All Equine All The Time

As of Thursday, the 2017 Group 1 Qatar Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe has attracted a field of 18 runners at Chantilly for an exciting race that has Nathaniel’s Enable looking to verify that she’s the best horse in Europe. While the field may change in the coming days, I couldn’t help but dig into the pedigrees of the current entrants as we prepare for one of the biggest races of the year. Like nearly every big race in Europe, Sadler’s Wells rules the entries. The late Coolmore stallion is the sire or grandsire of the sires of nine of the 18 entries in the race. His son Galileo has sired six of those entries and is the grandsire of one other (Enable) with the majority owned by the Coolmore partners. Galileo had the trifecta in 2016, led by Found. Enable, who is sired by Galileo’s son, also has the distinction of being the only runner in the race with Sadler’s Wells as her broodmare sire. Sadler’s Wells is featured prominently in her pedigree as the sire of her dam Concentri...

The first four Keeneland September sessions are in the book with all Book 1 and 2 horses headed for their next adventures. Spirits, and averages, were up at this year’s revamped early sessions of the sale with buyers opening their wallets wide to take home some new racing prospects. In this edition of the All Equine All the Time Observations series we have 10 points from you ranging from old stallions regaining the commercial spotlight to one of the most talked about boycotts in the industry seeming to be over with a changing of the guard. Read on to see some of the things seen in this year’s Book 1 and 2 results. Tapit – As is often the case at U.S. sales where he has horses cataloged, Tapit was the rockstar sire of the first two books. The stallion made a bit of history with his sales topper, a $2.7 million full sister to Cupid, who brought the highest price for a filly since 2008, with two other Tapits also being the second and third most expensive yearlings of the sale. Tapi...