Wandering Eyes

Douglas Whyte has no plans to watch this year’s International Jockeys’ Championship from the weigh-in room with the legendary rider determined to secure his spot in the event on Wednesday night. While Whyte has not been able to maintain the dominance he once had over the Hong Kong riding scene, the 47-year-old has enjoyed a form revival of sorts this season, already racking up 13 wins after finishing with just 28 last year. The 13-time Hong Kong champion jockey is set to fight it... View the full article

BEST ALTERNATIVE BET 15:20 Southwell The age of 12 is certainly towards the twilight of any racehorses career but Theredballoon seems pretty lightly raced for a horse of his years. The chestnut gelding knows Southwell like the back of his hand and despite finishing second to last after a long lay off he’s usually very consistent here. With 9 top 4 finishes from 11 starts at Southwell this course and distance victor should feel the benefit of a recent return to action and in what looks a much weaker race can bounce back with a more promising effort. The most likely rival looked a reformed character when finishing 2nd of 15 at Chepstow last month. Stop Talking enjoyed the drop in trip and the booking of Jonjo O’Neill Junior certainly sparks further interest however despite showing more last time out is still to shake off her maiden tag. Another maiden worth noting is the Evan Williams trained Newquay Cards who, despite never tasting success, has shown glimpses of ability and looks up to winning a race of this level. THEREDBALLOON (E/W) RACINGPOST NAP 12:10 Lingfield The opening contest of today’s all-weather meeting from Lingfield hardly looks to possess the cream of the crop when it comes to racing prowess but for the likes of us punters these low-grade races can often unearth a horse that’s definitely worth backing and it looks to be the case with Thresholdofadream. Top jockey Oisin Murphy is the name on everyone’s lips when it comes to the most likely challenger to Silvestre De Sousa retaining next years flat jockey’s title and Murphy has a great chance of adding to his tally with this Amanda Perrett trained three year old. Although yet to find his way into the winner’s enclosure in five starts a step up to 1m6f last time out brought about significant improvement. A further step up to 2 miles looks to be a positive move and today is the day that Thresholdofadream can find her first win. The ever consistent Hatsaway is bound to be in the mix once again. Based off handicap marks you can’t neglect Meetings Man even at the ripe old age of 11. He’s been far from his best this season but now with 22lbs less weight to carry since his last all weather success a return to anything like his best will see him go close. THRESHOLDOFADREAM (WIN) – NAP Fakenham: 13:00 – Argante (E/W) 13:30 – Dawnieriver (WIN) 14:00 – Ormskirk (WIN) 14:30 – Piri Massini (WIN) 15:00 – Master Of Finance (WIN) 15:30 – Robbina (WIN) Lingfield: 12:10 – Thresholdofadream (WIN) – NAP 12:40 – Planetoid (E/W) 13:10 – Silca Mistress (WIN) 13:40 – Unforgiving Minute (WIN) 14:10 – Reticent Angel (WIN) 14:40 – Bobby K (WIN) 15:10 – Khuzaam (E/W) 15:40 – Turn Of Luck (E/W) Southwell: 12:50 – Banny’s Lad (E/W) 13:20 – Vino Griego (WIN) 13:50 – Gambling Gamut (E/W) 14:20 – Supremely Lucky (WIN) 14:50 – Ena Baie (WIN) 15:20 – Theredballoon (E/W)* 15:50 – Emmas Joy (WIN) The post Picks From The Paddock Best Bet – Tuesday 20th November appeared first on RaceBets Blog EN. View the full article

Globetrotting superstar William Buick is set to ride mercurial Pakistan Star in next month’s Longines Hong Kong Vase (2,400m) with connections making moves to secure the jockey. Trainer Tony Cruz confirmed contact had been made with Buick after the five-year-old’s flop last Sunday where he finished 18 lengths behind eventual winner Eagle Way. Karis Teetan has been aboard the gelding in all three starts this season, with the dual Group One winner looking a shadow of himself, even... View the full article

Tim Cahill will receive a special send-off when he makes his final appearance for the Socceroos — but what’s been the greatest goodbye in Australian sports history? View the full article

Stocking his stable with fresh European blood, trainer Chad Brown has entered Irish-bred Stella di Camelot (IRE) into the $200,000 Mrs. Revere Stakes (G2T) for 3-year-old fillies at Churchill Downs. View the full article

