Elite winners are always cause for celebration. With racing at the highest levels quickly ramping up for 2026, we continue to spotlight some of the special Grade I producers of the last several months. Up today, we get a glimpse into a quartet of mares who produced homebred stars. Stormy Welcome, dam of Raging Sea [...]

Slam Dunk Racing, Deborah Baltas, and Cynthia McClanahan's British Isles (g, 5, Justify–Purely Hot, by Pure Prize), a private purchase by the team from Coolmore connections two years ago, has spent the majority of his 24-race career in allowance company, but took full advantage of the scratched-down field of five in Saturday's GI Santa Anita [...]

Last year, no one could have foreseen Nitrogen (Medaglia d'Oro) would use the GIII Florida Oaks–a turf race for sophomore fillies that offers no GI Kentucky Oaks points–as an unlikely springboard to the 3-year-old filly championship. This year, it was Tagermeen Racing's Dandona (f, 3, Tiz the Law–Tulsa Queen, by Cactus Ridge) who captured the [...]

Sometimes, you might as well just buy the factory. It was the fall of 2023 and Glenn Bennett already had two of Adorabella (Ghostzapper)'s three foals, the oldest of which (Girl Trouble, by Fast Anna) was a stakes winner for him and partner Swilcan Stable at Parx, and the youngest of which he'd just bought [...]

Mrs. John Magnier, Derrick Smith, and Michael B. Tabor's Plutarch (c, 3, Into Mischief–Stellar Wind, by Curlin) was bred to be a star–he is out of 2015's champion 3-year-old filly turned $6-million Keeneland-topping mare Stellar Wind–and he made good on that promise Saturday in the $101,000 GIII Robert B. Lewis Stakes at Santa Anita. The [...]

We continue to spotlight a few of the extraordinary mares–and some of the people behind them–who produced the Grade I winners of 2025. The two mares we highlight today are responsible for the last two GI Kentucky Oaks winners, with the 2024 Oaks victress adding to her laurels in 2025 and the 2025 Oaks winner [...]

Last summer, we began “The Producers” as a way to spotlight a few of the extraordinary mares–and some of the people behind them–who produced the Grade I winners of 2025. With 83 individual North American Grade I winners in the books for the 2025 season, we return to it now, continuing with two mares who [...]

Despite a few downgrades due to weather and a cancellation here and there, the U.S. and Canada still combined to run 446 graded races in 2025. What stands out after another full year of North American graded racing is in the books? All 98 scheduled Grade I races were run, with just three horses scoring [...]

When the GII Los Alamitos Futurity–formerly the Hollywood Futurity, which was also known for a time as the CashCall Futurity–was renamed in 2014, perhaps it should have been labeled as the Bob Baffert Futurity, as the Hall of Famer has now won the race a record 15 times since 1997, including seven straight from 2014 [...]

In what was probably America's most anticipated race in the older horse division since the GI Breeders' Cup Classic nearly four weeks ago, the 151st running of the GII Clark Stakes at Churchill Downs Friday lived up to expectations and then some. Runaway GII Fasig-Tipton Risen Star Stakes winner and Winchell Thoroughbreds colorbearer Magnitude (c, [...]

A week ago, if Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott had been able to look into the future and see a preview of himself heading to the winner's circle on Breeders' Cup Saturday, he would likely have rested easily, fairly certain he would be winning the GI Classic for a third time. After all, he [...]

Zedan Racing's Barnes (c, 3, Into Mischief–All American Dream, by American Pharoah), a $3.2-million Fasig-Tipton Saratoga yearling, has always been heavy on promise, but perhaps lighter than hoped on actual visits to the winner's circle. That changed Saturday in Keeneland's GIII Perryville Stakes when the bay sophomore left no doubt as to his prowess with [...]