Wandering Eyes

WE’RE back at Rosehill and the feature is The Rosebud for the 3YOs, which is the natural lead up to the Golden Rose on September 22. View the full article

FLEMINGTON plays host to Group racing on Saturday, with the running of the G3 Aurie’s Star Handicap (1200m) down the straight. View the full article

Veteran Hong Kong jockey Vincent Ho Chak-yiu has added to his illustrious career in the city with his first win in the United Kingdom on Thursday. The 28-year-old debuted at Haydock Park to ride X-Rated to victory in the 2.10 Smarkets Betting Exchange Handicap, a class 5 race with six runners. The four-year-old held on to the lead over the final furlong after taking a while to get going as $6 X-Rated beat out $2.75 favourite Maroc ridden by Richard Kingscote. Ho’s UK-trained Irish horse... View the full article

Walker brings Kingsman back to pet trip View the full article

Gutsy win from Captain Jamie hands owner early birthday gift View the full article

Popular pick Eye Guy rises from jaws of defeat View the full article

Iskandar lives up to Freedman's trust at first winning ride View the full article

Quadcopter gets off to a flier on debut View the full article

Early scratching August 12 View the full article

Horses' body weights August 10 View the full article

Track conditions and course scratchings August 10 View the full article

Eye Guy no average Joe, says Clements View the full article

Phoenix Thoroughbreds' Lyrical Lady is set as the 6-5 morning-line favorite to take on five other first-out winners making their second start in the $200,000 Adirondack Stakes (G2) Aug. 11 at Saratoga Race Course. View the full article

SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY – Peter Kazamias, who has predominately raced homebreds, has been slowly building up a commercial broodmare band at his Kaz Hill Farm in Middletown, New York with an eye towards selling yearlings at the Fasig-Tipton New York-Bred Sale. Through the Paramount Sales consignment, the breeder will offer four yearlings at this weekend’s auction and all four were purchased in utero at the 2016 Keeneland November sale. “I would say he has added a facet to the business,” explained Kazamias’s bloodstock advisor Mike Slezak. “He still does the homebreds, he still breeds a bunch of mares to Bank Heist every year and a few to Here’s Zealous, although he is getting up there in years. But he had dabbled a little bit in the commercial market maybe a decade ago and we kind of got talking about it a couple of years ago and he said, ‘Why don’t you buy me one mare at Keeneland.'” The mare Slezak picked out at the 2014 Keeneland January sale was Royal Affection (Vindication). He paid $35,000 for the 7-year-old mare who was in foal to Shackleford. That Shackleford colt sold for $125,000 at the 2015 Fasig-Tipton New York-bred Sale and was pinhooked the following year for $310,000 at the OBS April sale “That worked out pretty nicely,” Slezak said. “So he said, ‘Let’s try it again.'” For his next purchase, Slezak targeted multiple Grade I winner Megahertz (GB). “When I told him we should go after Megahertz, he said, ‘We’re never going to get Megahertz,” Slezak recalled. “I said, ‘Well, we can’t get Megahertz unless we are there and bidding on her.'” Megahertz, who won over $2.2 million on the racetrack and had sold for $2.1 million at the 2007 Keeneland November sale, was purchased in foal to Quality Road for $40,000 at that same auction in 2015. “I still can’t believe we got Megahertz for anything in our price range, but she was older and I think when a mare gets older and goes through the market, people discount them. She’s older and she’s had a couple of decent horses, but no black-type earners. But it’s not like she’s an aberration in her family. She has all these other nice siblings and the page is deep. I thought we needed to give her a shot. She was in foal to Quality Road. We got her for basically the stud fee and sold the baby for $100,000.” With another successful result under his belt, Kazamias green-lighted another mare buying spree at Keeneland. This time, Slezak came home with five mares, including multiple Grade I winner Spun Sugar (Awesome Again) whom he purchased in foal to Street Sense for $20,000. The mare had been purchased as 5-year-old for $4.5 million. “Spun Sugar is right up there as one of the great mares of her generation,” Slezak said. “And, while she hasn’t yet reproduced herself, she is still Spun Sugar–you can’t beat that with a stick. And then you go to the New York sale with a Street Sense out of her.” That Street Sense filly will go through the Saratoga Sales ring Sunday night as hip 615. “I love the Street Sense,” Slezak said of the yearling. “She just looks like a two-turn horse. My prediction is, look for her in the [GI] Alabama [S.]. I’ve got 20-20 vision, look for her in the Alabama in 2020.” Also at the 2016 November sale, Kazamias purchased Beach (Tapit), a Gainesway-bred daughter of multiple stakes winner Starfish Bay (Elusive Quality) in foal to Karakontie (Jpn) for $50,000. Since the purchase, the mare’s full-brother Blind Ambition has become a multiple stakes winner and was recently second in the GIII Troy H. at Saratoga. While her 2-year-old first foal just graduated at Indian Grand, her yearling colt will sell Saturday as hip 362. Kazamias’s Fasig quartet also includes a filly by Kitten’s Joy (hip 429) out of Fupeg’s Delight (Fusaichi Pegasus), who RNA’d for $27,000 at Keeneland November; and a colt by Awesome Again (hip 462) who is out of Jennifer Loves Ed (Rockport Harbor). That mare RNA’d for $27,000 in 2016. “I think our lesson on the female side of the family, for us it’s just looking for any female families that are being cultivated,” Slezak said. “Sometimes I think people give up pretty quickly on mares, but when you look at Gainesway with Beach’s family, or Adena Springs and Shadwell were both in on Spun Sugar’s family, her dam and her daughters, Fupeg’s Delight is a Georgia Hoffman bottom line that the Ramseys then cultivated. If those people are taking five, six, seven years or sometimes one or two or three generations, those families always seem to percolate with some good horses and some good sales results. I think if you’re patient and you keep an eye out for that kind of a mare from a family that wouldn’t just throw you a good New York-bred, but might throw you a horse that could be competing on a Saturday afternoon at Saratoga–that’s what we are trying to do.” In addition to adding broodmares via the public auctions, Kazamias’s team also keeps an eye on the claiming ranks for potential broodmares. “As we’ve been upgrading the broodmare band, we’ve claimed a few cool ones,” Slezak said. “We claimed Spun Sugar’s daughter by Bernardini [Shareeha] in Kentucky. Once in a while, you spot one and you think, ‘What’s a mare like you doing in a $7,500 claimer?’ So we snatched her up.” Kazamias, whose silks were carried to victory by recent Saratoga maiden winner Royal Heist (Bank Heist), will continue to race his own homebreds. The commercial broodmare band meanwhile, might be expanded to up to 10 mares in the coming years. The burgeoning commercial operation is already expanding in the sire department. “This year we branched out to Kentucky for the first time,” Slezak said. “We sent six mares to Kentucky this year. We went to Munnings, Bodemeister, Super Saver, Kantharos and we sent Megahertz to Arrogate.” As the operation approaches its third Fasig-Tipton sale, it is aiming high, looking for success, not just in the sales ring, but also on the racetrack. “Rather than just selling big, we want them to then run big,” Slezak said. “That’s our goal. If things go well, maybe we’ll be breeding a graded stakes winner at Saratoga in the next few years.” The Fasig-Tipton New York-Bred Yearlings Sale gets underway Saturday at 6:30 p.m. at the Humphrey S. Finney Pavilion. View the full article

If the Into Mischief colt, who was purchased by owner Larry Best for $1.2 million, runs anything close to his debut romp in the six-furlong Best Pal Stakes (G2), his rivals will likely only get a view of his hindquarters in the stretch. View the full article

