Not including Arqana's August v. 2 sale yesterday, through their Book 1 August yearling sale which ended Monday, plus another solid edition of the NY-bred sale last weekend makes it a good time to take a snapshot of the sales season so far: Fasig-Tipton July, Saratoga, and NY-bred sales, plus Arqana August Book 1. It's [...]

Fasig-Tipton took a risk this year by cataloguing 26% more yearlings between their Fasig July and Saratoga yearling sales, since the usual pattern when catalogues are increased so much is for the not-sold percentage to rise, the gross to stay about the same, and the average　to drop. But it was all smiles at Saratoga Tuesday [...]

Three North American or European second-crop sires (first foals 2012, or F2012) have sired Classic winners in their first crops of 3-year-olds this year. That's presuming you agree that the GI Kentucky Oaks, won by the Majesticperfection filly Lovely Maria, should be classified as a Classic, which really it should be. The other two Classic [...]

Through racing of July 5, when we ran the Midyear APEX data, a North American racehorse needed to have earned just over $40,000 thus far in 2015 to qualify as a Midyear 'C Runner', and just over $83,000 to qualify as a Midyear 'A Runner'; you can see the amounts (converted to US$) for the [...]

Last week we took a look at the Top 50 North American and European sires by APEX A Runner Index (click here), using new Midyear 2015 data, meaning from 1/1/2009 through 7/5/2015. A particular note about this, if you will refer to the table on page five of last Wednesday's paper, is that the earnings [...]

At the end of 2014, Coolmore's Galileo had finally ascended to the top of the list of North American and European sires by A Runner Index, with a 4.09 rating (8.18% of his 1,822 year-starters 2008-2014), just slightly ahead of Claiborne's War Front (4.02). Now, halfway through 2015, War Front (3.98) has edged ahead of [...]

Having covered the new sires with their first yearlings selling at Fasig July extensively, it is appropriate for us to acknowledge that there are other sires represented–quite a few of them, and quite important ones, too. There's one Tapit filly catalogued from Gainesway, and one War Front colt bred by Southern Equine and consigned by [...]

One week from tomorrow Fasig-Tipton kicks off the 2015 North American yearling market with the Kentucky July yearling sale, in which 40 years ago this year, Seattle Slew sold as a yearling for $17,500 to Karen and Mickey Taylor, and it's been producing good horses ever since. This year 332 yearlings are catalogued–a 25% increase [...]

The world's greatest week of racing, Royal Ascot, lived up to its billing last week. British-based operations Godolphin, Shadwell, and Juddmonte's Prince Khalid Abdullah each won two races. Moyglare, the Aga Khan, the Wertheimers, and Al Shaqab all got on the scoreboard. American-based trainer Wesley Ward hit the target twice, taking his Royal Ascot total [...]

There haven't been too many shock results the first two days at Royal Ascot; in fact, the favorites have won three of the four Group 1 races run thus far. The meet opened on Tuesday with the G1 Queen Anne S., for 4-year-olds and up on the straight mile. It was a one-two for France [...]

When Coolmore did the deal to buy the breeding rights to American Pharoah in January, before the Eclipse Awards, they were just hoping they were buying their fifth champion 2-year-old colt in six years to stand at their Kentucky arm, Ashford Stud. They couldn't have bought the sixth anyway; that was the gelding Shared Belief, [...]

When Coolmore did the deal to buy the breeding rights to American Pharoah in January, before the Eclipse Awards, they were just hoping they were buying their fifth champion 2-year-old colt in six years to stand at their Kentucky arm, Ashford Stud. They couldn't have bought the sixth anyway; that was the gelding Shared Belief, [...]