Author
A Kansas native who has worked in racing journalism since 1974, he is the co-founder of the newsletter Racing Update, and served as the paper's editor until 1993, when he moved to Scotland. Oppenheim developed a reputation as an independent observer of the sales scene in the early 1980's, and he and the staff of Racing Update originated a number of methods of stallion and sales analysis which have been adopted throughout the industry. For the past 10 years he has written a weekly column for TDN, as well as reporting from the major sales. He also works as a consultant, primarily for pedigree analysis, in a private capacity.
The sires who went to stud in North America in 2010 had the lowest entering stud fees in at least the last 15 years. The most expensive of them was Hill ‘n’ Dale Farm’s Zensational (Unbridled’s Song), at $25,000. Trained by Bob Baffert for Zayat Stables, the $700,000 Fasig-Tipton Florida 2-year-old ran seven times as...
Now the preps for the first American Classics, Friday week’s GI Kentucky Oaks (well, maybe it’s not technically a Classic, but it sure looks a great race this year) and the following day’s GI Kentucky Derby, are just about done, last week saw a lot of action on the European front–not least Monday’s announcement that...
Just two weeks after his Revolutionary won the $1-million GII Louisiana Derby, Lane’s End’s late 2007 champion 2-year-old War Pass (Cherokee Run) moved to the top of the 2013 Second-Crop Sire List (click here), by virtue of Java’s War’s win in last Saturday’s $750,000 GI Blue Grass S…
The first rule of finding the GI Kentucky Derby winner is never, never forget the difference between winning a nine-furlong prep race and getting 10 furlongs at Churchill Downs. The nine-furlong prep winners are always the favorites, but they don’t always get the trip. I can see that being the case again…
A few Americans were reportedly bemused when the band broke out in the Australian national anthem after Animal Kingdom’s comprehensive victory in Saturday’s G1 Dubai World Cup (Racing Post Rating 125), centerpiece of a fantastic day’s racing worldwide, which began with an impressive win for another very good High Chaparral colt (think So You Think)...
Now there, you would think, is a sure-fire name for something by the new leading 2013 second-crop sire, Midnight Lute (Real Quiet) (click here). Don’t know, though: there is a 1993 Midnight Train, a mare by Red Ransom who won two races and $89,000, is the dam of…
When Darley spent an estimated $200-million acquiring stallion prospects for the 2008 season (first crop 2009), this is the result they were after: if you click here to view the TDN 2013 Third-Crop Year-to-Date Sire List, the top four names are all horses Darley scooped up, mostly in its 2007 stallion prospect spending spree. The...
I’ve often said the job of an analyst–which is first and foremost my job description–is to see things as they are, not how we want them to be or how we think they should be; those are different questions. In light of the Breeders’ Cup reversal of its announcement two years ago that all 2013...
I had planned to finish up this cycle of APEX and A Runner analysis with some detail about broodmare sires, historical as well as current, and that is still the plan. In the meantime, in doing some further research last week, we discovered a group of 651 A Runners from 2010 who had unaccountably disappeared...
The Golden Globes, the BAFTAs, soon the Oscars… yes, it’s awards season in movie and TV land. We live in a different segment of the entertainment industry, and we have our own awards ceremonies. And now it’s time for some Lifetime Achievement Awards in the stallion business. When we do the calculations for sires’ APEX...