All Equine All The Time

Born to Sea (Gilltown Stud photo) Jumps season is still in full swing as the first month of the year ticks by, but in yards across Europe runners by a variety of stallions are preparing for the 2017 flat season. Stallions young and old will again be trying to catch the attention of owners and breeders by producing as many winners as possible during the year but younger stallions still have something to prove as they try to establish themselves as “go-to” sires in the years to come. Here are six young stallions standing Europe – from Ireland to Turkey (a country that sits in both Europe and Asia) – with a few crops on the track who are worth keeping an eye on in 2017. The last foal out of supermare Urban Sea, Born to Sea (Invincible Spirit) didn’t live up to the lofty race records of his half-brothers Sea the Stars (Cape Cross) and Galileo (Sadler’s Wells) but held his own on the track. Born to Sea was a listed winner in addition to being second to Camelot (Montjeu) in...

Saturday evening, the first two Books of Keeneland’s September Yearling sale wrapped up after a week that included a history making offering at the end of Book 1 when Beholder’s half-brother brought $3-million, the highest price at the sale since 2010. With a mixed bag of numbers in both books, the sale had both buyers and consignors on their toes.  But outside the numbers, there were also a number of interesting things going on over the past week. Read on to find out which sires hit it big and which buyers made big splashes during the first five sessions of the sale. Scat Daddy – When Scat Daddy (Johannesburg) died suddenly in December, it was a major loss to the industry. Leaving behind eight crops, Scat Daddy had hit his best stride in the last few years and has the two best 2-year-olds in Europe this year with Caravaggio and Lady Aurelia in addition to Grade 1 U.S. runners like Dacita and Harmonize. That success made Scat Daddy a popular sire at Keeneland September this ...

Frankly Speaking, a 2-year-old colt by Frankel Every spring as racing ramps up in the Northern Hemisphere, trainers prepare 2-year-olds for their new careers as racehorses. For some of those 2-year-olds, they aren’t just carrying the hopes of what they may become on their backs, they are also carrying the hopes of breeders who t ook a chance on their sires in their first year at stud .  This year, expectations will be high for those first-crop sires with a lot of big names having their foals hit the track . Here are five stallions in Europe who we may see battling it out at the top of the First-Crop Sire list in the com ing months . One of two Juddmonte stallions with first foals hitting the track this year, Bated Breath (Dansili) is a Group 2 winning half-brother to Group 1 winner Cityscape (Selkirk). As normal for Juddmonte horses, he has family class behind him for generations with his fourth dam also the dam of champion Xaar (Zafonic). Bated Breath didn’t hit the t...

Carpe Diem Bought by Stonestreet Stables for $1.6-million (approx. €1.48-million/£1.1-million) as a 2-year-old, Carpe Diem's career led to a successful partnership between the farm and WinStar in 2014 and 2015. Th is year, the pair teams up again to support him off the track in his first season at stud.  By top sire Giant’s Causeway, Carpe Diem won his debut at Saratoga in September of 2014 by 2 ¼ lengths. From there, trainer Todd Pletcher sent him to Keeneland for the track’s fall meet. The colt relished the Bluegrass track’s dirt in the Grade 1 Claiborne Breeders’ Futurity, cruising to a 6 ¼ length victory at odds of 2.40-to-1, beating a field that included future Grade 1 winner Keen Ice (Curlin) and propelling him into talk as one of the best 2-year-olds of the year. Carpe Diem made his first, and only, start in California in the Grade 1 Sentient Breeders’ Cup Juvenile when he showed another dimension to his running style. While he had went wire-to-wire in his ...

2009 2-year-old champion Lookin At Lucky was retired at the end of 2010 One good thing about social media is that it leads to interesting discussions. After Beholder’s win the other day Brian Zipse of Horse Racing Nation asked when the last time a 2-year-old champion (Beholder was U.S. champion 2-year-old filly in 2012) has accomplished as much as her. While that was a really solid question, I started wondering how many 2-year-old champions are actually given a chance to race after 3. Due to the financial risk of a colt not coming back the same or moving forward as an older horse (especially in the case of injury) a lot of them are whisked off to stud before we get to see them past their classic season. This leaves a lot of 'what ifs' left behind, especially if a horse was running near the top of his game at the time of retirement or injury. For the purpose of my research I looked at 2-year-old champions from 1994-2013 of both sexes from the United States and Europ...