GI Ashland S.

Champion 3-year-old filly and MGISW Nest (Curlin--Marion Ravenwood, by A.P. Indy) has been retired from racing her owner Mike Repole told the Daily Racing Form on Wednesday. The owner who bought out his partners on Nest--Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners and Michael House--for $6 million last fall at the Fasig-Tipton November Sale intended to race Nest this year. After three workouts at Stonestreet Farm in Ocala, Florida, she was set to ship to trainer Todd Pletcher's string at Saratoga, but a diagnostic exam was performed and showed "a slight abnormality in her...

Billed as a showdown between the top three finishers of the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies, Keeneland's opening day GI Central Bank Ashland S.--worth not just $600,000 in purse money but also GI Kentucky Oaks points on a 100-50-25-15-10 scale--instead featured the blossoming of Whisper Hill Farm's 'TDN Rising Star' Leslie's Rose (f, 3, Into Mischief--Wildwood Rose {Ire}, by Galileo {Ire}), who left no doubt about the top filly on the day with a three-length tour de force. George Krikorian's Breeders' Cup winner and Eclipse champion Just F Y I...

Kentucky Senator Henry Clay might be considered one of the premier American politicians pre-Lincoln, but what is not up for debate was his fervent commitment to breeding equine athletes and attending the races. You cannot actually visit his home--Ashland--because the structure that stands on the Clay Estate just south of downtown Lexington is not original to "The Great Compromiser" and his time. However, interpretations of Clay-related objects enliven the tour. Ashland in name was imported as a stakes race when Keeneland opened in 1936. Some familiar female runners who graced...