Tonalist

Trainer Linda Rice captured a record 165th training win on the NYRA circuit for 2025 when owned/trained Snide (Tonalist) won race 4 at Aqueduct Friday. Snide stepped into the maiden special weight out of the maiden claimers for the third jump of her career, and dueled her rivals into submission to win by 4 3/4 lengths in a final time of 1:41.23. Rice is also the leading owner on the NYRA circuit this year with 58 wins, and the conditioner credited her entire team, including assistant Marsha Barrs, for the...

NK Racing and LNJ Foxwoods's Sneaky Good (Into Mischief), a $450,000 Keeneland September yearling, made good on her 'TDN Rising Star, presented by Hagyard' debut performance at Keeneland Oct. 5 with a smart win in Saturday's Sandpiper S. at Tampa Bay Downs. The 7-5 chalk, drawn widest of all in post nine, was seventh through a sharp opening quarter in :21.71. She began to roll heading into the far turn and came charging home to win going away by 2 3/4 lengths over longshot Blazing Brat (Beau Liam). Sneaky Good becomes...

Trainer Christophe Clement sadly passed away without being inducted into the National Museum of Racing's 2025 Hall of Fame class, and I freely admit that I did not cast a ballot for him again. Something is amiss because it feels like a failure on my part, the voters and by the system. When the envelope has arrived in the mail these past few years and I look down at the list of trainers it always fills my cup full of dread. Take your medicine, I tell myself, but it's so...

Christophe Clement, a native of Paris, France, who started training full-time in the U.S. in 1991, has passed away after battling Metastatic Uveal Melanoma. He was 59. Clement was introduced to the sport by his father Miguel, a French trainer. He went to work for top French trainer Alec Head before coming to the U.S. to work for Shug McGaughey. He made one more stop in Europe, working as an assistant to Luca Cumani before opening up his own U.S. based stable in 1991. Clement picked up his first win...

Multiple Group/Grade I-winner Country Grammer (Tonalist) was represented by his first reported foal, a colt born in early February, at River Valley Stock Farm in New York, WinStar Farm announced via press release. Out of Bernarda (Bernardini), an unplaced daughter of Listed winner and Grade I-placed Nakano (First Samurai), the colt was bred by Scott and Debbie Pierce, who also bred Country Grammer. The dam's most recent to the races is a placed 2-year-old named Low Key (Bolt d'Oro). Bernarda is the distant female family of MGSW Carson City (My....

If this seems a strangely specific category, that's because it is. There are two dozen sires standing in Kentucky at $10,000, a fee that attempts to preserve their dignity against a candid slide into the bargain basement. Though you're only a cent away from offering your stallion at four figures, you want him to look accessible without being low-rent. Only a couple are newcomers, all of which were dealt with separately in opening this series. Otherwise this is chiefly the bracket of youngish stallions whose rookie vogue is spent, anxious...

They say that once horse racing gets in your blood, it never leaves. Lee Vickers has no doubts about that. For him, a passion for the sport was practically embedded into his genetic code. Both his father and his grandfather were jockeys in his native England and Vickers was riding racehorses himself by age 12. Over the past three decades since, Vickers has ridden dozens of top-level horses on both sides of the Atlantic. This year, the assistant trainer and exercise rider for Christophe Clement is enjoying the ride with...

Last year's champion 3-year-old colt Arcangelo (Arrogate) captured the GIII Peter Pan S. before adding top-level victories in the GI Belmont S. and the GI Travers S. A scratched-down field of six is expected to line up for Saturday's renewal of the Peter Pan at Aqueduct, which serves as the local prep for the final leg of the Triple Crown, which will be held at Saratoga and run at 1 1/4 miles June 8. 'TDN Rising Star' Deterministic (Liam's Map), a fantastic winner of the one-turn mile GIII Gotham S....

Somehow this is a real sweet spot in the market. For a stallion farm, the $10,000 cover is a particular pitch: you're a cent away from offering a horse at four figures, but you feel that dropping him into a low-rent neighborhood might be beneath his dignity. You're offering a very accessible fee, but you're not going to let him look cheap. That makes this a surprisingly congested zone, ample for separate assessment. And since clinging to a five-figure fee somewhat represents a show of faith, some of these sires...

Elliott Walden has nothing but confidence in WinStar Farm's two new stallion recruits for 2024 and he has the numbers to show it. The speedy Two Phil's (Hard Spun) posted some eye-catching figures this year as a 3-year-old, including 105 Beyer Speed Figures in both the GIII Ohio Derby and his runner-up performance in the GI Kentucky Derby. Meanwhile his new studmate Country Grammer (Tonalist), winner of the G1 Dubai World Cup, retired as the third highest-earning North American-bred horse of all time--behind great company in Arrogate and Gun Runner--...

As the Keeneland November Breeding Stock Sale continued into its second week Wednesday in Lexington, figures for the auction continued to fall well off 2022 statistics. Through eight sessions, 1,873 horses have sold for $173,925,300 for an average of $92,859 and a median of $40,000. The average is down 17.57% from the corresponding figure from 2022, while the median is down 20.00%. The buy-back rate remained largely steady through eight sessions as 558 horses were reported not sold for a buy-back rate of 22.95%. It was 23.08% a year ago....

2022 G1 Dubai World Cup winner Country Grammer (Tonalist) has been retired at the age of six. He will stand the 2024 season at WinStar Farm for an introductory fee of $10,000 LFSN. Campaigned by Commonwealth, WinStar Farm, and Zedan Racing, the Bob Baffert-trained colt started three times this year, finishing second for the second year in a row in the G1 Saudi Cup but failing to hit the board in both his Dubai World Cup defense and the GII Hollywood Gold Cup S. May 29. Bought for just $110,000...