Hong Kong beckons as Cruiser scores sublime first-up win View the full article

Freedman one step closer to title after treble View the full article

Beasley praises Snip's four-win feat View the full article

Thunder Dragon keeps up Logan surge of form View the full article

Horses' test results November 17 View the full article

Horses' body weights November 20 View the full article

Track conditions and course scratchings November 20 View the full article

Horses' body weights November 20 View the full article

His father always told him how his were “the first footsteps in the snow.” Long days, hard work, crepe paper and cork factories: a classic immigrant tale of New York. But there was an intellectual legacy, too. The man spoke 13 languages. Thirteen! Now Peter Brant is in turn reiterating to the next generation-and he has no fewer than nine children-that wealth alone is no guarantee of fulfilment, that it must be sustained by engagement with the challenges and beauty of a world widened by privilege. “I had a father I was very close to, and not a day goes by where I don’t think about him,” Brant says. “He was a great man. And he always told me that what you have between your ears is all you’ve got. And never to count on anything other than that, because it will lead to misfortune. And I try to tell the same thing to my kids.” Sure enough, while his twin passions plainly require uncommon funds, both his art collection and his racing stable measure resources of quite another kind, if equally rare. For both answer the same kind of inner need. Nor is it merely a question of a Thoroughbred’s aesthetic appeal-so familiar, after all, that Lord Howard de Walden even had his apricot silks chosen by the painter Augustus John to complement the green backdrop of a racecourse. There is a seamless integrity between Brant, the owner of racehorses, and Brant, the collector of modern art; between his curiosity about the mysteries of the creative process, and the breeding of an animal that so perfectly combines form and function. His stable represents a parallel process of collection and curation, in the hope of turning up a masterpiece. Extending the analogy, we might speak of “early Brant” and “late Brant” respectively to describe the likes of champion Gulch, during his first spell in the sport, or the filly who sealed his comeback from a long exile at the Breeders’ Cup earlier this month. The success of Sistercharlie (Ire) (Myboycharlie {Ire})–exported from France last year–in the Filly & Mare Turf represented a first racetrack headline on the scale of those Brant has been making at the sales, either side of the Atlantic, since returning to the fray in 2016 (notably at the Wildenstein dispersal). “It meant a lot,” Brant admits. “It has been such a pleasure to be around a great horse, just to watch her being trained over the last year or so. Especially after she got sick on us when she came over and ran in the Belmont Oaks, a case of pneumonia that was nip-and-tuck for a while. Gary Priest [veterinarian] did a great job with her, as they did in the [Cornell] Ruffian [Equine Clinic] at Belmont Park, where she was for about 10 days. Slowly, we got her back into training, and Chad [Brown, trainer] did a great job taking care of her.” The first piece of art Brant ever bought was by a young guy named Warhol. With the same, unerring knack, he picked out the emerging Brown to assist his return to the sport, after an absence since the early 1990s to address sundry business and personal distractions. “I was very fortunate to have been in this for 20 years, breeding and raising horses, before getting back into it as an older, more experienced person,” Brant reflects. “And I think I tried to use those past lessons to maybe not do a few things I’d done before-even though we’d been very successful. No matter how successful you are, you make mistakes. So I tried not to follow the exact same plan. I found big changes in the way horses were being trained, and in the veterinary science, in how active stallions can be. And all those things change the fundamentals. “When I decided to come back, I hadn’t yet met Chad. But I tried to do as much research as I could. I think Chad is just a very focused guy. He’s passionate about what he does, takes it very seriously, spends most of his time thinking about his horses. He’s a quintessential achiever, he’s intelligent, he concentrates on the detail. And-a very good thing-he knows when to stop on a horse. The other great thing about Chad is he thinks about races way in advance. If he doesn’t make it, he doesn’t make it, but at least you know the direction you want to head; at least he’s thinking about what kind of race is going to suit this horse best, rather than waiting for the horse to be right, and then saying okay, now let’s look for a race.” If finding a trainer is akin to backing an artist, then that makes each racehorse like a painting. Because Brant explains that genius can be as hard to explain, relative to an artist’s personality, as the brilliance of a racehorse with modest genes. “Sometimes art does reflect on the artist’s character, but sometimes it doesn’t,” he says. “Because expression comes from within. You can read about artists, and talk to them, and obviously you can’t really do that with horses. But if you’re looking at collecting-putting together a group of horses, or putting together a group of paintings-then there are certain principles that are similar. For instance, usually recognizing the talent beforehand is much more difficult than after it has performed for a number of seasons. Trying to pick a younger artist today who’s going to flourish in the future is very difficult, it’s like picking a weanling you hope can run in Group 1 races.” Both instincts were honed in boyhood. The actual horsemanship admittedly did not come until later, when building his own polo and racing operations. First of all there was betting, and the kind of hard-knocking horses you could trust with your pocketmoney as a kid in Queens. “My heroes, besides Duke Snider and Mickey Mantle, were Kelso and Carry Back,” Brant recalls. “Great handicap horses, great weight-carriers. Horses you saw every year. When you’re a kid, four years is a long time. So you never forget those horses. And I used to spend my summers at camp in Saratoga. It seemed like I was always either sneaking out of school or camp to go see the horses. We’d go to the racetrack, ask some elderly person to take us in. As soon as you got in, you just walked off.” At the same time, Brant was getting an apprenticeship in classical art from his father-starting at that local jewel, the Frick, and proceeding to global benchmarks at the Prado and the Louvre. But his mentor in the avant-garde was the Swiss dealer Bruno Bischofberger, then still only in his twenties himself. “And he would say to me: ‘Look, you’re living in New York where all the great art is being done now’,” recalls Brant. “‘Forget the Impressionists, the Cubists. Spend time with the artists living and working in your own town.’ And it was a special time in New York. You had Warhol, and Jasper Johns, and Lichtenstein. Rauschenberg. Cy Twombly. So I was very lucky to be living and working there. “It’s like if you’re around the racetrack, you see different things than somewhere else. It’s living a life dedicated to the love of something. The aesthetics of life are very important to me, and that’s kind of where I gravitated, somehow or other. And in a way, horses are that too.” Warhol soon became curious to meet this young man who was collecting his art and they soon became close friends, collaborating in various projects including films and magazines. But Brant was meanwhile proving equally precocious in his equine investment-and here, too, he learned to think outside conventional boundaries. “I don’t follow axioms like if the horse runs on the turf, their get will not run in the dirt,” he says. “I try to look at the racing style. I do believe a horse is a stayer, or a sprinter, and that the best kind of blood are milers-that’s where you’re getting the least that can go wrong. But there are exceptions to everything. “I was very fortunate to breed a Kentucky Derby winner [Thunder Gulch] from English staying stock. I brought Shoot A Line over, she’d been second in the Gold Cup at Ascot, she’d won two Oaks. I bred her to Storm Bird, she had Line Of Thunder that Luca Cumani trained for me, and he won a nice stake with her. We shipped her over for David Whiteley to train as a 4-year-old and then bred her to Gulch.” The paradox, of course, is that the rule-breakers eventually reset the norm. Work disparaged by conservatives today becomes the priceless must-haves of tomorrow. “I never bought anything because I thought it would be worth a profit,” Brant insists. “You believe in an artist, you accumulate the work. If the artist is still alive, you hope they continue in the same direction, don’t get sidetracked. But it’s important art is something you really live. “Because art really is the first turn to change. The artists show it to us before we see it on television, or in advertising or design. Great art becomes socialized. It’s radical when it’s first created. That’s why most people don’t really like contemporary, edgy art. But what’s beautiful today is not what was beautiful 20 years ago. Twenty years ago, if you looked at a silkscreen portrait of Marilyn Monroe, that’s not art. Today, it looks like a Madonna.” Again, moreover, he sees parallels in racing. “It all evolves,” he reasons. “Most great artists are students or apprentices of other artists. And who are all these great trainers? They all apprenticed for other great trainers: Bobby Frankel, Wayne Lukas. That’s such an important part of our culture: to learn from somebody you respect, to soak in that knowledge and really watch carefully what they’re doing, and ask yourself why they’re doing it.” One of the principal challenges to Brant during his absence from racing was itself a result of radical change in social habits, newsprint no longer being the indispensable medium it was when White Birch Paper started. He reckons there were then 34 rival manufacturers; and that now, east of the Mississippi, he faces only two. “It’s a much more consolidated industry, with much less capacity,” he says. “It was very tough for a while, as consumption went down, but it’s been very good recently. But you know, I think the country is figuring out that feeding news to the public is a serious responsibility; to provide the correct information, from all different sides, edited so it’s not totally out of whack. That’s what made our democracy, and that’s what will continue it.” That observation makes it impossible not to ask Brant about his boyhood friendship with the man whose excoriation of traditional media has become a trademark of his rise to the highest office in the land. “I can only say that my experience with him, as a boy, was that he truly was a very good guy,” Brant says of Donald Trump. “I was friends with him, from five till 13, best friends really, and saw no signs of any kind of bigotry or anything like that, that people accuse him of today. We were two guys who grew up together, and we parted because his father took him into a military academy. Why, I don’t know. He never really got into any trouble.” The two men have not spoken in recent times and Brant’s politics, as you might expect of a man of the arts, are of a rather different hue. Regardless of where you stand on the spectrum, however, Brant feels that all sides should be dismayed to see old school journalism–keeping government accountable and the citizenry informed–chased out by the kind of bite-sized trashtalk voters tend to consume today. “I think that what’s happened with the internet, and more sources of news, is that some of them very profound–and some of them are not,” he says. “The ability to express one’s opinion is more spread out. Uneducated presentations are being made, all these theories about what’s happening. It’s not good if people stop reading the newspaper and just go onto the easiest thing they can find. We should all read a variety of newspapers, online or in print, as part of our life to educate ourselves. But I wouldn’t be in horse racing if I wasn’t an optimist! And I am an optimist, no question about that.” Brant stresses how no nation better illustrates the cultural energy of the melting pot. Think of Warhol, son of a Pittsburgh coal miner, whose antecedents were (aptly enough) Bohemian. In fact, think of Brant himself–this charismatic, craggy septuagenarian, a living link to the brilliance and industry and dynamism imported from Europe by his father: a man of Spanish roots, raised on the borders of Rumania and Bulgaria, educated in Germany. “That’s why so many people born in Brooklyn have become great,” Brant says with enthusiasm. “Why it has produced so many creative geniuses. They were street-smart, their neighborhoods were full of diversity. It’s what our country is all about. Why did all the artists wind up in New York? Basically because they were expelled from Europe–whether because they were Armenian or Jewish or Catholic or homosexual. So that diversity gifted this country.” His father used to tell Brant that the most important thing a human being must have, and understand, is hunger; that otherwise “the passion is diluted.” And if the next generation of the family has been spared a literal hunger, to the extent that its charitable foundations instead keep the wolf from the door of contemporary artists, the passion in Brant is transparently undiminished. His comeback should leave the industry feeling doubly blessed: not only in the scale of his renewed investment, but also in the sheer caliber of the investor. For here is a man who connects with our trivial walk of sporting life much as he does with human endeavor in a more profound register, placing the puzzles of equine pedigree and performance alongside those of art, film, politics, philanthropy. Brant’s father went into business with his cousin, Joe Allen’s father–and it was Allen, the breeder of War Front, who helped lure his kinsman back onto the Turf. But in a sense, Brant never left, in that he has never ceased to ponder the margin between luck and judgement, between instinct and technique. Even as he retreated, remember, he became the only man to have bred both the mare and stallion he put together to breed a Kentucky Derby winner. “As a breeder, you might say I need a little bit of this in the pedigree, but then find you’re getting something else,” he says. “It’s very difficult to quantify. People try to quantify it by nicks, or conformation, or racing style. But because you’re dealing with such a large gene pool, for so many generations, you never know where the great sire, mare, racehorse is going to come from. “We all think we can narrow it down. We look at the percentages of stakes horses a sire produces. But it’s really always in the bottom 10%. It’s not like you’re dealing with a 40% number, and a 2% number. A lot of it is just how they accept training, how they recover from adversity. How they’re raised. Living conditions. How they learn to be competitive. “Horses teach you to be humble. Every day. And we can all do with more of that. It’s a very difficult game to play. Nobody is ever going to control their own fortunes. And basically that’s the romance of racing or breeding a horse. That’s what makes it great.” View the full article

