All Equine All The Time

A wet and interesting weekend at Pimlico Race Course had more than a few talking points when everyone headed home on Saturday night. Justify (Scat Daddy) gave Bob Baffert his second Triple Crown chance in four years when he raced through the fog to win the Preakness Stakes as the biggest winner of the two-day festival but he wasn’t the only big story. Seven different stallions had spectacular weekends that saw Pimlico playing a leading role with just a few weeks before breeding sheds close around the northern hemisphere. Here are the leading men who didn’t let a little mud or fog in Maryland stop them from making headlines. Awesome Again/Deputy Minister – At 24 years old and still an active stallion, Awesome Again (Deputy Minister) is already impressive. But add in the fact that that he plays a major role in the pedigrees of the top two Preakness finishers, the Black Eye Susan second and the Chick Lang third and it was a great weekend for the Adena Spring stallion. In the...

Into Mischief bred the most mares this year at 235. With the 2017 northern hemisphere breeding season truly in the rear view mirror and getting farther away every day, on Wednesday The Jockey Club released its 2017 Report of Mares Bred for stallions standing in North America.  Over 90 stallions bred more than 100 mares during the 2017 breeding season with a total of 1,342 stallions covering at least one mare, a drop of 5.7 percent from 2016 with 2,000 to 3,000 mares estimated to be covered this year according to The Jockey Club. With a large amount of stallions hitting the triple digits, it seemed worthwhile to take a look at the list. By The Numbers – Ninety-one stallions combined to breed 12,859 mares in 2017 with the 91 breeding no fewer than 101 mares each. Of those stallions, two stand in California, two in Florida, 82 in Kentucky, one in Maryland, three in New York, and one in Pennsylvania. Four stallions bred over 200 mares, 28 bred between 150 and 200 mares...