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By J. Keeler Johnson (''Keelerman'') Twitter: @J_Keelerman Get ready, everyone! With just six weeks remaining until the Breeders’ Cup, things are starting to get serious, and starting this weekend, many of the top contenders for races like the Breeders’ Cup Classic (gr. I) and Breeders’ Cup Distaff (gr. I) will be running in their final prep ...

Before the Keeneland September yearling sale became the mother of all sales, there was the Keeneland July yearling sale, which featured the crème de la crème of yearlings in a small but select sale. This was the sale that during the mid-80s boom saw Northern Dancers and Nijinskys going for high seven figures and eight figures, as Sheikh ...

Buyers at auction know well that their competition for a horse in the ring is not only from the people sitting around them or gathered near the walking ring. They also face competition from the seller through the reserve price, and this competition is getting stiffer—particularly among select horses—as an increasing number of breeder/owners are ...

Regular visitors and fans of Wise Dan, Claire Novak and I went by Keeneland and the Rice Road barn of Amy and Charlie LoPresti.  We reminisced about the accomplishments of the 8-year-old champ and briefly discussed the issue that brought on Wise Dan’s retirement.For more go to ...

One of the nice things about my drive to the office is passing Keeneland each day. In the past few weeks it’s been fun to watch the tents go up that will house the various added seating for the Breeders’ Cup World Championships Oct. 30-31. Some of this added seating also will be available for the upcoming fall meeting, which begins ...

By J. Keeler Johnson (''Keelerman'') Twitter: @J_Keelerman It’s hard to believe, but on September 12th, the Road to the 2016 Kentucky Derby (gr. I) will begin with the running of the $150,000 Iroquois Stakes (gr. III) at Churchill Downs. The Iroquois is the first official prep race for the Derby, offering a total of 17 qualification points to ...

How do you choose the crowning legacy of a person’s career, especially when that person is John Nerud, who had so many careers and has left so many legacies it’s difficult to single one out?As a breeder, you can certainly include Dr. Fager, Ta Wee, Unbridled, and Fappiano and Cozzene (both also owned by Nerud) among Nerud’s greatest legacies. It ...

Thoroughbred racing in Texas has been going from bad to worse as the racing states across its borders—Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and New Mexico—have steadily grown purses and the value of their state-bred stock through casino gaming. Since 2007 the number of mares bred in Texas has fallen 65% to 814, and the number of active stallions has ...

Somewhere there is a Kentucky Derby with Dale Romans’ name on it. Having grown up a just few miles from Churchill Downs and having spent a good portion of his youth there working for his father, Romans has been dreaming of the roses almost his entire life. But the harsh realities of backstretch life on the claiming scale made it nothing more than ...

A tidbit to start today's blog: The three sires currently or formerly based in the U.S. to already have two different horses win Breeders' Cup Challenge races this year all boast victories in the King's Bishop Stakes (gr. I) as Tale of the Cat won the seven-furlong sprint for 3-year-olds at Saratoga in 1997 (when it was grade II), Hard Spun won ...