The first session of the three-day Arqana Autumn Sale got underway at Deauville on Monday, and at the end of trade, 163 horses-in-training across both codes had found new homes for a sparkling clearance rate of 89.1%, up 3.4% on last year’s opening day. The gross dropped to €3,833,800, but it was a slimmed down first-day catalogue of 236 versus 283 in 2017. The average held steady at €23,520 (-.3%), and the median climbed 17.6% to €10,000. Topping the proceedings was Valajani (Ger) (Jukebox Jury {Ire}) (lot 160) at €265,000 on the bid of Hubert Barbe of Horse Racing Advisory. Runner-up in the G3 St. Leger Italiano this term as well as placing in two German listed events for trainer Markus Klug, the attractive grey colt is bound for the Nation Hunt theatre. His dam is a half-sister to MGSW Vanjura (Ger) (Areion {Ger}), German Group 3 winner Veneto (Ger) (New Approach {Ire}) and German listed winner Vancovia (Fr) (Dream Well {Fr}). Earlier in the day, Horse Racing Advisory had also snapped up lot 152, Pagero (Fr) (Nathaniel {Ire}) for €190,000, the third most expensive lot of the session. A dual winner for trainer Henri-Francois Devin after selling for €40,000 as an Arqana August Yearling in 2016, the gelded son of Group 3 heroine and GI E.P. Taylor S. runner-up Pagera (Fr) (Gentlewave {Ire}) ran fifth last out in the Listed Grand Prix du Nord on Nov. 7. Barbe also acquired 3-year-old filly Prima Perfect (Fr) (Kendargent {Fr}) (lot 68) privately for €28,000 from Julien Carayon to sit second on the buyers’ table with a gross of €483,000. Hubie de Burgh struck near the end of the session for the winning Francois Nicolle hurdler Francois (Fr) (Muhtathir {GB}) (lot 224). A half-brother to listed winner Capitaine Courage (Ire) (Bering {GB}), who also ran second in the G3 Prix Andrew Baboin, the French-bred gelding brought €210,000 from de Burgh who was acting for American interests. “What I liked about him is that he’s got a very good turn of foot,” commented De Burgh on his purchase. “He goes on the top of the ground and he is not an overly heavy horse but has a beautiful action, which will suit American racing. My client has been very successful on the flat and he also has a number of very good jumpers.” Cat Tiger (Fr) (Diamond Boy {Fr}) (lot 190) rounded out the top four prices on Monday, selling for €180,000 to Guy Petit who bought nine lots and leads the buyers’ standings at €487,500. The Dominique Bressou-consigned 4-year-old gelding has enjoyed success as a chaser in the G3 Prix The Fellow. His dam is a half-sister to the late MG1SW and sire Vision d’Etat (Fr) (Chichicastenango {Fr}). Tuesday’s trade will kick off at 1 p.m. local time with a day dedicated to National Hunt yearlings and 2-year-old stores. View the full article