Surveying a pedigree can be like looking across a cemetery: row upon row, in diminishing scale, the names multiply until the whole vast mesh of ancestry seems to absorb all individuality. Only the odd memorial remains neatly tended; the great majority are soon overgrown, the lettering faded. Only rarely, then, do you encounter a Thoroughbred who can insist on due attention to great names of the past. One of those is War Front. First and foremost, the Claiborne sire owes his glamour to the fact that he is a living, breathing son of Danzig. (Something of a reincarnation, in fact.) As such, and still in his own prime at 16, he is extending a line parallel to those by which Danehill and Green Desert made their sire one of the great modern patriarchs. We owe this boon to the fact that Danzig was 24 when he sired War Front. It was another two years, incidentally, before he came up with a parting gift in Hard Spun–but that’s one for another day. For now it’s worth noting that both rebuke breeders’ reluctance to persevere with aging sires, especially once in competition with sons whose exploits are fresher in the memory. They might make an exception for a breed-shaper like Danzig, or indeed Galileo now that he has turned 20. Only one or two rungs down the ladder, however, you will often find proven sires of sires peering indignantly into the dust raised by passing herds of mares as they stampede towards the latest fast-talking rookie. Fortunately, Joseph Allen took a more enlightened view, in 2001, when sending his young mare Starry Dreamer–herself, conversely, from the very first crop of Rubiano (Fappiano)–to stoke the lust of old man Danzig. The perennial mystery remains, as to how their 50-50 genetic input coalesced to produce as fast a runner, and as potent a sire, as War Front. But the death this week of Starry Dreamer, at 24, makes it respectful at least to ponder the role of her own chromosomes. For it is not just through Danzig that we get very close to greatness in the flesh and blood of War Front (never mind, at $250,000 a sample, in his semen). Alive and kicking in a Claiborne paddock just a couple of days ago, this cherished, white-haired dame was out of a daughter of Forli. And her grandmother? Well, she was by none other than Round Table. Two stars fell out of a single constellation to land together on this farm Apr. 6, 1954. Round Table and Bold Ruler were famously delivered here on the same night, before embarking on two of the American Turf’s greatest careers. But Round Table, a track record kleptomaniac, would make his principal impact on the breed as a broodmare sire. In this, he resembles his own father, Princequillo, notably responsible for the dam of Bold Ruler’s peerless son Secretariat (himself a great broodmare sire). Round Table’s contribution to War Front’s distaff line came from a mating in 1972, when he was 18, with a mare named Secret Promise. She was a daughter of Warfare, a champion juvenile who was favourite for the 1960 Kentucky Derby when derailed by injury. Secret Promise–later responsible for the dam of a Grade I winner in Home At Last, who beat Unbridled and Cee’s Tizzy in a highly resonant Super Derby–gave Round Table a GSP filly named True Reality. It was True Reality’s 1980 mating with Forli, then 17, that produced Starry Dreamer’s dam, Lara’s Star. By then, of course, Forli had produced the iconic Forego; not forgetting the Claiborne legend Special, whose son Nureyev was disqualified in the 2,000 Guineas that same spring. Forli, imported from Argentina by Bull Hancock, puts another layer of green, green grass into the background of War Front. He was by Aristophanes, a son of Derby winner Hyperion and wartime Oaks winner Commotion. Throw Round Table into the mix, plus the immense turf success of the Danzig line, and it’s not hard to see why War Front should be one of few sires comfortably bestriding the Atlantic in these parochial times. Rubiano, the ghostly sire of Starry Dreamer herself, admittedly fires a streak of dirt lightning into the family. And his three-parts sister Tap Your Heels–by Unbridled, like Rubiano a son of Fappiano–is the dam of a monster dirt sire in Tapit. That means War Front’s dam combines a very strong echo of Tapit with a ton of grass hardiness and class. Starry Dreamer was also a smart runner herself, Rubiano’s first stakes winner. Subsequently purchased by Allen, she gained multiple graded stakes places, notably in the GI Gazelle H. of 1997, in accumulating $564,789. And she was versatile, too: you can’t imagine Rubiano had many that were twice GSP over as far as 12 furlongs on turf. Starry Dreamer arrived at Claiborne with zero inbreeding across five generations. Her first three foals Ecclesiastic (Pulpit), War Front and Teammate (A.P. Indy) were all graded stakes winners, while subsequent brothers by Giant’s Causeway were repeatedly placed at that level. The parallels between War Front and his father are hardly confined to an uncanny physical resemblance. Both retired to Claiborne with conservative expectations, Danzig having notoriously been confined to three starts and War Front largely settling for a supporting role in top sprints, aside from his success in the G2 (then) Alfred G. Vanderbilt S. War Front was cut to $10,000 after covering just 64 mares in his third season, but then matched his sire with an explosive start on the track. He has never looked back, above all after Allen’s homebred pair Declaration of War and War Command won at Royal Ascot in 2013. Coolmore had partnered with Allen in both horses, themselves now making a promising start at stud. If Coolmore’s long history of success with Danehill had helped to point the way, War Front has certainly proved an inspired hunch in its quest for outcross blood for Galileo and sons. But not even Danzig could do all this on his own. Happily, with other young sires like Summer Front also staking their claim, the legacy of Starry Dreamer is now guaranteed not only by her son–who has made his customary flying start at the yearling sales–but also by a growing number of grandsons. The old gray mare is to be interred near Forli’s daughter Special in the Marchmont cemetery at Claiborne. Special’s dam Thong is there, too, and Thong’s sister Moccasin, the only juvenile filly to be named Horse of the Year. So there will be no nettles growing over her resting place; and whatever sun and rain and wind might do to the letters carved on her stone, they will never be effaced from the Stud Book. View the full article

