All Equine All The Time

One of Animal Kingdom's first yearlings With multiple classic and Breeders’ Cup winning racehorses retiring to stud in 2014, there were many choices for breeders when making breeding decisions for their mares. This year, they’ll be able to see if they made the right decisions when that group of stallions have their first runners on the track. Here are a few of those freshmen sires in North America you may want to keep an eye on this year and next as their first runners get rolling on the track. Animal Kingdom – Animal Kingdom has already had some success with his first crop of 2-year-olds in Australia and there’s no reason to think that won’t continue in the United States. According to The Jockey Club, he has 110 northern hemisphere 2-year-olds in this year and his average at this early season 2-year-olds in training sale sits at $288,750, with his top priced horse being a $550,000 colt from four sold. While they started winning fairly early in Australia, I expect the...

Bernardini is part of a three generation string of sires The biggest night of the year in Dubai racing takes place tomorrow with 103 runners hoping to take home some of the millions of dollars on offer during the eight Thoroughbred races on the card. As always, there is some fun pedigree history behind the runners, so here are a few fun facts as we prepare for this year’s Dubai World Cup night. By the Numbers – The eight Thoroughbred races on the card attracted 103 runners bred in 11 different countries. Those runners represent 81 different sires and 91 broodmare sires with active sires on the list standing in 17 different countries, including Pakistan (Thousand Words). European sire list rivals Dubawi (Dubai Millennium) and Galileo (Sadler’s Wells) lead all sires with six runners each. Three broodmare sires (Danehill, Dubai Destination and Machiavellian) are tied for most runners in that category with three each. Sires Siring Sires – Acclamation, A.P. Indy, Bernardini, Ca...

Congrats' daughter topped the sale It was a quick turn-around from the Fasig-Tipton Gulfstream Sale to the Ocala Breeders’ Sales March Sale of 2-Year-Olds in Training but money still flew in Ocala this week. Five horses sold for $1-million or more compared to two last year with a filly coming out as the most expensive hip for the second sale in a row following the Uncle Mo filly topping Fasig-Tipton’s 2-year-old sale. Here are some quick observations from this year’s OBS March sale and the stallions represented in it. A.P. Indy Factor – A.P. Indy’s (Seattle Slew) time as a sire at the 2-year-old sales has long since passed but that doesn’t mean his presence wasn’t felt at OBS March. The 28-year-old pensioned stallion is the sire of Congrats, who had the $1.7-million sales topper here. He is also the grandsire of freshman sire Orb (Malibu Moon), who had the second most expensive horse at $1.25-million, and Tapit (Pulpit) who had the third most expensive at $1.1-million....

While there is a long time until the final International Federation of Horseracing Authorities' (IFHA) Longines World’s Best Racehorse Rankings of the year, the first edition of 2017 was a win for the Mr. Prospector sire line with two racehorses sired by his grandson and great-grandson tied for the top spot. Released on Thursday, it was no surprise to see Arrogate (Unbridled’s Song) and Winx (Street Cry) both earning ratings of 127, four points ahead of third placed Hartnell (Authorized). In all, six of the 28 ranked horses trace back to Mr. Prospector through their sires while seven of the ranked horses’ broodmare sires also come from that particular sire line. Hussonet (Mr. Prospector) proved to be the most popular close link through broodmare sires with two of the ranked racehorses out of Hussonet mares. Winx (IFHA/ © bradleyphotos.com.au ) Unbridled’s Song was the only Mr. Prospector descendant  to both sire a ranked horse and the dam of another ranked horse with h...

In our second edition of this series, we look at the horses who sold at the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Company March Sale of Selected 2-Year-Olds in Training in 2015 and 2016 for $500,000 or more. During those past two sales, 42 horses have sold in that price range with 37 of them making at least one start and a few others entered to race this weekend. The horses from these classes of the sale include Grade 1 winner Constellation (Bellamy Road), Group 2 winner Acapulco (Scat Daddy) and a few Triple Crown trail runners among others. Read on to see what all 42 horses have been up to since leaving Ocala as 2-year-olds.                                                              ...