The sale of donated Triple Crown memorabilia at the Sporting Art Auction in Lexington on Sunday exceeded expectations by raising $67,850 in support of the Ann Hanley Parkinson’s Research Fund. But a behind-the-scenes act of kindness helped to buoy that amount significantly, Ann Hanley told TDN on Monday. She’s the wife of WinStar Farm general manager David Hanley, and she’s been working to fight Parkinson’s disease since being diagnosed with it herself 12 years ago. “Those donated pieces sold amazingly,” Hanley said. “We were really happy with that. But we also had a gentleman come up during the auction, and he handed me his card and said he wanted to donate $20,000 to the fund. So all in all, this is way more than we anticipated.” That’s important because Hanley’s fund (learn about it here) is the main financial supporter of a unique form of Parkinson’s research being conducted at the University of Kentucky (UK) in which the body’s own repair mechanisms—and not drugs—are being tested in clinical trials to see if they can halt progression of the nervous system disorder that affects movement. Hanley said that because drugs are not part of the treatment regimen, pharmaceutical companies have zero financial incentive to do this type of research. “So far, we’ve done 63 patients in a clinical trial,” Hanley said. “To be honest, we would have never been able to get it up and running without the help of the Thoroughbred and equine industries, because there’s no big money to be made anywhere [by pharmaceutical companies]. The benefit is solely for the patient. There’s no drug company behind this.” Hanley said she initially began volunteering with the UK researchers to learn more about her diagnosis. She is now the director of development at the school’s Center for Advanced Brain Restoration Technology. “I was there from the very beginning, and when I saw in the early stages the kind of success rate we were having, it was amazing,” Hanley said. “This is similar to how some cancer is being treated these days with immune cells to kill the cancer, except we’re doing it with the peripheral nerve system. “If you cut into the peripheral nerve, it has a repair mechanism built into it that will repair the nerve,” Hanley explained. “If you cut into the central nerve system, it doesn’t have the same capability. So if you injure the brain or the spine, it doesn’t repair. But you can graft the person’s nerves from one area into the other, and it will repair it.” Hanley continued: “So on that basis, we take a piece of peripheral nerve from the ankle, and we strip it down and relocate it into the brain in the area where the cells are dying because of the Parkinson’s. The idea is that we can regenerate or repair those cells. Parkinson’s is a progressively degenerative disease. Right now we’re just about two years out from the first patient we implanted, and three-quarters of those 63 patients are doing extremely well. So that in itself is a miracle. “I actually had the surgery myself just 10 weeks ago, so I hope to benefit from it also,” Hanley said. “Because this research is taking place so far outside of the box, it’s really difficult to get people to look at it seriously,” Hanley said. “It’s extremely difficult to get research money from the Food and Drug Administration to do this. We have a lot more patients, about 250, and in order to get them treated, there isn’t funding readily available. The funding has all come so far from my foundation. We’ve raised just under $1 million right now.” Trainer Bob Baffert donated a halter worn by 2018 Triple Crown winner Justify (Scat Daddy) that sold for $31,050. He also donated horseshoes worn by both Justify and 2015 Triple Crown winner American Pharoah (Pioneerof the Nile), which were framed with two Sports Illustrated covers featuring both horses and signed by jockeys Mike Smith and Victor Espinoza. That item sold for $36,800. The annual auction was organized by Cross Gate Gallery of Lexington, one of the country’s foremost galleries of fine sporting art, and hosted by Keeneland Association, Inc. Cross Gate spokesperson Catherine Ladd Kenneally, whose family owns the gallery, said the two pieces of Triple Crown memorabilia attracted robust bidding, and both were eventually purchased by people within the racing industry. “Ann is just a figure who is loved by the industry, and it really showed with the bidding support for those items,” Ladd Kenneally said. “People really bid in support of her and the foundation. We had a much bigger response than we anticipated. People outside of the industry were even involved, just because it’s such cool memorabilia. But in the end, both were purchased by racing industry entities. They just rallied around her and the cause. These pieces brought crazy numbers at auction. “It is extremely gratifying for my family to use the platform of the auction to be able to give back in this manner,” Ladd Kenneally said. Online donations to the Ann Hanley Parkinson’s Research Fund can be made via this page. View the full article