Phoenix Thoroughbreds’ Lyrical Lady (More Than Ready) coasted to an easy victory on opening day at Saratoga at nearly 7-1, and she figures to be close to a tenth of that price when going postward in Saturday’s GII Adirondack S. at Saratoga. Picked up for $625,000 at OBS March after breezing a quarter-mile in :20 3/5, the dark bay encountered a field of well-meant fillies here July 20 and ran them all off their feet to score by 5 3/4 lengths and earn a ‘TDN Rising Star’ designation. Todd Pletcher has won the Adirondack five times, and he aims to take home its trophy for the third straight year with a pair of runners, headed by St. Elias Stable and MeB Racing Stable’s Virginia Eloise (Curlin), who romped at odds-on in her unveiling July 4 at Belmont. The other half of Pletcher’s uncoupled entry is Repole Stable’s Guacamole (Flat Out), who was put up via a controversial disqualification in a local off-the-turfer July 26. Ten Broeck Farm’s Mucho Amor (Mucho Macho Man) has been unseen since her debut win Apr. 26 at Keeneland, but returns with a bullet half-mile in tow for trainer Wesley Ward, covering the distance in :47 2/5 (1/49) Aug. 3. Fortune Farm’s Sue’s Fortune (Jump Start) takes a step into open company after crushing a field of New York-bred fillies by 8 1/2 lengths in her career bow July 5 at Big Sandy. View the full article

It isn’t often that a 2-year-old can scare off his or her competition this early in this season, but that appears to be the case with OXO Equine’s Instagrand (Into Mischief) in Saturday’s GII Best Pal S. at Del Mar, as just four rivals have lined up to challenge the ultra-impressive ‘TDN Rising Star’. Opening his account June 29 at Los Alamitos as a universal good thing at 2-5, the $1.2 million Fasig-Tipton Gulfstream buy shook off some early pace pressure and blew the doors off of his five rivals in the stretch, coasting home a 10-length victor while rattling off a final furlong split in a sizzling :11.19. The bay has registered four easy workouts in the interim, capped by a half-mile spin in :50 flat (21/29) here Aug. 7. Reddam Racing’s Owning (Flashback) made an adventure out of his OBS April breeze, zig-zagging about the track while still managing to stop the clock in :10 1/5 for one furlong. He showed some of that greenness, but also plenty of ability, with a debut score July 8 at Los Alamitos and looms as the main danger to the chalk. Mason Dixon (Union Rags) looks to double up at the Del Mar meet. Debuting for a $150,000 tag July 21, the $110,000 Fasig-Tipton Midlantic buy rallied from well back to just get up late at over 11-1. The Doug O’Neill trainee figures to be the main beneficiary if things get hot on the front end here. View the full article

