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.
Finding a racehorse that makes money is a challenge. By our calculations, only 8% of all the runners in North America in 2013 earned $53,500 or more ($53,492, to be precise). Recent studies show that it takes about $50,000, if not more, to have a horse in training at the major tracks for a year....
Besides Street Sense, as Andrew Caulfield detailed yesterday, we have to go back nearly 25 years to find the last GI Kentucky Derby winners to make successful sires, and in fact there were two major sires: Sunday Silence won the 1989 Derby, and Unbridled was the winner in 1990. With I’ve Spent It’s game win...
When all was said and done, this year’s Saratoga Select Yearling Sale on the Fasig-Tipton grounds just across from the race track, didn’t look so very different from the previous two years. Monday started out with a nearly unprecedented 90% sold from the 71 yearlings sent through the ring, but that figure returned to reality...
When Brad Cummings announced Equilottery at the beginning of the month, we all knew we were for it, but a lot of us who don’t pay much attention to lotteries didn’t really ‘get it.’ So I sat down with Brad when I was in Lexington a couple of weeks ago and asked him to explain...
It’s no big secret that the Coolmore policy is that bigger numbers equal more chances to have a Household Name equals more seasons sold. Sadler’s Wells, 14-time champion sire in Britain and Ireland, averaged 100 foals per crop. His son Galileo’s recent crops have averaged 160, so for him to be running second to War...
At the end of 2006, a total of 1,156 sires which stood or had stood in North America, Europe, and Japan qualified for APEX ratings, meaning, basically, that they had 10 or more 3-year-olds in the last year covered (in that case, foals of 2003 and 3-year-olds of 2006). By midyear 2014–The Jockey Club Information...
At the end of 2006, a total of 1,156 sires which stood or had stood in North America, Europe, and Japan qualified for APEX ratings, meaning, basically, that they had 10 or more 3-year-olds in the last year covered (in that case, foals of 2003 and 3-year-olds of 2006). By midyear 2014–The Jockey Club Information...
In a weekend replete with upsets, two longshots introduced themselves as viable stallion prospects by scoring their first Group 1 or Grade I wins. Sheikh Hamdan’s Mukhadram (Shamardal), now a 5-year-old, who had been placed twice behind Al Kazeem (Dubawi) in top Group 1 10-furlong races last year (the Prince of Wales’s and the Eclipse),...
Most of the big Kentucky stallion farms will be represented among the 25 North American sires with first foals 2013 (F2013) whose first yearlings will be appearing at either Fasig-Tipton July on the 14th, and/or at Saratoga’s select sale next month, but two farms–Ashford, whose two debutants, Uncle Mo (Indian Charlie) (167) and Cape Blanco...
There are plenty of great racing events around the globe each year, but none compares with the five days racing at Royal Ascot. Six races a day, Tuesday through Saturday, and last week the weather cooperated, always a huge plus at any racing festival. A total of 489 horses ran in the 30 races (average...
Every year we come back and see again: this is the best week of racing in the world. It’s a massive social event, too, with a sea of people who looked like they walked off the set of AMy Fair Lady,@ but for the professionals that’s a pleasant sideline. It’s really about the racing. Impossibly...
Let’s begin with the failed attempt–the 13th in a row since 1978, counting I’ll Have Another in 2012–by California Chrome (Lucky Pulpit) to win the Triple Crown. One of the great things about this game is that we can all watch the races with our own eyes, in my case on television from 3,000 miles...