stakes in convincing fashion for owner-breeder Newtown Anner Stud, who also bred and raced his sire Fascinating Rock. Convergent had previously come within a squeak of adding his sire's name to the list up above, when beaten a short-head in the G1 Deutsches Derby, and it would be no surprise to see him bag his own top-level win before too long. The G1 Champion Stakes and G1 Tattersalls Gold Cup winner Fascinating Rock, whose sire Fastnet Rock died last week, has been at Burgage Stud for the past four seasons and was advertised at €2,000 this year. Al Riffa, too, deserves a big gold star for his menacing win in the G1 Irish St Leger, three years almost to the day after he had won the G1 National Stakes on the equivalent card of 2022. The son of Wootton Bassett didn't feature much the following year, running only twice at three, and it would have been easy to have written him off as a decent juvenile who didn't go on. But go on he has, to pick up last year's G1 Grosser Preis von Berlin and now this season's G2 Curragh Cup and Irish St Leger en route to attempting to give his trainer Joseph O'Brien a third win in the Melbourne Cup on the first Tuesday of November. As both his jockey's first and most recent Group 1 winner, Al Riffa must hold a special place in the heart of Dylan Browne McMonagle. Let's give him a gold star too. The post Seven Days: Every Sire Has His Day 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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