Cleber Massey's Blamed heads a field of eight in the $200,000 Comely Stakes (G3) for 3-year-old fillies, the feature race Nov. 23 at Aqueduct Racetrack. View the full article

Cutting back in distance paid off for Brinley Enterprises' well-traveled Trigger Warning as the 3-year-old Candy Ride colt secured the most lucrative win of his career Nov. 19 in the $250,000 Steel Valley Sprint Stakes at Mahoning Valley. View the full article

With its history now extending to 35 years, we’ve seen the Breeders’ Cup Classic arguably develop into the supreme test for the American dirt horse, especially when it attracts the crème de la crème of more than one age group. As such, it should also be the perfect testing ground for the next generation of stallions. So has this theory become reality? Of course, the high failure rate among the general population of stallions means that no race can claim to be a highly reliable pointer to stallion success, but the Classic is faring better than most. Inevitably there have been plenty of Classic winners which have faded into oblivion–think of Proud Truth, Ferdinand, Alysheba, Black Tie Affair, Concern, Skip Away and Cat Thief from the early Classic winners. On the plus side, the inaugural winner Wild Again did consistently well in Kentucky, with his GI winners reaching double figures. The 1989 winner Sunday Silence must be classed as the one that got away, but he reshaped the breed in Japan, to the extent that his blood ran through the veins of nearly all of the 18 runners in Sunday’s Mile Championship at Kyoto. Next came Unbridled, whose impact on the Triple Crown events has been considerable, and two years later it was the turn of A.P. Indy, a two-time champion sire who is grandsire of the three-time champion Tapit. There was a six-year wait for the next high-class stallion, in the form of Awesome Again, who numbered Ghostzapper, another winner of the Classic, among his four GI Breeders’ Cup winners. Needless to say, Ghostzapper has replicated his sire’s success at Adena Springs, where he will stand the 2019 season at $85,000. The dual Classic winner Tiznow has also been a prolific sire of GI winners, while the 2007 winner Curlin is now priced at $175,000, after giving us sons of the calibre of Palace Malice, Exaggerator, Good Magic, Keen Ice and Connect. The Classic’s roll of honor also features a couple of winners who, with better luck, might have made a similar impact. Saint Liam, the 2005 winner, left fewer than 100 foals, but one of them was the Horse of the Year-winning filly Havre de Grace. And who knows what the great Cigar might have achieved had he not been completely infertile. It is fair enough to expect some of the recent Classic winners, such as American Pharoah, Arrogate and Gun Runner, to follow in these top stallions’ footsteps, but I will admit that I wasn’t too sure about the prospects of 2013’s winner, Mucho Macho Man, when he joined the Adena Springs team in 2015, at a fee of only $15,000. Certainly he’d had a colorful career, but he had had to share the attention with his trainer and rider. Trainer Kathy Ritvo’s well-known story told how she became the first female trainer to win the Breeders’ Cup Classic, even though she had previously undergone heart-transplant surgery. And rider Gary Stevens was 50 years old and making a comeback when he managed to keep Mucho Macho Man’s nose just in front of Will Take Charge and Declaration of War in a thrilling finish at Santa Anita. Any recap of Mucho Macho Man’s career must start, as Julie Andrews would say, at the very beginning, a very good place to start. Bred by John D. and Carole A. Rio in Florida, the son of Macho Uno wasn’t born until June 15, 2008. Over the years I have noticed that American breeders seem less averse to a late foal than their European counterparts, perhaps because the racing season continues through the winter, whereas the Anglo-Irish season used to take a winter break of more than four months prior to the advent of all-weather tracks. Whatever the reason, quite a few colts have won the GI Belmont S. not long after their actual third birthday, good examples in recent decades being Touch Gold (May 26), Victory Gallop (May 30), Lemon Drop Kid (May 26), Birdstone (May 16), Afleet Alex (May 9) and Palace Malice (May2). Mucho Macho Man, though, was born more than two weeks later than any of these. Bearing in mind that he now stands 16.3 hands and is a tall and leggy individual, one could be forgiven for thinking that Mucho Macho Man had every right to be physically backward as a youngster. Perhaps it is relevant that his sire Macho Uno had been a champion at two, when he landed the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, and that Mucho Macho Man’s sire Ponche de Leona had won four of her six juvenile starts, including the Anoakia S. at Santa Anita. With their input, the 2-year-old Mucho Macho Man proved much more forward than could reasonably have been expected. Mucho Macho Man made his debut over six furlongs at Calder on July 17, when just a month past his actual second birthday, and showed plenty of promise in finishing a length second to the subsequent GIII winner Gourmet Dinner. Two months later, on his third start, he won decisively over an extended mile at Monmouth to earn a shot at Graded company. He progressed again to chase home To Honor And Serve in a pair of GIIs at Aqueduct, notably running him to two lengths in the Remsen S. Those efforts earned him a weight of 115 on the Experimental Free Handicap, which had to be considered an excellent achievement for a colt born as late as June 15. There was every chance that Mucho Macho Man would continue to improve long after some of the more mature members of his year group had shown the full extent of their abilities. He duly won the GII Risen Star S. on his second sophomore start, followed by a third in the GII Louisiana Derby, to earn a shot at the Kentucky Derby, I may be laboring the point when I mention that he was still 39 days short of his actual third birthday when he ran on to take third place at Churchill Downs, beaten by the March-foaled Animal Kingdom and February-foaled Nehro. Maybe this was asking too much too soon of Mucho Macho Man, as he didn’t run nearly so well in either the Preakness or the Belmont, but he returned refreshed after 151 days off to round off his three-year-old campaign with a smart win over a mile at Aqueduct. Predictably his next two years on the track proved much more rewarding, with his highlights at four featuring GII wins in the Gulfstream Park H. and Suburban H. and a very creditable second in the Breeders’ Cup Classic. The five-year-old Mucho Macho Man won the GI Awesome Again S. in addition to his success in the Classic, but he managed just two starts at six, when he recorded his second win in the Florida Sunshine Millions Classic. By July, his retirement had been announced, with Kathy Ritvo explaining that he was showing some signs of minor wear and tear and that he was being retired because he had nothing more to prove. It was appropriate that he retired to Adena Springs, which also stands Macho Uno and Macho Uno’s half-brother Awesome Again. It seems that I wasn’t the only one unsure about Mucho Macho Man’s prospects as a stallion. He attracted 99 mares in his first season, for around 70 foals, but his book was down to 72 mares in his second season and then to only 35 in 2017, even though his fee had been reduced to $10,000. Fortunately, his popularity revived earlier this year, when he covered 96 mares. This revival no doubt owed a lot to the 2018 2-year-old sales, which showed Mucho Macho Man’s progeny in a new light. Mucho Macho Man was arguably at his most impressive when on the move, with his long stride, and his breeze-up horses were also impressive, selling for such good prices as $625,000 and $575,000, for an average of over $170,000. Now several of his youngsters have shown that they have inherited plenty of his talent, including those two high-priced colts. Each of them was named a ‘TDN Rising Star’ after making a successful debut, the $625,000 Mucho Gusto at Los Alamitos and the $575,000 Fortin Hill at Belmont. Incidentally, these two colts were also born quite late, Mucho Gusto’s birthday being Apr. 26 and Fortin Hil’s May 2. Mucho Gusto has become his first Graded stakes winner, with his success in the GIII Bob Hope S. over seven furlongs at Del Mar. Mucho Macho Man’s daughter Belle Laura has also run creditably at Graded level, finishing third in the GII Jessamine S. prior to her seventh in the GI Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf. There can be little doubt that Mucho Gusto–a late-April foal– will eventually stay a mile and a quarter, as his first two dams are daughters of Giant’s Causeway and Seeking the Gold, two stallions who finished a close second in the Breeders’ Cup Classic. The second dam, Countervail, was a half-sister to Canadian Horse of the Year Peaks And Valleys, a dual GI winner over a mile and an eighth despite being a son of the sprinter Mt Livermore. View the full article

