Buchu

4th-CD, $120k, Msw, 2yo, 5f, post time: 6:27 p.m. ET CUT THROAT should have his fair share of admirers to get first-crop sire Cyberknife (Gun Runner) off to a flying start with his first runner. A half-brother to the stakes-placed Arman (Bolt d'Oro) and April Vintage (Vino Rosso), the February-foaled chestnut is out of an unraced half-sister to SW & MGSP Two Thirty Five (Stay Thirsty). The deeper female family includes Eclipse Award-winning juvenile filly Halfbridled (Unbridled). Cut Throat breezed an eighth of a mile in :10 flat at this...

Payson Stud's breeding program has been a fixture in the Thoroughbred industry for more than four decades, built by the late Virginia Kraft Payson. Since Mrs. Payson's passing in 2023, trustee Christian Erickson has carried her legacy forward, and I've been fortunate to serve as bloodstock advisor to the program. Our goal in recent years has been simple: upgrade the broodmare band. That goal led to some of the hardest--and best--decisions we've made. Together with the team at Gainesway Farm, we sold foundation mare Summer Sweet, the dam of champion...

$3.7-Million Lush Lips Tops Book 1 by Jessica Martini, Christina Bossinakis, & Alan Carasso LEXINGTON, KY - The Keeneland November Breeding Stock Sale blitzed through its opening session Tuesday with 17 offerings--including a pair of weanlings--selling for $1 million or more and figures up dramatically from the auction's Book 1 session in 2024. "It was a really strong day," said Keeneland President Shannon Arvin. "The broodmare market was very, very strong. We had 15 who brought $1 million or more, seven of those brought $2 million or more. The weanling...

There are few hotter commodities in racing right now than offspring by Three Chimneys sire Gun Runner and Justify, who stands at Ashford Stud. Denali Stud intends to ride both of those waves this fall with a pair of graded-stakes winning mares by the two Horses of the Year. Leading the way on Monday, Nov. 3 at the Fasig-Tipton's November Sale is Gun Song (Gun Runner), who is being presented as a racing or broodmare prospect. Offered as Hip 101, the chestnut is a daughter of GSW and GISP Nicole...

Rigney Racing LLC homebred Buchu (Justify--Flowering Peach {Ire}, by Galileo {Ire}), a graded winner over the Keeneland turf course at two and three, has been retired from racing and will be bred to leading sire Not This Time in 2025, according to a post on X from Denali Stud's Conrad Bandoroff. Third in a pair of tries on the dirt to begin her career under the care of trainer Phil Bauer, Buchu--who was bought back on a bid of $275,000 at Keeneland September in 2022--was a troubled sixth in her...

Trainer Brad Cox sends out the top two chances on the morning line for Friday's GII Clark Stakes at Churchill Downs, and those who support the duo from a pari-mutuel perspective will be looking for some positive cashflow to get a head start on their holiday shopping. Since being acquired privately by Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani's Wathnan Racing earlier this season, Hit Show (Candy Ride {Arg}) has yet to taste defeat in three starts, including the GIII West Virginia Governor's Stakes in August, a neck defeat of Cooke...

3rd-SA, $54K, Msw, 2yo, f, 6f, 5:00 p.m. ET. Joey Peacock's productive New Mexico mare Rose's Desert (Desert God) can already claim several stakes winners, including G1 Saudi Cup champ Senor Buscador (Mineshaft). Her latest homebred to hit the track is ROSE A (Hard Spun) and just like all the others she is trained by Todd Fincher. Rose's Desert, who is also responsible for GIII Sunland Derby hero Runaway Ghost (Ghostzapper), has a current yearling colt named The Hell We Did (Authentic) and a weanling filly by Into Mischief. Set...

SARATOGA SPRINGS -- At the top of the stretch of the opener of the Saturday card at Saratoga Race Course, a 2-year-old colt named Jonathan's Way (Vekoma) was fanned six, maybe seven wide. But he was moving and, like a giant tidal wave, gathering momentum with each long, powerful stride. Out in California, Richard Rigney, who owns the colt, was watching the race on a cellphone along with bloodstock agent John Moynihan. They had hope, but they also were realists.  After all, the six-furlong race was the first in Jonathan's...

Off to a fast start in Saratoga, trainer Phil Bauer joined this week's TDN Writers' Room to discuss Too Sharp, Halina's Forte, Buchu and more.

Godolphin's progressive homebred Highland Falls (Curlin) has been made the 5-2 favorite in a field of 11 for Saturday's GIII Blame S. at Churchill Downs, one of four graded stakes that serve as an appetizer to corresponding races on Stephen Foster Saturday in a month's time beneath the Twin Spires. The chestnut son of Round Pond (Awesome Again), upset winner of the 2006 GI Breeders' Cup Distaff at the Louisville oval, makes his third consecutive appearance in graded company, having run on to be a good fourth to Newgate (Into...

Rigney Racing homebred Buchu (f, 3, Justify--Flowering Peach {Ire}, by Galileo {Ire}), winner of the GII Jessamine S. over this course last year at two, made her 3-year-old debut a winning one and kept her Keeneland record perfect with a late-closing score in the $400,000 GII Appalachian S. Saturday. California shipper Mo Fox Givin (Mo Town) and last-out GIII Florida Oaks third Dancing N Dixie (Neolithic) chased her home in second and third, respectively. Buchu broke smoothly from the nine hole and quickly settled into a midpack spot on the...

Richard Rigney says that nothing in life gives him a bigger kick than his horses. To understand just what that means, it might help to know his idea of a vacation. A few years ago, for instance, he went on a shooting range in Russia. Not that startling, perhaps: this was obviously before the war in Ukraine. It's just the caliber of the ordnance that was a little unusual. "Shooting a bazooka is so fun," Rigney says. "My wife Tammy was like, 'You know what? I think it's okay that...