Observations on the European Racing Scene turns the spotlight on the best European races of the day, highlighting well-pedigreed horses early in their careers, horses of note returning to action and young runners that achieved notable results in the sales ring. Friday’s Insights features a half-brother to G1 Juddmonte International S. heroine Arabian Queen (Ire) (Dubawi {Ire}). 6.35 Newmarket, Mdn, £8,000, 2yo, 7fT ALBERT FINNEY (GB) (Kingman {GB}) debuts in the Rachel Hood silks for her trainer husband John Gosden and is a son of their G2 Lancashire Oaks winner Gertrude Bell (GB) (Sinndar {Ire}). Facing him is Jeff Smith’s homebred Arabian King (GB) (New Approach {Ire}), a David Elsworth-trained half-brother to the shock G1 Juddmonte International S. heroine Arabian Queen (Ire) (Dubawi {Ire}). View the full article

Claiborne Farm and Adele B. Dilschneider’s Mucho (Blame–Extent, by Pulpit), a colt bred to be a two-turn 3-year-old, has already made himself known at two after an ultra-impressive maiden win over six furlongs at Saratoga last Saturday. The ‘TDN Rising Star’ won his second start by almost 10 lengths in 1:10.19, and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to extrapolate that he’ll get better as the distances increase. His win symbolizes a turnaround in the fortunes of Blame, too. However, the Claiborne brain trust always had faith in Blame and in fact doubled down on him with Mucho, so to speak. Mucho is inbred closely, at 3×3, to Bound (Nijinsky–Special, by Forli) on the tail-female line through her daughters Limit (Cox’s Ridge) and Liable (Seeking the Gold). Bound is Blame’s second dam–he is out of Liable–and the third dam of Mucho, as Limit is the dam of Extent. Claiborne’s president Walker Hancock and stallion seasons and bloodstock manager Bernie Sams were at the Fasig-Tipton sale this week and discussed this interesting mating, Blame’s big year, and Claiborne’s philosophies. “It’s obviously just a special family for us,” Hancock said of Mucho, who is a sixth-generation descendant of Rough Shod II, a broodmare imported to the U.S. by Hancock’s grandfather, Arthur “Bull” Hancock, Jr. “Dad [Seth] loves the family, and I think he thought, ‘Let’s see what happens if you double up on it.’ It’s been successful so far. You know his full-sister [Width] won first-time out here [at Saratoga] in a ‘Rising Star’ performance and we thought we’d go back to see if we could get a colt out of her on the same cross. And we did, so here we are. You give things a try here and there, and three [by three inbreeding] would probably be the closest we’d go. We’re not afraid to take a chance and see what we can get. It’s just such a good family, and we tried to capitalize on it.” Aside from Blame, it’s a family particularly noted for three outstanding Northern Dancer stallions, two of which were champions. Bound is a three-quarter sister to Nureyev, who was disqualified from first in the 2000 Guineas but made his mark as a stallion at Walmac International; and she’s a half-sister to Fairy Bridge, who produced the iconic sire and Irish 2000 Guineas winner Sadler’s Wells and his once-raced and unplaced brother Fairy King, both of which stood at Coolmore. Claiborne bred Thong, Special, Nureyev, and Fairy Bridge alone and Bound in partnership with William Haggin Perry’s The Gamely Corporation –a longtime partner for Claiborne. Because three-quarter brothers Sadler’s Wells and Nureyev get crossed quite a bit in international pedigrees, particularly as Sadler’s Wells is a sire of sires and Nureyev appears mostly in the internal parts of pedigrees, Special gets duplicated quite a bit (though not on the tail-female line). To date, there are more than 100 G1 winners with Special or her descendants doubled up, and they include such as Cracksman (5×5 Special), Enable (3×2 Sadler’s Wells), Archipenko (4×2 Special), Camelot (4×5 Special), El Condor Pasa (4×4 Special and 5x4x5 Thong), Workforce (5×4 Special), and Madame Chiang (3x5x4 Special). Based on this success, inbreeding to Special’s daughter Bound makes sense, and Claiborne and Mrs. Dilschneider–who has assumed the partnership role once occupied by Perry and later by his widow Nicole Perry Gorman–have also bred Mucho’s Glll-winning half-sister Size (First Samurai) to Blame as well. Those foals–yearling and weanling