All Equine All The Time

A successful multi-surface racer that will be standing in 2013 is Brilliant Speed, a son of the late Dynaformer. Brilliant Speed won his maiden at 1 1/16 miles over turf and received his first graded stakes score in the Toyota Blue Grass Stakes (gr. I) on Keeneland’s All Weather track. While Brilliant Speed never entered the winner's circle on the dirt, he was well placed in multiple starts on the surface, including a third in the Belmont Stakes (gr. I) behind Ruler On Ice and Stay Thirsty. Brilliant Speed (Melissa Bauer-Herzog) In his 21 lifetime starts, the 4-year-old colt raced in 16 stakes with 14 of them graded. He won two of them, the Blue Grass and Saranac Stakes (gr.IIIT), and hit the board in 10 others. Brilliant Speed’s most impressive race may have been the Emirates Airline Breeders' Cup Turf (gr. IT) behind European invaders St Nicholas Abbey (IRE) and Sea Moon (GB), highlighting six Grade 1 placings during his career. Brilliant Speed attempted dirt one

As the year that has seemed underwhelming comes to an end and the season records of some of the “bigger” horses are examined, the year has turned more exciting. A few names have been mentioned for Horse of the Year honors (both by myself and others) and for the sake of being able to look at all of their records together, I decided to put them in a blog post. I don’t get a vote but the process always interests me so without farther ado, here are some of the Horse of the Year nominees that have been talked about both seriously and not-so-seriously in the past few weeks (names are in alphabetical order). Note: This only includes North American races. Fort Larned- Overall 2012 record: 9-5-1-1 for $3,598,455 in earnings. Wins: Breeders’ Cup Classic (gr. I) Whitney Invitational Handicap (gr. I) Prairie Meadows Cornhusker Handicap (gr. III) Skip Away Stakes (gr. III) Challenger Stakes (UG) Second: Alysheba Stakes (gr. II) to Successful Dan Third: TVG Jockey

Havre De Grace after her final bid (Photo: Melissa Bauer-Herzog) Monday’s Fasig-Tipton event not only had excitement fill the ring when reigning Horse of the Year Havre De Grace went for $10 million, it also proved that no matter the issues that surround racing, people are still spending money on the sport. The buyers at Fasig-Tipton spent $60,220,000 to take home 87 horses, including 15 that went for $1 million or more on Monday night. The sale lasted for more than five hours, starting at 5 p.m. and not ending until after 10, but even the final horse, a half-sister to this year’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf winner George Washington, didn’t stop the bidding until she hit $545,000. She didn’t sell but the final bid topped off a night that saw the cheapest horse sold go for $20,000. Some of those sold on Monday night were Grade 1 winners or producers, Breeders’ Cup winners, or Eclipse Champions. Others were young horses who haven’t yet had a chance to prove that they