BloodHorse.com

It's mid-July. Your broodmares have been in foal for anywhere between one and five months.  So... what are you feeding them? Talk to a dozen farm managers and you'll get a dozen different responses.  Is it necessary to feed supplements?  When should the mare start to gain real serious weight?  If the in-foal mare also has a ...

Last week I had the opportunity to sit in on a ''round table'' discussion of a few prominent breeders, hosted by Blood-Horse Publications.  In addition to several fascinating theories presented during the formal discussion, it was a thrill to interact with these successful horsemen during a long break in the afternoon. It was during the ...

The recent loss of blue hen Winter's Gone (article on BloodHorse.com) (pedigree) brings up an interesting question. Are the best producers usually well-bred mares that fared poorly in their own race careers? Winter's Gone is an unplaced half-sister to grade I winner Bien Bien and two other stakes winners. After six starts in which her average ...

Mares by War Admiral out of Blue Larkspur daughters... crossed with a Domino-line sire... the nick of the century? Bluegrass by Borden Deal is fiction, but the novel approaches breeding -- and training and racing, for that matter -- with a reality rarely seen outside of weightier works. I re-read the book over the weekend (I first found it during ...

Yesterday, I outlined what I feel are fair (and perhaps even rather strict) guidelines for a top breed-to-race stallion. Today, I'm posting my list of the very cream of the crop. I'll start by giving ''honorable mention'' to a few stallions frequently cited as a good value for breed-to-race programs.  Rahy (on SRO) works great for those with ...

In theory, racehorse breeders are all striving for a similar primary goal:  foals that will go on to successful race careers.  In practice, it's not so simple.  Here's one of racing's open secrets:  there are stallions that are primarily ''commercial,'' and others that are ''breed-to-race.'' We'll leave aside - for today - ...

Sadly, every year makes it less likely that we -- in the U.S. -- will find true outcross stallions (i.e., a completely non-U.S. 5-cross pedigree).  I'm all for clever patterns of inbreeding and building on tried-and-true bloodlines... but sooner or later, you've got to add new blood.  Candy Ride (ARG) (pedigree) has Mr. P as his ...

A few weeks ago, I mentioned my disappointment that the U.S. lost Judge T C (pedigree) from our bloodstock choices when he was exported to Saudi Arabia. I'll give credit to Prince Sultan Mohammed Saud al Kabeer and Nofa Equestiran Resort:  they saw something in a stallion that was overlooked in the domestic breeding market, and they ...

In my last post, I started to discuss a yearling that I am sending to the Keeneland September sale.  I introduced the colt (TrueNicks pedigree) and promised to give details on the breeding decisions that resulted in this foal.  I chose to go with Honour and Glory (on SRO) for several reasons.  One, frankly, was because he ...

Yearling sales are a big deal.  If you want to gauge the strength of the industry, take a look at the yearling market.  (And if you're really into such things, you probably already subscribe to TBH MarketWatch...).  Each year, thousands of yearlings go through the ring (in 2008, we'll probably see more than 14,000 of them, with ...