Niall Brennan

Keeneland will accept offers Monday at 9 a.m. for the six now two-year-olds previously purchased at Keeneland September for which the company was never paid. The six, purchased for a collective $4.875 million in September through bloodstock agent Richard Knight, have been in training in Ocala with Niall Brennan and David Scanlon since they shipped from the September sale. Their pedigrees, videos are photos have all been posted by Keeneland, here. Interested parties have the opportunity, as do their veterinarians, to inspect the horses in-person or virtually. Radiographs and endoscopic...

A half-dozen recently turned 2-year-olds--four colts and two fillies--originally sold for a cumulative $4.85 million at last year's Keeneland September Sale, are being reoffered by Keeneland, the auction house announced Friday. Offers will be accepted from Feb. 27 through Mar. 1. Details on the horses and the offer process are available here. Each of the six horses is currently in training in Ocala with David Scanlon or Niall Brennan and are available for in-person inspection by appointment. Contact info may be accessed at the link above. The six horses were...

Fasig-Tipton will not be holding a select 2-year-olds in training sale at Gulfstream Park in 2023. The news was first reported by the Blood-Horse. "The Gulfstream Park facilities are not available for 2023 due to some stabling issues," said Fasig-Tipton's President and CEO Boyd Browning. "The stalls are not available this year. We learned about this in the fall, and we determined this year that the best approach would be to concentrate our efforts on the Midlantic Sale, which last year produced the highest price of a 2-year-old in training,"...

Colin Brennan hit a home run with the first horse to represent his consignment during its inaugural appearance at the Keeneland September Sale when he sold a $55,000 pinhook for $100,000 during the eighth session of the sale. Brennan purchased the Flatter filly out of stakes-placed Summer Reading (Hard Spun) at last year's Keeneland November Sale. Before the yearling went through the ring on Tuesday, Brennan walked alongside his pinhook prospect for the long trek to the sales pavilion and discussed how he was first drawn to the filly after...

Anyone else who had trained this many Grade I winners--there's barely space for their photographs in the barn office--would by now be knocking at the door of the Hall of Fame. But how many even know the name of Johnny Burke? How many know his cheerful, friendly face or the store of experience that draws together so many evocative names, on two legs and four, of his own and past generations? As an adolescent, Burke was the first person ever to sit on the back of Midnight Court, subsequently winner...

SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY - Fasig-Tipton will be looking to continue the momentum set by its record-setting select sale when bidding returns to the Humphrey S. Finney Pavilion Sunday evening for the first of two sessions of the New York-Bred Yearlings Sale. Bidding begins Sunday at 7 p.m. and Monday's session will begin at 12 p.m. With the end of the sweltering conditions which punctuated the last week in upstate New York, activity was high at the sales barns on a picture-perfect Saturday morning as a mixture of end-users, pinhookers and...

OCALA, FL - The Ocala Breeders' Sales Company's June Sale of 2-Year-Olds opened with a workmanlike session Tuesday as four horses sold for over $200,000, led by a filly by Bolt d'Oro who attracted a final bid of $290,000 from bloodstock agent Donato Lanni, acting on behalf of Greg and Caroline Bentley. In all, 184 sold Tuesday for a gross of $7,107,500. The average of $38,628 slipped 2.4% from last year's opening session, but the median of $25,500 was up 27.5% from the 2021 sales record-tying figure of $20,000. With...

The fifth session of the under-tack show for next week's Ocala Breeders' Sales Company's Spring Sale of 2-Year-Olds in Training, suspended just under three hours by heavy rain, produced a pair of :9 4/5 bullet breezers, while two juveniles shared the fastest quarter-mile time of :21 flat Thursday in Central Florida. First to hit the bullet time of :9 4/5 once action resumed around noon Thursday at OBS was a daughter of Cairo Prince (hip 839) out of the unraced Nippy (Pulpit). The gray filly is a half-sister to graded...

George Sharp, who made high-price horses of racing age purchases last year, will be in action as a seller at Wednesday's Fasig-Tipton Gulfstream Sale of Selected 2-Year-Olds in Training where he will offer two juveniles. The pair is part of a group of 12 yearlings he purchased at last year's Keeneland September sale. "I took a shot last year that, if I bought enough yearlings, maybe I could sell a few of them to pay for the rest," Sharp explained. While he is reoffering horses he bought just last fall,...

On the opening day of the OBS March 2-Year-Olds in Training Sale, just 7 1/2 weeks ahead of the First Saturday in May, buyers will have a chance to purchase the half-siblings to a pair of GI Kentucky Derby contenders. The first of the two to go through the ring Mar. 15 will be an Always Dreaming half-brother to GII Risen Star S. winner Epicenter (Not This Time). Consigned by Ciaran Dunne's Wavertree Stables as Hip 121, the bay is out of stakes winner and GSP Silent Candy (Candy Ride...

Nobody has missed the explosive impact of Not This Time's second crop of sophomores on the Classic trail this year. But the fact remains that it's actually another stallion in his own intake that we find flirting most plausibly with an elusive distinction, with a chance of joining King Alfonso (1885), McGee (1918), Bull Lea (1952) and Native Dancer (1966) in siring the winners of both the GI Kentucky Derby and GI Kentucky Oaks. Okay, so we're getting way ahead of ourselves here. With nearly two months to go, it...

   Justify, City of Light, Mendelssohn, Good Magic and Bolt d'Oro all received glowing reviews by various consignors in parts one and two of our 'Thoughts from Ocala' series. Logically enough, this select group of freshman sires holds the top five stud fees amongst their stallion crop in the U.S., each standing for $20,000 or more in 2022. While 'value' and 'freshman sires' are two terms rarely used in the same sentence in this industry, as buyers can surely attest, we asked consignors to point out a few first-crop sires...