All Equine All The Time

With 12 categories and 31 horses, it's to be expected that there's some overlap in the bloodlines found when the Eclipse Award finalists are named in early January. This year was no different with some stallions making their marks in more than one category. From Mr. Prospector to A.P. Indy, here are some of the more interesting things you’ll find when digging into Eclipse award pedigrees this winter. Mr. Prospector (WikiMedia Commons/Pawneese photo) Mr. Prospector – It’s never a big surprise to find Mr. Prospector (Raise a Native) in pedigrees but it may be a surprise to see how dominate he is when it comes to this year's Eclipse awards. Of the 31 finalists, Mr. Prospector is found in the sire or damsire line of 18 (58 percent) of the horses, including all three of the Horse of the Year candidates. Horse of the Year and 3-year-old Male finalist Arrogate (Unbridled’s Song) and female sprinter finalist Finest City (City Zip) both have Mr. Prospector in their sire and...

Malibu Moon The first two legs of the 2016 Triple Crown played like coming out parties for the younger generation of stallions with the 8-year-old Uncle Mo and 12-year-old Curlin siring the winners of the Kentucky Derby and Preakness respectively. But in Saturday’s Belmont Stakes, the older stallions will attempt to reclaim the classic throne. The Belmont Stakes sire list reads as a who’s who of established stallions with seven of the stallions over the age of 14. The youngest stallion to sire a runner in this year’s Belmont is nine years old with the average stallion age in the race sitting at 15 1/2 years old. The elder statesmen of this Belmont Stakes are Giant’s Causeway and Malibu Moon. The 19-year-old stallions are searching for more classic success with Giant’s Causeway already siring French classic winner Shamardal and Malibu Moon siring 2013 Kentucky Derby winner Orb. Malibu Moon comes from the most popular sireline seen in this race with the stallion one of t...

California Chrome One of only three Kentucky Derby winners this century to race past his 4-year-old season, California Chrome became the all-time highest earner outside of Japan on Saturday when he won the $6-million winner’s share of the Dubai World Cup purse and boosted his earnings to $12,532,650. The winner of 12 of 21 races, the California-bred son of Lucky Pulpit was under the radar as a 2-year-old, winning only three of his seven starts but has quickly risen to be one of the most popular active racehorses in the world after dominating the Kentucky Derby trail in 2014 and winning two legs of the Triple Crown. California Chrome was only a neck short of adding the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Classic to his resume at the end of that year, finishing third to Bayern (Offlee Wild) before closing the season with a Grade 1 win on turf in the Hollywood Derby. His 2015 seasons was derailed a bit when, after a pair of seconds including the Group 1 Dubai World Cup, he went on an ambitious cam...

Uncle Mo A day after having the most Triple Crown nomin ees of any stallion , Uncle Mo (Indian Charlie) was on top of another list when he topped all sires on the U.S. Experimental Free Handicap with 10 2-year-olds listed including the highweighted champion 2-year-old colt Nyquist. Two-year-olds must have made at least one start in graded or listed stakes company in North America to be assigned a weight with The Jockey Club listing all horses weighted at 100 or above. Nyquist was given a weight of 126 as the highest weighted 2-year-old on the list, beating out highweighted filly Songbird (Medaglia d’Oro) by one point. Overall, Uncle Mo had four of the top 50 horses on the Experimental Free Handicap, including the seventh highest rated filly in Gomo. The only stallion to have more than one horse in the Top 10 was Bernardini (A.P. Indy), whose Greenpointcrusader and Rachel’s Valentina were both rated 120. Rachel Valentina’s 120 rating made her the second highest weighted filly in ...

It was announced today that 4-year-old Grade 1 winner Mr. Speaker (Pulpit) has been retired to Lane’s End for the 2016 season, joining Honor Code (A.P. Indy) and Liam’s Map (Unbridled’s Song) as new stallions on the roster. When winning the Grade 1 Belmont Derby in 2014, Mr. Speaker defeated 10 other horses, with four eventual Grade or Group 1 winners and last year’s Breeders’ Cup Classic runner-up in the field. Among his other victories were the Grade 2 Commonwealth Cup Stakes, Grade 3 Coolmore Lexington Stakes, and Grade 3 Dania Beach Stakes. He retires with six victories and two other on-the-board finishes in 18 starts for $1,247,544 in earnings. Mr. Speaker at Keeneland in April 2015 Mr. Speaker will be the sixth A.P. Indy son or grandson to sit on Lane’s End’s stallion roster for 2016 with the farm also having A.P. Indy’s son Honor Code visiting the shed for the first time next year. A.P. Indy stood at Lane’s End for his entire career and is currently pensioned at ...