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Triassic, the dam So You Think, in April 2012 I recently had the opportunity to interview Cecile Smith, owner of Piper Farm and co-breeder of Australian champion and 10-time group I winner So You Think (NZ) ( TrueNicks ). Cecile owns So You Think's dam, the 22-year-old Tights mare Triassic, who is currently in foal to Medaglia d'Oro ( TrueNicks , SRO ) and is...
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The 3-year-old crop of 2007 was one of the most contentious of recent years as Street Sense ( TrueNicks , SRO ), Curlin ( TrueNicks , SRO ), Hard Spun ( TrueNicks , SRO ), and Any Given Saturday ( TrueNicks , SRO ) fought it out for leadership of the division. Curlin would emerge with titles as champion 3-year-old and Horse of the Year, and he remained in training...
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Last week brought the news that ace sprinter/miler Caleb's Posse ( TrueNicks , SRO ) would be retiring to stand at Three Chimneys for the 2013 breeding season. Over the weekend, however, it was two Three Chimneys stallions that have departed for greener pastures, Rahy and Dynaformer, that took the headlines with a quartet of graded winners. Like the protagonists...
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It would be reasonable to suggest that while time may prove Coolmore stallion Galileo superior to his breed-shaping sire Sadler's Wells, with the exception of siring a group I winner over 4000m (which Sadler's Wells did in the form of the brilliant Yeats), right now Galileo is every bit as good a classic sire as his father. Like many elite stallions, Galileo...
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It's early—make that very early—to starting reviewing the progress of the 2012 freshman sires , but remarkably at least 40 of them have already been represented by a winner. The surprise leader is Magna Graduate ( TrueNicks , SRO ), who has two winners from seven starters, including Blueeyesintherein, winner of the Debutante Stakes (gr. III). Out of a daughter...
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With two major stakes winners in the space of 10 days, champion turf horse English Channel ( TrueNicks , SRO ) has zoomed up the second season sire charts. First Strait of Dover took the near $1,000,000 Queen's Plate , the first leg of the Canadian Triple crown, and then Blueskiesnrainbows, who had already been third in the Santa Anita Derby (gr. I), led throughout...
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A couple of recent observations drew our attention to E Dubai ( TrueNicks , SRO ), who we've noted before as a very good value-for-money sire. One was the upset victory last weekend of the progressive 3-year-old filly My Gi Gi in the Honeymoon Handicap (gr. II). The other was a look at the leading Beyer speed figures, where we noticed that in among some of the...
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A few weeks ago, when looking at the emerging French second year sire Turtle Bowl , we noted that he conformed to something of a recent trend in France, the appearance of a number of good sires with relatively unfashionable pedigrees, other examples that come to mind including Linamix (by Mendez), Muhtathir (by Elmaamul), and Chichicastenango (by Smadoun). The...
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The astonishing start to his stud career made by Japanese sire Deep Impact continued last weekend when he enjoyed a group stakes double that included a victory by his son Deep Brillante in the Japanese Derby (gr. I, video below). Deep Impact is a son of the Halo stallion Sunday Silence, whose status as not only the greatest Japanese stallion of his era, but arguably...
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With over 580,000 TrueNicks reports generated so far in 2012, it's always interesting to look at what the numbers are telling us. Logically, the number of TrueNicks reports per stallion fluctuates according to the stallion's popularity among breeders. For example, see the chart below and notice what happened on the week ending 3/25, when Tapit ( TrueNicks , SRO...
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At the end of 2011, the French-based sire Turtle Bowl drew some attention to himself when his son French Fifteen took the Criterium International (gr. I) to propel Turtle Bowl to a position as leading freshman sire and leading sire of 2-year-olds in France. Promising as that start was, it is the events of the last two weekends that have made it clear that Turtle...
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In his first crop, sired at a relatively modest fee of $10,000, Broken Vow ( TrueNicks , SRO ) came up with a very promising colt in Private Vow. Winner of the Futurity Stakes (gr. II) and Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes (gr. II), Private Vow might also have gone close in the Breeders' Cup Futurity (gr. I) had a rein not broken in the straight. A leading winter fancy...
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The most recent weekend saw another pair of grade I Kentucky Derby (gr. I) preps, with the Wood Memorial at Aqueduct and the Santa Anita Derby on the West Coast. In New York, two of the leading Derby hopefuls, Gemologist and Alpha, had to finish in the first two to be certain of having sufficient graded earnings to make the field. In the event, they achieved...
