Breeding

The Indiana Thoroughbred Alliance (ITA), in conjunction with Kentucky Equine Research, will be hosting a free webinar focusing on broodmare nutrition Feb. 4, starting at 7 p.m. EST. The webinar will focus on proper nutrition practices for breeders and farm managers for all stages of the broodmare's reproductive cycle. The information will be presented by Peter Huntington BVSc, MACVSc, an external lecturer and examiner at the University of Melbourne Veterinary Science program and Director of Equine Nutrition for Kentucky Equine Research Australasia. The webinar is open to anyone looking to...

The wait is very nearly over for the young pretenders we will examine in this fourth installation of our multi-part Value Sires series: stallions with their first runners in 2021. While the full verdicts must be delayed until these are given a fair shake with their first full seasons with 2- and 3-year-olds, the reality is that the first juvenile races in the coming months will be akin to a perpetual Christmas morning in the bloodstock world, with each of us eager to unwrap the packages we have been examining...

Spendthrift Farm's Vino Rosso (Curlin--Mythical Bride, by Street Cry {Ire}), the champion older dirt male and winner of the GI Breeders' Cup Classic in 2019, was represented by his first foal Jan. 5 when the 6-year-old mare Shine Time (Malibu Moon) produced a filly at Jim and Pam Robinson's Brandywine Farm in Paris, Kentucky. "I tell you what, you could not ask for a better foal. She is just beautiful and very smart," Pam Robinson said. "Physically, she is a strong filly with good bone. I cannot say enough positive...

And so we come to the group standing on the brink. The group facing the moment of truth, when their most precocious stock enters the gate and offers some initial indication as to their competence for the task for which, ostensibly at least, they were bred. As such, this should perhaps be the moment we double down. That's what we would do, at any rate, if we had real faith in the choices we have made for our mares. If we have selected their mates well, then people will be...

There will be an infusion of new American blood into the Japanese stallion ranks in 2021 with retirements to stud of Mozu Ascot (Frankel {GB}) and Mr Melody (Scat Daddy). Each is the first of their respective sires' progeny to take up stud duty in the island nation. Bred in Kentucky by Jane Lyon's Summer Wind Farm, Mozu Ascot was led out unsold on a bid of $275,000 at the 2015 Keeneland September sale before being acquired privately by Capital System Co. Ltd. A maiden winner at third asking under...

You have to shake out a lot of grit from the riverbed before you glimpse that glint of gold. John Ropes started panning just about 40 years ago. He had a girl working for him at the time whose father, Andy Smithers, trained in Canada. When Ropes told her that he'd decided to buy a racehorse, she tried to save him. "No," she implored. "I'm telling you, don't do it." Ropes was adamant. He had always loved horses. His parents took him racing as a kid in Miami and, though...

The Jockey Club is estimating that the 2021 North American Foal crop will be 19,200, which would mark the first time since 1965 that the number has been below 20,000. The Jockey Club released the projections Wednesday, some three weeks later than normal. The delay was to allow farms that have been affected by the coronavirus more time to submit their reports of mares bred. The North American foal crop hit an all-time high in 1986 when 51,296 horses were born. By 2006, it was down to 38,104 and with...

Starting with horses born in 2020, the number of mares a stallion can be bred to in a season will be limited to 140, The Jockey Club announced Thursday. "The rule reflects The Jockey Club's goal to preserve the health of the Thoroughbred breed for the long term..." Thursday's press release read. When reached by the TDN, Jockey Club President and COO Jim Gagliano declined to comment further. "I think this is great for the sustainability of our industry going forward," said Claiborne President Walker Hancock. "It's really going to...

   Chris McGrath's Value Sires series in the TDN has frequently touched on the difficulty in selling nominations to stallions in their third-year at stud, as well as to solid, established stallions standing for a moderate fee. We asked stallion managers and nominations teams as well as bloodstock agents what changes could be made, if any, to help the situation.   Lucas Marquardt, Thorostride This has been a great, informative series often approached as a supply-side issue. That is, viewed from the perspective of breeders and stallion farms, mostly through...

Ontario Racing's Mare Purchase Program (MPP), designed to bolster the province's breeding and racing industry through its Thoroughbred Horse Improvement Program (TIP), has concluded with a total of 123 new broodmares added to the breeding program and 76 of those pledged to breed back to Ontario stallions. Through the end of the OBS Winter Mixed sale Jan. 29, a total of 24 in-foal broodmares were purchased at various public auctions with 16 expected to be bred back to a registered Ontario sire during the 2020-21 breedingseason and eligible for the...

We've all got a shot. But only Bill Nicholls has a Shotski (Blame). Not strictly true, of course. The son of Blame, who makes his sophomore bow in the GIII Withers S. Saturday, is banking his racetrack purses for a partnership comprised of Adam Wachtel, Gary Barber, Pantofel Stable and Mike Karty; and raised no more than $25,000 when sold as a yearling by Springland Farm and Prime Bloodstock LLC. But if that's a fairly minimal reward, for breeding a GII Remsen S. winner, then Nicholls can comfort himself that...

Country Life Farm in Fallston, Maryland, is hosting an open house Saturday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. There will be a heated tent, featuring crab soup, and stallions will be shown in the breeding shed. Among the stallions on display will be Mosler, Divining Rod, Friesan Fire and Super Ninety-Nine.