Vekoma

The GIII Honeybee Stakes, rescheduled for Sunday at Oaklawn, looks like the toughest GI Kentucky Oaks prep race run so far this year. Led by 'TDN Rising Star' Muhimma (Munnings), the field of 12 includes five horses that are in our Top 10. In last week's action, the GII Fasig-Tipton Rachel Alexandra Stakes, expected to have a powerhouse field of seven, was decimated by scratches. The defectors included the highly regarded Simply Joking (Practical Joke), who was scratched because her white blood cell count was below normal. Though she still...

The nominees for 2024 New York-bred divisional championships were announced Wednesday by New York Thoroughbred Breeders. The nominees are: 2yo Male: Bold Fortune (Central Banker), Jack and Jim (Slumber {GB}), Mi Bago (Vekoma), Mo Plex (Complexity), Sacrosanct (Honest Mischief); 2yo Filly: Accelerating (Mitole), Scythian (Tiz the Law), Shoot It True (Munnings), Stone Smuggler (Honest Mischief), With the Angels (Omaha Beach); 3yo Male: Antonio of Venice (Laoban), Doc Sullivan (Solomini), Pandagate (Arrogate), Tapalo (Tapiture), The Big Torpedo (Big Brown); 3yo Filly: Kinza (Carpe Diem), Landed (Omaha Beach), My Mane Squeeze (Audible),...

Our business already includes one John whose namesake signed the Declaration of Independence. (Good day to you, Mr. Penn.) But now we have another, this time on four legs, bidding to confirm that Constitution--if not a founding father--is certainly a patriarch in the making. Yet if the Sam F. Davis Stakes winner were to carve his "John Hancock" on the GI Kentucky Derby roll of honor, he would only be further magnifying two names whose Churchill achievements are already outsized. One is that of his dam Scribbling Sarah (Freud), who...

Looking to make a statement after a more-than-solid start to his career at the Big A last summer when he ran a game second to GSW Mentee (City of Light), Colloquial (Vekoma-- Terminology, by Bernardini) graduated over the same strip on Friday afternoon and earned himself a 'TDN Rising Star' in the process. TDN's Racing Editor Steve Sherack highlighted the initial effort by Colloquial in his 'Second Chances' series in December. In the seventh race at Aqueduct June 15, Mentee looked in firm control at the quarter pole, but the...

Preparing to make their sophomore debut in the GII Risen Star Stakes on Louisiana Derby Preview Day, both Jonathan's Way (Vekoma) and East Avenue (Medaglia d'Oro) breezed at Fair Grounds Race Course & Slots Saturday. The nine-furlong Kentucky Derby prep will award 50-25-15-10-5 Derby points to the top five finishers. Firing the bullet for his trainer Phil Bauer, Rigney Racing's Jonathan's Way breezed 5/8ths in 1:00.20 on Saturday, going in company with stablemate Kalahari Dreams. "[Jonathan's Way] sat right off of him going away from the pole," Bauer said of...

Golden Vekoma (Vekoma) stretched out to the metric mile following up on his sound success in the UAE 2000 Guineas Trial over 1400 meters on Jan. 3, wrested command with about a furlong and a half to travel and held off the well-fancied Heart of Honor (Honor A.P.) to take out Friday's G3 UAE 2000 Guineas at Meydan. Drawn 13 in a full field of 16, the bay colt bounced well enough from out wide and took up a position just ahead of midfield as dirt debutant High Season (GB)...

Through three sessions of next week's Keeneland January Horses of All Ages Sale, over 1,300 broodmares, short yearlings, racing and stallion prospects will cross through the ring en route to new beginnings. And while it may be a fresh start for many of them, the sale marks the end of a process that dates back to September for Keeneland's new Sales Recruitment Manager Josie Mattmiller. "We consider the January sale an extension of the November sale and there are some real advantages to January because there is a lot of...

First let's salute two horses in this category just emerging from surely the most competitive freshman title race ever. The lead changed hands between both, as well as McKinzie (now $75,000), through the final hours of 2024, with VEKOMA ultimately seizing the crown--partly through belated processing of a son in Panama--by $22,939 from McKinzie, with TIZ THE LAW breathing down their necks $9,334 behind. In fact, his "extra" winner gave Vekoma a share of the North American record of 39 first-crop juvenile winners. Admittedly he was working from corresponding volume,...

Even now, having broken his own record haul to secure a sixth consecutive general sires' championship, we cannot quite call him another Bold Ruler. But if Into Mischief can extend his reign through 2025, so matching the sequence achieved by the Claiborne legend between 1963 and 1969, he will give formal gilding to his status as the stallion who best defines our epoch. Bold Ruler actually added an eighth title in 1973, but that modern record--we must leave Lexington's 19th century career as a bewildering case apart--does not feel secure...

In this continuing series, TDN's Senior Racing Editor Steve Sherack catches up with the connections of promising maidens to keep on your radar. Colloquial (c, 2, Vekoma--Terminology, by Bernardini), sidelined since finishing a fast-closing and big-figure second behind Mentee (City of Light) on debut at Aqueduct in June, is nearing a return to the races. Off at odds of 4-1 in his unveiling for George Weaver, the chestnut was urged along by Manny Franco and chased from an inside third as the aforementioned full-brother to champion and 'TDN Rising Star'...

Fasig-Tipton has catalogued 670 entries for its December Digital Sale, which opened Thursday and will close in stages beginning on Tuesday, Dec. 10, the auction house said in a Thursday press release. On offer (hips 1-305) are horses of racing age, racing/broodmare prospects, solely broodmare prospects, weanlings, and yearlings, which cuts off on Tuesday, Dec. 10, beginning at Noon ET. A selection of broodmares, (hips 306-end) will conclude Wednesday, Dec. 11, beginning at Noon ET. "This is the largest digital catalogue ever compiled worldwide," said Leif Aaron, Fasig-Tipton director of...

West Saratoga (Exaggerator), a Grade III winner at two in 2023 and placed in a pair of graded stakes this season, is the marquee name among 49 horses catalogued for the Inglis Digital USA December Sale. Horses will sell during the online auction on Wednesday, Dec. 4 beginning at 2 p.m. ET, with subsequent listings closing in three-minute intervals. Trained by Larry Demeritte, the gray colt won the GIII Iroquois Stakes in his penultimate juvenile appearance last year and was second to Book'em Danno (Bucchero) in this year's Pasco Stakes...