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The weekend past saw the 56th running of the world's richest 2-year-old race, the AAMI Golden Slipper (Aus-I), run over 1200m (6 furlongs) at Rosehill in Sydney with the victor being the undefeated Gai Waterhouse-trained Pierro (Gai had touted Pierro strongly leading up to the race as seen in this pre-race video ). Traditionally the race that decides the champion...
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Last week was a very tough one for the mighty Coolmore/Ashford stallion operation. On March 29 came the news that Montjeu had died in Ireland at the age of 16 after a short illness caused by septicemia, an infection in the bloodstream. Just two days later at Ashford, 17-year-old Grand Slam, who had been enjoying an excellent start to 2012, died as a result of...
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Proud Citizen Photo: Airdrie I well recall in the summer of 2002, taking what was then the short drive to Belmont Park, to take a look at Proud Citizen ( TrueNicks , SRO ) on behalf of a friend who was managing a prominent Kentucky stallion farm. At the time, Proud Citizen was recuperating from an injury suffered in the Belmont Stakes (gr. I)—a condylar fracture...
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Tapit Photo: Gainesway Jerry and Ann Moss announced today that 2010 Horse of the Year Zenyatta, who foaled a colt by Bernardini ( TrueNicks , SRO ) on March 8, will be bred back to Tapit ( TrueNicks , SRO ) in 2012. The Mosses already have some familiarity with Tapit, having raced 2011 Lady's Secret and Las Virgenes (both gr. I) winner Zazu . Out of the Mr. Greeley...
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More Than Ready Photo: Vinery Hindsight is always 20/20, but when the Vinery Stud stallion More Than Ready ( TrueNicks , SRO ) shuttled to Australia, he looked to be a ‘lock’ to suit mares by then-leading sire Danehill. Invariably within breeding populations, the next great sire establishes himself with the daughters of a previously great sire. Just as Danehill...
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The OBS March 2-Year-Old in Training Sale offers the first chance to get a preview of juveniles by many of the year’s freshman sire crop. Two of the biggest names in that group, the classic-winning champions Big Brown ( TrueNicks , SRO ) and Curlin ( TrueNicks , SRO ) are both represented. Although he only started once at 2 – winning by 11 ¼ lengths on the turf...
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Recent discussion of the pedigree of the Australian supermare Black Caviar focused some attention on Tom Fool, whose son Silly Season is doubled in Black Caviar’s pedigree. Since he was a foal of 1949, Tom Fool will now, to many, mean little more than a name that is found in the more distant removes of modern pedigrees. But, if you want to know how good Tom Fool...
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Bearing in mind that stud fees have been ticking up again, and that proven horses are in demand, we were pretty surprised to hear recently about a stallion that you can still book to. While many other proven stallions are already full, this stallion can still be bred to for as little as $13,500 live foal (or $15,000 stands and nurses). He is sire of 39 stakes...
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While the equine Hansen ( TrueNicks ) – the champion 2-year-old of 2011 – is pointing to the Holy Bull Stakes (gr. III) and hopefully his first step on the road to the Kentucky Derby (gr. I), his owner and breeder, Dr. Kendall Hansen, is looking well beyond the Run for the Roses. With a long-term view to his star's eventual stud career, Dr. Hansen has subscribed...
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2012 will be the first breeding season without A.P. Indy as an active stallion since he retired to Lane's End in 1993. Now 23 years old, the two-time leading sire was pensioned last April due to declining fertility. Sire of 1,119 foals and 142 stakes winners, A.P. Indy commanded a $300,000 stud fee for a large portion of his stud career. A.P. Indy as a foal in...
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Established in 1924 to raise Standardbreds, Calumet Farm became a Thoroughbred nursery in 1932. The farm’s first major stallion was Bull Lea, a son of the imported French stallion Bull Dog. Winner of 10 of his 27 starts, including the Blue Grass Stakes, Widener Handicap, and Pimlico Handicap, Bull Lea was only lightly regarded initially. However, he went on to...
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For the first time in its four-year history, TrueNicks reached 1 million total reports run in a calendar year on December 22, 2011. The ticker in the upper right of TrueNicks.com shows the current count. Here's a rundown of the most popular TrueNicks stallions of 2011 who most contributed to the impressive total. #1 - Bernardini ( TrueNicks , SRO ) - 8,781 reports...
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