colts–are inbred 3×4 to Bound. Blame Blame (Arch) was bred and raced by Claiborne and Mrs. Dilschneider and won nine of 13 starts, including the Gl Breeders’ Cup Classic over Zenyatta, and earned $4,368,214. After starting out at stud for $35,000 live foal–the co-most expensive fee for a new horse in North America in 2011, along with Lookin At Lucky and Quality Road–Blame’s fee had dropped to $12,500 this spring despite siring last summer’s G1 Prix de Diane winner Senga. In hindsight, $12,500 was an incredible bargain, as similar as catching Curlin at $25,000, Scat Daddy at $10,000, and Ghostzapper at $20,000 after those horses had fallen to their nadirs from loftier initial fees. Blame is represented by 10 black-type winners this year, five of them graded winners, and he sits second behind Quality Road ($70,000 fee in ’18) for fifth-year sires, ahead of such as Kantharos ($15,000), Lookin At Lucky ($17,500), Munnings ($25,000), Super Saver ($35,000), and Temple City ($15,000). All told, he’s the sire of 22 black-type winners to date, and aside from Senga at the highest level, he’s also represented by Fault, who won the Gl Santa Margarita S. at nine furlongs on the dirt at Santa Anita in March after being claimed for $50,000 from a turf race at Churchill a year ago. The Claiborne-bred Fault’s pedigree also includes a double of the Rough Shod family–her broodmare sire Horse Chestnut (SAf) is a grandson of Sadler’s Wells–and she had sold for $120,000 at the 2015 Keeneland September sale. Her fall from grace as a potential stakes prospect to her redemption from claimer to Grade l winner is also very much a part of Blame’s history and comeback this year. “He only bred 55 mares last year,” Sams said. “Desperate times call for desperate measures. He was $25,000 last year. Seth [Hancock] said, ‘What do we have to do to get 100 mares to him?’ Make it $12,500 [I said]. He said, ‘Do it.’ We bred 118 or 119 mares to him this spring, but we could have bred 200. When they started running [this year], game on. Twelve-five will be a thing of the past. If he got lucky with Mucho or one of the others out there, you know, if he ended up with a Breeders’ Cup winner…” Sams said that Senga’s French classic win, ironically, didn’t move the needle, even though it had been quite a while since an American-based sire was represented by a major European Derby or Oaks winner. “That’s what shows you how much Central Kentucky people pay attention to European racing,” Sams said. “The Blames had sold well, some had run, some hadn’t, you had Senga with the Group 1, but it wasn’t enough for the guys around here. They wanted it all in front of them, and if it’s not there in front of them, they’ll walk away. The commercial part of the deal is brutal.” Sams then gestured to the back walking ring at the sales pavilion to make his point and said, “Everybody’s very focused on this”–the selling–“They don’t want to own a set of silks. They don’t want to pay a trainer.” In other words, people don’t breed to race anymore in the numbers that they once did, and in that, he’s right. Owner/breeders tend to be more patient with their horses, and the handling of Blame as a racehorse is an example of just that. He won once from two starts at two, was a Grade II winner at three, and blossomed into a champion and multiple Grade I winner at four. Rushing him to make the Classics may have ruined him. Hancock and Sams said that it could have been a different commercial story for Blame but for a win here or there. First-crop runner March, Hancock noted, won the GIII Bay Shore S. and the GII Woody Stephens S. on dirt and was beaten only a head in the Gl Hollywood Derby on the turf, and the promising first-crop runner Far From Over won the GIII Withers S. while on the Classics trail before being felled by injury. “If Far From Over wins the Wood, forget the turf stuff, game on,” Sams said. “We believed in the horse and that’s why we kept supporting him because he was so close,” Hancock said. “I remember a conversation I had with my dad just last summer. He said he could see Blame being the next Curlin. We always expected him to succeed, and he is now busting through, only just a couple of years later than we anticipated.” Now, horses like Mucho and others will keep the anticipation building for Blame. View the full article