Oaklawn Racing and Gaming announced Monday plans to build an expansion project in excess of $100 million that includes the construction of a high-rise hotel, multi-purpose event center, a larger gaming area, and additional on-site parking. The project, targeted for completion in January 2020 for the gaming expansion and late 2020 for the hotel and event center, is one of the largest hospitality investments in the history of Arkansas. “This historic announcement represents a new chapter in the rich 114-year history of Oaklawn,” said Louis Cella, president of Oaklawn Jockey Club. “As we enhance the entertainment experience for our customers, we will also further elevate thoroughbred racing and help make Arkansas and Hot Springs even stronger regional tourism destinations.” The yet-to-be-named hotel will be seven stories with 200 rooms, including two presidential suites. Amenities will include an outdoor swimming pool, a luxury spa, fitness center and restaurant. “The hotel will offer a unique vantage point for our patrons in that it will overlook the track. Imagine the spectacular view as the horses are heading down the stretch,” said Cella. “Our goal is to achieve 4-star status.” Adjacent to the hotel will be a 14,000 square-foot multi-purpose events center that will accommodate up to 1,500 people for various events such as concerts, meetings, banquets and weddings. The project also includes the addition of approximately 28,000 square feet of gaming space and significantly expanded parking. Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson lauded the expansion. “The state of Arkansas is grateful to Louis and his family for their commitment to growing their business right here at home,” said Gov. Hutchinson. “This project, which will be financed exclusively with private funds, not only represents one of, if not the largest, tourism-related expansion projects in our history, it will also rank among the state’s largest economic development projects in 2019.” Construction on the project will begin in May immediately following completion of the 2019 racing season, which runs from Jan. 25 to May 4. “The Cellas helped found Oaklawn in the early 1900’s,” said Wayne Smith, general manager of Oaklawn. “As they have for more than a century, the family continues to make significant investments in Arkansas. This will be the third major project at Oaklawn since 2008.” View the full article

Into its second year under a new format, the Goffs November Foal Sale got off to a lukewarm start on Monday. The opening few lots suggested we could be in for a vibrant day of business but trade soon became patchy throughout the session with the clearance rate being the principal casualty. 145 or 59% of foals offered changing hands paints a picture of a highly selective buying bench and that scenario naturally contributed to a reduced aggregate of €2,685,000, down significantly on last year’s figure of just over €4 million. Both the average and median also dipped a few points on last year to €18,517 and €15,000, respectively, however there were positives to take from proceedings. The top price paid on the corresponding day last year was €85,000 for a son of No Nay Never and it was the same Coolmore stallion, off the back of a fantastic first season with his progeny on the track, that provided Monday’s top-priced foal which sold for €125,000. Offered by Kilmore Stud on behalf of breeder Audrey F. Thompson as lot 157, the April-born colt is out of Celestial Dream (Ire) (Oasis Dream {GB}), who has a perfect breeding record to date being the dam of five winners from five runners. Bidding on the colt was frenetic and it soon boiled down to what appeared to be a match between Ciaran ‘Flash’ Conroy and Tony O’Callaghan. The foal seemed destined for Tally-Ho Stud when Conroy shook his head after O’Callaghan bid €120,000 only for Brendan Morrin of Pier House Stud to play his hand late with a bid of €125,000. That was enough to see the hammer fall in favour of Morrin and the grandson of Lochangel (GB) (Night Shift) may well be back in this ring next autumn. “We thought he was the standout colt here today, the stallion has made a fantastic start and this foal has a lot going for him,” said Brendan Morrin, who was accompanied by his brother Ger. “He will be offered for sale as a yearling, probably back here at the Orby Sale.” Tally-Ho stud had earlier made the first of no doubt multiple purchases this week when snapping up lot 73, a filly by Footstepsinthesand (GB) offered by Hill House for €62,000. The filly’s appeal was bolstered by the exploits this year of her 2-year-old half-brother Inverleigh (Ire) (Excelebration {Ire}). The Ger Lyons-trained colt backed up an impressive debut success at Leopardstown in August with two solid stakes placings and he remains a smart prospect for next year. The O’Callaghans later added a Kodiac (GB) filly, lot 182 to their squad for €58,000. The bay was offered by Milltown House Stud out of the ex-Godolphin mare Escapism (Ire) (Iffraaj {GB}), whose first yearling, a full-brother to this filly, made 80,000gns at Tattersalls last month. Rathbarry Stud have certainly gotten behind their young stallion Kodi Bear (Ire) and the farm’s Paul Cashman won the battle for the first colt offered in the sale by the first-crop stallion son of Kodiac (GB). Cashman was pushed to €66,000 to secure lot 130 from Awbeg Stud after which he indicated he would hopefully be back for resale next year. “He is very like his father, a real active type with a great step and a lovely temperament,” Cashman said. “We will aim to offer him as a yearling, perhaps back here next September. He came from a very good farm in Awbeg Stud and he is just a real good sort of foal with a lot of presence.” Another first-crop stallion to make a decent start was Bucklands Farm & Stud resident Pearl Secret (GB) whose first offering, lot 227, was knocked down to Tally-Ho for €40,000 while a filly (lot 180) from the first crop of Darley’s The Last Lion (Ire) sold to Luke Barry of Manister House Stud for the same price. Elsewhere foals by Cheveley Park Stud’s Twilight Son (GB) and Whitsbury Manor Stud’s Adaay (Ire) were also well received with their early produce into the ring making €33,000 (lot 215) and €31,000 (lot 127), respectively. Ballylinch Stud have transferred Lawman (Fr) to stand at Haras de Grandcamp alongside his former stallion colleague Dream Ahead and it was a Lawman filly offered by Ballylinch Stud as lot 46 that made the early running in the sale. The March-born foal is the first produce out of Royal Razalma (Ire) (Lope De Vega {Ire}) who won the G3 Dubai Cornwallis S. when trained by Jonathan Portman and it was Eddie O’Leary’s Lynn Lodge Stud who signed the docket at €40,000. O’Leary added a Fast Company (Ire) colt to his haul not long after when buying lot 66 for €36,000. It wasn’t a huge surprise O’Leary purchased the Oghill House Stud-consigned son of Shama’s Song (Ire) (Teofilo {Ire}), as Lynn Lodge Stud had sold her yearling colt by Night Of Thunder (Ire) for €105,000 at the Orby Sale here last month having pinhooked him for €40,000 in the same ring 11 months previously. Harry Sweeney of the Japan-based Paca Paca Farm made the trip back over to his native Ireland worthwhile when securing a pair of foals including a Zoffany (Ire) colt, lot 161, from Moorpark Stud that cost €50,000. A filly by Starspangledbanner (Aus) caught the eye of Grove Stud’s Brendan Holland as lot 115. The filly eventually went Holland’s way after a successful bid of €42,000 and the filly was offered by Collegelands out of Zain Art (Ire) (Excellent Art {GB}), who is a half-sister to multiple stakes winner Battalion (Ire) (Authorized {Ire}). The €50,000 mark was also reached later in the session when a son of Teofilo (Ire) from Glacken View (lot 241) was purchased by Stroud Coleman. Ten lots from the end, Joe Foley went to €55,000 to secure lot 266, a daughter of his stallion Dandy Man (Ire) consigned by Galbertstown Stud. Action resumes at 10 a.m. local time on Tuesday when trade is expected to crank up a notch. View the full article

