All Equine All The Time

Fastnet Rock (Coolmore photo) After staying in Australia and skipping the 2015 northern hemisphere breeding season, Fastnet Rock seems to be making sure he won’t be left off the shuttle plane in coming years. A number of Fastnet Rock’s runners won at least one stakes race in Europe in 2015 while he was taking the season off, headlined by Group 1 Investec Oaks winner Qualify and QIPCO Champion Stakes winner Fascinating Rock. This year, Fascinating Rock gave him his first Group 1 winner of the flat racing season when winning last weekend’s Tattersalls Gold Cup. Four fillies are trying to set him up to become the first stallion to sire back-to-back Investec Oaks winners since Diesis in 1999/2000 (Ramruma and Love Devine). Not surprisingly, three of the Fastnet Rock runners are owned by at least one Coolmore partner, including Qualify's full sister who is partially owned by Mrs. Richard Henry, and are out of mare by their flagship sires Sadler’s Wells (Northern Dancer) and...

Uncle Mo The 2-year-old sales season may be winding down in North America as buyers start to turn their attention toward yearling sales but Fasig-Tipton’s Midlantic 2-Year-Olds in Training Sale was anything but quiet on Monday and Tuesday. Here are a few observations from the Maryland sale. Uncle Mo hits big … again – If you haven’t heard about Uncle Mo’s (Indian Charlie) success over the past nine months or so, you may have been living under a rock. When Nyquist was named champion 2-year-old in January, Uncle Mo became the first 2-year-old champion to sire a 2-year-old champion since Seattle Slew sired Vindication. In May, Nyquist went on to tie him as the youngest stallion to ever sire a Kentucky Derby winner at eight years of age. While Nyquist suffered his first loss on Saturday, that didn’t seem to hurt Uncle Mo’s trade with a 2-year-old filly by the stallion topping the sale for $1-million. The filly is the second-highest priced horse in the history of this auction be...

Fast Company (Overbury Stud photo) The 2016 Irish 1,000 Guineas seems to be a sort of ushering in of a new era of stallions with four of the nine stallions’ first European foals being aged six or younger. While there are no first crop stallions represented in this year’s race, second-crop sire Fast Company is looking for a victory in this race after he found moderate success here last year when his daughter Devonshire finished third behind Teofilo’s Pleascach. Fast Company’s sire Danehill Dancer was given one win in this race with his daughter Again in 2009, the same year his son Mastercraftsman won the Irish 2,000 Guineas. In some ways it may be hard to believe that Galileo has the most racing aged crops any sire in the 1,000 Guineas but in other ways, his first crop being only 13 years old seems young with how much influence the stallion has had on the European Thoroughbred in that time. His success is on full display in this race with the stallion siring three of the e...

Northern Dancer. Photo courtesy of WikiMedia Commons When Northern Dancer won two legs of the U.S. Triple Crown 52 years ago, it was obvious that the little bay horse was something special but it took years to realize just how special he was. Today, Northern Dancer is found in pedigrees around the world with his influence on full display in this weekend’s Irish 2,000 Guineas where every horse entered comes from his sireline. Overall, of the 13 sires and broodmare sires in the 2,000 Guineas as of Thursday, 10 of them can trace their male line directly to Northern Dancer. Northern Dancer can thank his son Sadler’s Wells with a large assist from grandson Galileo for a lot of the representation in this race. Galileo has the distinction of having runners in the Irish 2,000 Guineas as both a sire and as a broodmare sire with one other runner by one of his sons giving him a total of four runners in this race as a sire, broodmare sire or grandsire. Galileo has absolutely dominated...

Nyquist arriving at Keeneland in April With Preakness week rolling into gear, the field is becoming clearer with 11 probables as of Monday evening. Just like the Kentucky Derby, the Uncle Mo train seems to be rolling through Baltimore, Maryland uninterrupted with the stallion having over a quarter of the entries with four of his sons looking like they’ll enter the race. Of those four only one, the Kentucky Derby winner Nyquist, ran in the Kentucky Derby giving Uncle Mo a total of six different horses running for him in the first two legs of the Triple Crown. The champion 2-year-old of 2010, Uncle Mo never had a chance to run in a classic after scratching from the Kentucky Derby due to illness but has made a big impact on the racing scene since his first runner hit the track last year. As of May 15, he currently sits second to Tapit by stakes winners, is tied by stakes wins and leads Tapit in Grade 1 winners with 109 less runners than that leading sire.   Uncle Mo won’t...

Editor's note: This blog was first run May 10, 2016 but was modified on June 10, 2017 when Irish War Cry finished second in the Belmont Stakes.  A racehorse who didn’t debut until February of his 3-year-old year, Curlin caught the attention of the racing world after winning two of Arkansas’ Kentucky Derby preps in 2007. But it was the Triple Crown that really solidified his place as a future superstar. Going into the Grade 1 Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands with only three races under his belt, the Smart Strike son held his own when finishing third in the 20 horse field. In a bit of a twist, the Derby seemed to complete the seasoning he needed as he won a hard-fought Grade 1 Preakness Stakes over Kentucky Derby winner Street Sense (Street Cry) by a head. Perhaps the most famous of his three Triple Crown races is the one he lost by a head to the filly Rags to Riches in the Grade 1 Belmont Stakes. Curlin ended his career in November of the following year after a f...

The pensioned A.P. Indy A.P. Indy (Seattle Slew) hasn’t stepped into a breeding shed in five years but this Kentucky Oaks, open only to 3-year-old fillies, has the 27-year-old stallion’s mark all over it. The oversubscribed Oaks field has 15 entries with 14 fillies automatically in the gate and one waiting on the outside looking in. Some of the top stallions in the sport are seen in the first two or three generations on the fillies’ pedigrees in both the sire and broodmare sire lines but none more than the 1992 Belmont Stakes winner.  While A.P. Indy isn’t the sire or broodmare sire of any runner in the race, he is the grandsire or great-grandsire of nine of the runners with seven sired by his sons or in two cases, grandson. In the two other cases, he is seen on the bottom side of the pedigree with his sons’ daughters producing the runners. As far as his representation with sires go, Bernardini and Tapit are responsible for four of those runners with two each including the ...