Jessica Harrington is hoping to avoid serious rainfall at Deauville for Alpha Centauri (Ire) (Mastercraftsman {Ire}) in the Prix Jacques le Marois on Sunday. The Niarchos family-owned ‘TDN Rising Star’ has carried all before her this season, winning the G1 Irish 1000 Guineas, G1 Coronation S. and G1 Falmouth S. in tremendous fashion. This weekend is set to bring an eagerly-awaited first clash against the colts. Speaking after saddling the final winner at Leopardstown on Thursday evening, Harrington said,”Alpha Centauri is in good form and I have been happy with her since Ascot. They didn’t get half as much rain today as they thought they would and it should stay dry now. We’ll keep our fingers crossed.” Due to be among the opposition is Eve Johnson Houghton’s G1 Queen Anne S. winner Accidental Agent (GB) (Delegator {GB}). Johnson Houghton said, “Everything has gone to plan with him since Ascot and we couldn’t be happier. I’ve been informed by Gay Kelleway that it has been raining over there, which doesn’t affect us so much as we are not ground dependent, but it won’t help Alpha Centauri, I wouldn’t have thought. Mind You, Freddy Head’s filly [With You (GB) (Dansili {GB})] will want it so it’s six and two threes. Like I say, we aren’t really bothered what the ground is like and we’re just really looking forward to it.” View the full article

Keeneland released a new television commercial Thursday that will be hitting the airwaves this weekend. Unlike previous commercials from Keeneland, which usually focus on the bucolic and serene imagery of the Lexington oval, this one emphasizes the hard work of all those behind the scenes that goes into putting out its racing and sales product. The new commercial can be viewed here. View the full article

Don Alberto Stable’s popular multiple Grade I winner and ‘TDN Rising Star’ Unique Bella (Tapit) has been nominated for the GI Pacific Classic, to be held Saturday, Aug. 18 at Del Mar. If the gray filly, who captured the GI Clement L. Hirsch S. at the seaside oval July 29, were to run in the annual meet centerpiece, it would be her first try against males. “We’re nominating and we’ll take a look at the other nominations,” trainer Jerry Hollendorfer said Thursday morning. Asked for a percentage estimate on the possibility of Unique Bella, Hollendorfer said: “Not at this time.” Other nominations received Thursday to the $1-million race were: Accelerate (Lookin At Lucky), Ann Arbor Eddie (Square Eddie), Catalina Cruiser (Union Rags), Pavel (Creative Cause), Prime Attraction (Unbridled’s Song) and The Lieutenant (Street Sense). View the full article

