John Stuart

The saying in New Orleans goes something like, 'Laissez les bons temps rouler!'. And while Mardi Gras is over a month away and Lexington is some 700 miles from Louisiana, the Keeneland January Horses of All Ages Sale kicks off Monday looking to keep the good times rolling off a record-setting 2025 sales season. The sale begins its two-day run at 10 a.m. on Monday, Jan. 12 and concludes Tuesday, Jan. 13 with a total of 1,097 horses catalogued across the two sessions. Riding a tsunami of momentum, Keeneland January...

Caroline Stautberg has been selling her yearlings at the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Sale for three decades now, but the Maryland breeder will record a personal first when the boutique auction opens next week. Through the Bluegrass Thoroughbred Services consignment, Stautberg's Willow Oaks Stable will offer the very first horse through the ring Monday when bidding starts at 6:30 p.m. Hip 1 is a daughter of Vekoma out of Tapit's World (Tapit) and a half-sister to graded winner Il Miracolo (Gun Runner). "It's been 30 years since my first Saratoga sale and...

The most important asset the horse industry has are the brands of the Kentucky Derby and the Triple Crown. Nothing else comes close in our dying business. Nothing in Major League Baseball, the Indy 500 or the Masters can match the number of TV viewers every year for the Derby. Outside of the Super Bowl (115 million viewers) and the NBA Finals (17.8 million), one couldn't spend enough money to get 16 million TV viewers for a sporting event today in America. When a horse wins the Preakness and the...

Every few years the Eclipse Award goes to a horse (always a turf horse) who ships in from overseas--usually fresh--and wins a Breeders' Cup race and our designated voters make the horse an American champion. I remember going down to New Orleans 25 years ago to watch the 9-year-old gelding John's Call (Lord At War {Arg})--a people's horse if there ever was--be named champion turf horse after watching him win the Sword Dancer (by nine lengths) and the Man o' War. Unfortunately in the GI Breeder's Cup Turf he got...

by Jessica Martini & Christina Bossinakis LEXINGTON, KY - The Keeneland November Breeding Stock Sale gained momentum throughout its opening session and concluded a day of competitive bidding Wednesday evening with 11 seven-figure mares and a median up 30% from its 2022 counterpart. "It was a good day. It was a really good day," said Keeneland President Shannon Arvin. "We were really pleased with the session overall. The theme of the century seems to be that the quality sells and there was really high demand for the quality. There was...

The chances might be one in a million. The odds of campaigning a multiple stakes winner from the first yearling you ever purchase are certainly pretty long. But to have that horse go on and produce a champion as her first foal, what are the chances? Amy Moore, the owner of South Gate Farm in Millwood, Virginia, knows better than to take this experience for granted. Besides her childhood family pony, the first horse she ever owned was Queen Caroline. Purchased by Moore for $170,000 as a yearling in 2014,...

Two Grade I winners inside an hour last Saturday: both sold as November weanlings at Keeneland, both through the same consignment. But while their shared provenance at least guarantees that you'll want to drop by the Bluegrass Thoroughbred Services draft this time round, as well, it is not as though Forte (Violence) and War Like Goddess (English Channel) can otherwise elucidate the vagaries of our business. Because while one made respectable money, the other was more or less given away. War Like Goddess, swept up in the kind of cull...

Tiani Ibbotson is looking forward to her senior year at Midway University as she prepares to launch her career in the Thoroughbred industry. Three years ago, she moved from the Channel Island of Jersey to join the equine program at the private university located outside of Lexington, Kentucky. While she considered many different colleges around the world, this one stuck out because of the unique program tailored to her career goals. After graduating next year with a degree in Equine Studies with a focus on Equine Rehabilitation, Ibbotson hopes to...