All Equine All The Time

On Saturday, the racing world turns its eyes to Belmont Park for the final leg of the Triple Crown. The Belmont Stakes has a 12 horse field though it is missing the winners of the first two legs of the Crown and Lookin At Lee (Lookin at Lucky) will be the only horse to compete in all three legs of the series this year. But while the Belmont Stakes may not be all that people hoped for after the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes the New York Racing Association has put together an interesting 13 race card that includes 10 stakes, with all but one being graded. Ninety-four horses will enter the gate in those 10 races in a sort of mid-year Breeders’ Cup preview. So instead of focusing on just the Belmont Stakes, we did a little bit of digging into the pedigrees on display during a top notch card of racing. Stallion Numbers – Sixty-eight stallions have runners in Saturday’s stakes at Belmont Park. Of those, all but six are still active sires with two from that group pensione...

Mr. Prospector (WikiMedia Commons/Pawneese photo) It seems like it’s only been days since Always Dreaming (Bodemeister) crossed the line first in the Kentucky Derby but it’s time to get back on track for the Preakness Stakes. The field attracted 10 horses with five familiar faces from the Kentucky Derby and five fresh faces who sat out the run for the roses out. With new horses comes a new set of pedigrees to analyze and there are a few interesting points to know as we head into the second leg of the United States’ Triple Crown. Mr. Prospector – If you like Mr. Prospector and sons, this is the race for you. Mr. Prospector (Raise a Native) is responsible for the sire lines of five of the entries (50 percent) and three of the damsires. Recently repatriated Empire Maker is responsible for the morning line favorite and second choice with son Bodemeister siring Kentucky Derby winner Always Dreaming and another son, Pioneerof the Nile, siring last year’s champion 2-year-old ...

Malibu Moon The first two legs of the 2016 Triple Crown played like coming out parties for the younger generation of stallions with the 8-year-old Uncle Mo and 12-year-old Curlin siring the winners of the Kentucky Derby and Preakness respectively. But in Saturday’s Belmont Stakes, the older stallions will attempt to reclaim the classic throne. The Belmont Stakes sire list reads as a who’s who of established stallions with seven of the stallions over the age of 14. The youngest stallion to sire a runner in this year’s Belmont is nine years old with the average stallion age in the race sitting at 15 1/2 years old. The elder statesmen of this Belmont Stakes are Giant’s Causeway and Malibu Moon. The 19-year-old stallions are searching for more classic success with Giant’s Causeway already siring French classic winner Shamardal and Malibu Moon siring 2013 Kentucky Derby winner Orb. Malibu Moon comes from the most popular sireline seen in this race with the stallion one of t...

Candy Ride Tuesday marks the start of the second major 2-year-old sale of the year and with 521 2-year-olds slated to go through the ring at OBS's March Sale as of Sunday morning, buyers have a variety of horses to choose from. While buyers have long been doing their homework for this sale, they got their first glimpse of the potential the horses show on the track last week when the 2-year-olds put in their only public breeze before going through the ring at the breeze show.  With bullets of :9.3 for a furlong and :20.2 over a quarter mile, the 2-year-olds were motoring over the synthetic surface at OBS with 48 horses working under 10 seconds during the three-day preview last week. While buyers can always expect stallions like Tapit (Pulpit), Scat Daddy (Johannesburg), Uncle Mo (Indian Charlie) and War Front (Danzig) to be popular, the breeze show highlighted a few others that may be worth a second look before they enter the ring over the next few days.  Here are eigh...