The Fair Hill Thoroughbred Show awarded more than $20,000 to beneficiaries and $2,000 in scholarships to individuals this year. Beneficiaries included Ryerss Farm for Aged Equines, the Retired Racehorse Project, the Foxie G Foundation and the MidAtlantic Horse Rescue. Scholarships of $500 were awarded to Kaitlyn Nicely-Harvey of Woodbine, Md., Alison Chubb of Unionville, Pa., Regina Salzer of Washington Crossing, Pa. and Kim Nevitt of Southhampton, Pa. based on submitted essays from young people who have taken on the challenge of retraining and providing homes to horses. “The Fair Hill Thoroughbred Show was founded to encourage the re-homing and retraining of off-the-track Thoroughbreds,” said Lisa Demars, President of the FHTHS. “The prize money is meant to reward the people who are dedicated to the welfare of these wonderful horses.” View the full article

The National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame’s Foal Patrol, a one-of-a-kind collection of live cameras following the daily activities of in-foal mares, will return for season two in late December after a successful inaugural run. LNJ Foxwoods’s With Honors (War Front) will headline the roster of featured horses for the season, which will debut online at foalpatrol.com. A granddaughter of champion Dreaming of Anna, the bay captured the Del Mar Juvenile Fillies Turf S. in the summer of 2016 and was runner-up in that fall’s GI Chandelier S. at Santa Anita before closing her career with a third in the GIII Jimmy Durante S. back at Del Mar. With Honors is in foal to Tapit with an estimated foaling date of Feb. 25, 2019. Three Chimneys Farm’s Love and Pride (A.P. Indy), Old Tavern Farm’s Comme Chez Soi (Empire Maker) and Edition Farm’s Hot City Girl (City Zip) will also be featured, and four more horses will be announced weekly during the next month. The first season of Foal Patrol had more than 1.6 million views from December 2017 through September 2018. View the full article

With Arkansas voters earlier this month approving a full casino at Oaklawn Park and three other locations in the state, the track will waste no time in upgrading its facility. View the full article

The connections of Enable (GB) (Nathaniel {Ire}) have announced the two-time G1 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe heroine will remain in training in 2019 with a defense of her Arc title her main goal. The Juddmonte homebred would become the first three-time winner of the ParisLongchamp showpiece. Successful in the GI Breeders’ Cup Turf at Churchill Downs after her second Arc title was safely in the bag, the 4-year-old raced only three times in 2018, after sustaining a training setback in early May. The bay returned to the races with a facile score over Kempton’s all-weather in the G3 September S. prior to her Arc heroics. “I think Prince Khalid wanted time to reflect on the Arc and Breeders’ Cup and time to enjoy it before he started to think about the following year,” said Prince Khalid Abdullah’s racing manager Lord Teddy Grimthorpe. “Obviously it was important that she was in good shape when she came back. She checked out really well, so from that point of view it gave us the encouragement to go on.” As it stands, Enable is one of eight dual winners of the Arc in its illustrious 98-year history, and Grimthorpe is under no illusions about what a third triumph would represent for the John Gosden-trained filly. He added, “A third Arc would certainly be a challenge to say the very least, but that’s what racing is all about–taking these challenges. I think if we’d had a full year this year, it would be hard to say what might have happened, but she only had one race as a 2-year-old, a full season at three and then just three runs this year, so there are not too many miles on the clock. She still enjoys her racing, so she will be given her chance to make a bit of history.” Enable’s campaign will be geared around another trip to France next October–but Grimthorpe underlined the team are not mapping out her route back to Paris just yet. He said, “Obviously the main mile-and-a-quarter and mile-and-a-half races would be what we are looking at, but the Arc remains her primary target.” Regular rider Frankie Dettori told the Daily Mirror, “It’s made my day. She showed what an incredible filly she is this year–the horse of a lifetime. It’s easy for horses to show their best when everything is going for them, but she had to miss most of the season with injury and to come back and do what she did was very special.” View the full article