All Equine All The Time

When Bob Baffert and Juddmonte decided to buy a gray colt out of Bubbler (Distorted Humor) at the Keeneland September Sale in 2014 they obviously knew he had all the looks to be a talented racehorse but it is doubtful they knew how talented he was. Typical young horse problems delayed Arrogate (Unbridled’s Song) from starting until April of his 3-year-old year for the Baffert barn, forcing him to miss the Triple Crown series. Starting in a six furlong maiden at Los Alamitos, the colt was only three quarters of a length from a win with the Congrats gelding (at that time still intact) Westbrook winning the race and future multiple graded stakes winner Accelerate (Lookin At Lucky) in second. Arrogate had the racing game figured out after that race and no one would beat him to the line for over a year after that start. He won a maiden at Santa Anita nearly two months later by 4 ½ lengths over a field that included future Grade 2 winner Giant Expectations (Frost Giant) before B...

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...

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...

Tapit is represented by three horses Perhaps the most international event of the year in horse racing, Dubai World Cup night brings together horses from all sides of the world from Australia to England and Ireland to Hong Kong with nearly everything in between. Of course with a large group of horses running from different parts of the world also comes a wide range of sires and broodmare sires. At this year’s festival, 58 different sires and 68 different broodmare sires are represented in a variety of races from a six furlong dirt sprint to a two-mile turf race. Showing the versatility of some of the bloodlines represented, some sires and damsires can be seen in both sprint and route races. Meydan has been Dubawi’s (Dubai Millennium) personal playground the last few years and Saturday will be no different for the Darley stallion. The 14-year-old holds the most entries of any sire on the night with six ranging from the six furlong Group 1 Dubai Golden Shaheen Sponsored by Gulf News ...