All Equine All The Time

Saturday evening, the first two Books of Keeneland’s September Yearling sale wrapped up after a week that included a history making offering at the end of Book 1 when Beholder’s half-brother brought $3-million, the highest price at the sale since 2010. With a mixed bag of numbers in both books, the sale had both buyers and consignors on their toes.  But outside the numbers, there were also a number of interesting things going on over the past week. Read on to find out which sires hit it big and which buyers made big splashes during the first five sessions of the sale. Scat Daddy – When Scat Daddy (Johannesburg) died suddenly in December, it was a major loss to the industry. Leaving behind eight crops, Scat Daddy had hit his best stride in the last few years and has the two best 2-year-olds in Europe this year with Caravaggio and Lady Aurelia in addition to Grade 1 U.S. runners like Dacita and Harmonize. That success made Scat Daddy a popular sire at Keeneland September this ...

Northern Dancer ( WikiMedia Commons photo) On July 16, attention turns to fillies in Ireland when the 2016 Darley Irish Oaks takes place at the Curragh. Twelve fillies from seven different barns will line up to join a winner’s list that has seen names such as Ouija Board, Alexandrova, Peeping Fawn, Snow Fairy, Blue Bunting and Chicquita join it in recent years. International breeders will be paying close attention to this race as during the 2016 season, the eight sires represented in the entries stood in three different countries (Ireland, France, Germany) with no grandsire represented by more than one son. Not surprisingly, Galileo leads all sires by the number of runners with four in addition to being the grandsire of the Teofilo daughter Ajman Princess. As has been on prominent display in 2016, Galileo is turning into just as important a broodmare sire as a sire and he has two chances to pick up another classic win in that category here (Red Stars and Turret Rocks). ...

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...

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 ...

Zoffany's Illuminate has Danzig on both sides of her family. While Galileo took a step back and let War Front shine as the sire of the most QIPCO 2,000 Guineas entries, the stallion made sure to keep a firm hold on the QIPCO 1,000 Guineas this weekend. The 18-year-old Sadler’s Wells (Northern Dancer) son has three daughters competing in this Sunday’s race but that is only the tip of the iceberg for the stallion with sons Sixties Icon and Teofilo also having a runner apiece. Galileo is also represented in the broodmare sire category with his daughter Beyond Compare throwing the Jim Bolger runner Turret Rocks. In all, six of the 16 runners in this fillies’ classic can find Galileo in their pedigrees. Sadler’s Wells’ sons Montjeu and Barathea also have entries in the race with Montjeu’s Motivator siring Midweek and Barathea as both a damsire and the sire of a damsire in the race. But Sadler’s Wells family is far from the only line dominating the pedigrees of this year’s 1...