Absent since winning the G3 Kilternan S. over 12 furlongs on Leopardstown’s Champions Day, His Highness The Aga Khan’s Eziyra (Ire) (Teofilo {Ire}) just carried on where she had left off when taking the G3 GRENKE Finance Ballyroan S. over the same course and distance on Thursday. Held up in rear early by Declan McDonogh, the 9-4 joint-favourite was delivered to take control with a furlong remaining and readily asserted for a comfortable 2 1/2-length defeat of Stellar Mass (Ire) (Sea the Stars {Ire}). “I got a great feel off her the whole way and she’s a very fluent mover, a quality filly,” her rider said of the homebred, who is in the mix for the Aug. 23 G1 Yorkshire Oaks. Eziyra showed class from the outset, beating Hydrangea (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) in a Galway maiden in July 2016 before finishing runner-up in the G3 Flame of Tara S. over a mile at The Curragh the following month. Successful in the seven-furlong G3 C.L. & M.F. Weld Park S. back at the latter venue in September, the chestnut was second in the Listed King George V Cup also over this course and distance last June before running third in the G1 Irish Oaks back in Kildare in July. Taking Cork’s G3 Give Thanks S. also over this trip in August, she is held in high regard by the ultra-patient Dermot Weld who said, “I think she was very impressive there and is a very talented filly who will run in group 1s for the rest of the campaign,” he commented. “It was always the plan to wait for the second half of the year with her. The [G1 Qipco British Champions] Fillies and Mares [at Ascot Oct. 20] would be a possibility and the Breeders’ Cup.” Eziyra’s listed-placed dam Eytarna (Ire) (Dubai Destination) was also responsible for the Listed Platinum S. winner Eshera (Ire) (Oratorio {Ire}) and has a yearling filly by Siyouni (Fr) and a filly foal by Gleneagles (Ire) to come. She is a half-sister to the G1 Ascot Gold Cup-winning duo Estimate (Ire) (Monsun {Ger})–whose first foal ran earlier in the evening at Sandown–and Enzeli (Ire) (Kahyasi {Ire}) and also the G1 Irish Oaks and G1 Prix Royal-Oak heroine Ebadiyla (Ire) (Sadler’s Wells) and G1 Moyglare Stud S. scorer Edabiya (Ire) (Rainbow Quest). This is also the family of the G2 Prix de Royallieu winner Ebiyza (Ire) (Rock of Gibraltar {Ire}) and the G1 Epsom Oaks and G1 King George VI & Queen Elizabeth S. heroine Taghrooda (GB) (Sea the Stars {Ire}). Thursday, Leopardstown, Ireland GRENKE FINANCE BALLYROAN S.-G3, €63,000, Leopardstown, 8-9, 3yo/up, 12fT, 2:37.18, g/f. 1–EZIYRA (IRE), 131, f, 4, by Teofilo (Ire) 1st Dam: Eytarna (Ire) (SP-Ire), by Dubai Destination 2nd Dam: Ebaziya (Ire), by Darshaan (GB) 3rd Dam: Ezana (Ire), by Ela-Mana-Mou (Ire) O-H H The Aga Khan; B-H H The Aga Khan’s Studs SC (IRE); T-Dermot Weld; J-Declan McDonogh. €37,170. Lifetime Record: G1SP-Ire, 9-5-3-1, $293,125. *1/2 to Eshera (Ire) (Oratorio {Ire}), SW-Ire. Werk Nick Rating: A++. Click for the eNicks report & 5-cross pedigree. 2–Stellar Mass (Ire), 134, h, 5, Sea the Stars (Ire)–Juno Marlowe (Ire), by Danehill. (280,000gns Wlg ’13 TATFOA). O-Mrs June Judd; B-Tinnakill House & Alan Byrne (IRE); T-Jim Bolger. €11,970. 3–Yucatan (Ire), 137, c, 4, Galileo (Ire)–Six Perfections (Fr), by Celtic Swing (GB). O-Flaxman Stables Ireland Ltd & Mrs John Magnier & Michael Tabor & Derrick Smith; B-Niarchos Family (IRE); T-Aidan O’Brien. €5,670. Margins: 2HF, NO, HD. Odds: 2.25, 2.25, 2.75. Also Ran: The King (Ire). Click for the Racing Post result or the free Equineline.com catalogue-style pedigree. Video, sponsored by Fasig-Tipton. View the full article

St. Elias Stable’s undefeated Grade I winner and ‘TDN Rising Star’ Army Mule (Friesan Fire) returned to trainer Todd Pletcher’s barn at Saratoga Thursday morning, where he will train for a fall campaign. Last seen winning the GI Carter H. Apr. 7 at Aqueduct by a devastating 6 1/2 lengths with a 114 Beyer Speed Figure, the 4-year-old was scheduled to run in the GI Metropolitan H. June 9 at Belmont, but had to be removed from consideration for that spot when he didn’t bounce back from his Carter effort to Pletcher’s satisfaction. The bay, who has raced just three times, was given a few months off in Ocala at Jim Crupi’s New Castle Farm before making the trek back up the East Coast to rejoin Pletcher’s string. “He just arrived this morning and he looks great,” said Pletcher. “We’ll gallop him here for a while and see what his fitness level looks like and map out a schedule. He’s been back galloping at Crupi’s farm for a little while, so hopefully, we’ll have him back on the worktab in the next couple of weeks.” Pletcher and Vinnie Viola of St. Elias hope Army Mule’s fall campaign will culminate in the Breeders’ Cup Nov. 3 at Churchill Downs, with both the Dirt Mile and the six-furlong Sprint being weighed as options. “I need to talk to Mr. Viola a little more about it specifically,” Pletcher said. “We do have the Breeders’ Cup in mind, but we’re not sure which race yet. Ideally, we’ll get one start in between now and the Breeders’ Cup.” Bought for $825,000 at Fasig-Tipton Midlantic in 2016, Army Mule debuted with an 8 1/2-length victory last April at Aqueduct to earn his ‘Rising Star’ badge and scored a 7 1/2-length optional claiming tally at the Big A in January before his Carter heroics. View the full article