The band we reach today, between $20,000 and $29,999, perhaps represents the sweet spot of the entire pyramid. It features sires of adequate achievement to have elevated themselves clear of the basement, yet without obtaining the kind of commercial luster that puts them beyond mortal pockets. The most established names retain their customary place on [...]

The turn of the year always prompts us to look both forward and back, along with Janus, the god of two faces for whom January is named. And that provides a perfect context for Goal Oriented (Not This Time), graduate of a farm with an unrivalled past-and one that has dynamically reimagined its future. On [...]

At some point, the final day of a given year will also close out his reign. For now, however, its seamless extension has secured Into Mischief parity with Bold Ruler himself, his seventh consecutive general sires' championship matching the Claiborne legend's monopoly between 1963 and 1969. Bold Ruler actually added an eighth title in 1973, [...]

Having dealt with the rookies as a case apart, and then sought a couple of bargains at the base of the pyramid, today we move into a category that remains within the reach of many hands-on breeders–from $10,000 to $19,999–while also containing sires that can raise the bar a good deal higher. On the one [...]

Tough at the top? Try the view from the base of the pyramid, where we begin our quest for value among sires already at stud in Kentucky. We have dealt with the rookies separately, as a case apart. But while many of those standing at four figures are also younger horses, essentially unproven, their commercial [...]

As usual, we start our annual quest for value among Bluegrass sires by treating the rookies as a case apart. From here we'll work our way through fee tiers of those already at stud, starting with four-figure bargains and working our way up to the big guns. In this notoriously unpredictable environment, there's one certainty [...]

In terms of upcoming centenaries, the good news is that we should be favored with plenty of Marilyn Monroe movies. True, her most enduring contribution to equine sport was to exclaim, in Some Like It Hot: “Water polo! Isn't that terribly dangerous?” “I'll say,” replies Tony Curtis as the fake millionaire. “I had two ponies [...]

The Thoroughbred transcends borders, oceans, entire cultures. To do so literally, of course, it will need a little help: ideally, nowadays, a plane. And that's where Andrea Branchini's day job comes in, as a shipping clerk with the transport firm Mersant International. But this is a man himself without frontiers. Branchini has lived and worked [...]

Needless to say, some people are always going to chase the fast buck. In the main, however, we all know this to be the longest of games. You can't drive the green from every tee; nor should you panic if your first drive lands in the water. There are 17 more holes to go. For [...]

“Phil,” he told his son. “No Tackett ever gave $95,000 for a horse. We're in pretty precarious territory here.” Partly, of course, that was simply a matter of inflation. By the 2014 Keeneland January Sale, Paul Tackett had already been selling horses for half a century. From his first Keeneland consignment, in 1961, he sold [...]

Serendipity is priceless in this business. Though they number no more than 20, for instance, this is the second time that one of the Dromingrove Farm mares has been steeply elevated by events. And you may recall an equally startling outcome, in Dubai a couple of years ago, after Delia Nash had found herself reluctantly [...]

The remarkable tribute paid to their mutual granddam by the first two in the Breeders' Cup Classic felt especially apt given that Fawn Leap Farm had lost Darling My Darling (Deputy Minister), at a venerable 28, since the same horses finished first and third the previous year. Debby and John Oxley know that these things [...]