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Back in New South Wales, the TrueNicks tour moved to the Hunter Valley, Australia's Thoroughbred breeding center. Here Byron and I visited a who's who of Australian stud farms, including Arrowfield, Coolmore, Darley, Patinack, Vinery, and Widden. Arrowfield, the original home of breed-shaping stallion Danehill, now stands top Danehill sons ...

As our TrueNicks tour continues, Byron and I traveled north out of the Waikato region to Auckland, the largest city in New Zealand. Here we visited Russell Warwick at Westbury Stud and Shannon Taylor at Haunui. The Westbury stallions have now joined TrueNicks for the first time, and Haunui – a longtime TrueNicks supporter – announced Showcasing, ...

TrueNicks co-creator Byron Rogers and myself are on a three-week tour of New Zealand and Australia. Since Byron so proudly coined “Tapp’s Travels,” I’ll be nice and keep the title for this blog. Our first stop was Saturday’s New Zealand Oaks (gr. I) at Trentham Racecourse in the southern part of New Zealand’s north island. The winner was Midnight ...

Jim Squires wrote an interesting article that appeared in The New York Times over the weekend. Commenting on the newly-in-foal Rachel Alexandra and Zenyatta, ''Breeders Chasing the Superhorse'' references nicking theory several times in the piece. While the simplicity of Squires's nicking explanation is a bit misleading as he doesn't touch on the ...

The 2011 OBS March Selected Sale of 2-Year-Olds in training is set to begin Tuesday, March 15, at 11 a.m. in Ocala, Florida. There are 490 juveniles cataloged for the two-day sale. TrueNicks offers free reports for most hips. Reports are available at TrueNicks.com/Auctions.

The stallions of Castleton Lyons have upgraded to the TrueNicks Enhanced report. Breeders can access unlimited reports for these stallions. Bernstein (TrueNicks,SRO) is an Irish group III-winning son of Storm Cat and has been a top sire in both North and South America. He is a full brother to grade III winner Caress, the dam of good sire Sky ...

by Ian Tapp Front-running 3-year-old colts by War Front (TrueNicks,SRO) have won Kentucky Derby (gr. I) preps in each of the past two weekends, but the similarities between The Factor and Soldat probably end there. San Vicente Stakes (gr. II) winner The Factor, while extremely fast, is one-dimensional. He needs the lead and is unlikely to ...

Inglis has cataloged 529 lots for its 2011 Australian Easter Yearling Sale, to be held April 5-7 at the Newmarket complex in Sydney. In advance of this premier sale, we are offering complimentary TrueNicks Enhanced reports for all yearlings in the sale. Use the table below to access free reports. All TrueNicks reports are generated in real time ...

Temple City, photo by Eclipse Sportswire, Inc. Graded stakes winner and grade I-placed Temple City (TrueNicks,SRO) has joined TrueNicks. Additionally, Spendthrift Farm has upgraded their entire roster to the new TrueNicks Enhanced report. By top sire Dynaformer, Temple City is one of the most popular new stallions to enter stud in 2011. ...

by Ian Tapp Few could mount a serious case that Uncle Mo was not one of the most talented 2-year-olds American racing has seen in quite a while. He was impressive at six furlongs, brilliant at a mile, and dominant in the 8 ½-furlong Breeders’ Cup Juvenile (gr. I) that clinched his Eclipse championship. Detractors will remind us that he's made ...