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  (Originally published in the October 23, 2010 issue of The Blood-Horse magazine. Feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions at the bottom of the column.)  By Eric Mitchell - @EJMitchellKy on Twitter California trainer John Shirreffs looks back at 2009 and believes racing missed a huge opportunity to build up ...

This will be my last post about the World Equestrian Games, but I wanted to tell you all about my encounter with Ron Turcotte, the jockey of Secretariat, while I was out at the Kentucky Horse Park a couple of weeks ago. I was walking around the huge tent promoting dozens of local stores and various organizations, and I ...

This year's Perfect Trip Award will recognize a Breeders' Cup Challenge race winner from this season's North American races that best exemplifies a ''Perfect Trip''. The winner will be selected from a panel of racing experts and will have the opportunity to experience his or her own ''Perfect Trip'' through Sentient Jet, with ...

The stallions of Circle H Farms in Abbeville, Louisiana, are now available on TrueNicks. Run Production (TrueNicks) is a son of Saint Ballado who, despite a limited number of foals, has sired five stakes horses to date, including multiple stakes winners Foreign Production, Productive Envoy, and Star Production. A stakes winner himself, Run ...

 Now that the preps for the Nov. 5 and 6 Breeders’ Cup have been completed, it is time to go over all the races and see who will be and might be showing up. A number of trainers and owners are uncertain in which races their horses will be participating, so expect to see several prominent hopefuls pre-entered in two races. For a few ...

The equine genome has been sequenced, and geneticists are starting to get a handle on how gene research might soon yield scientific reasons why one horse is faster than another. That's the basis of the inaugural Thoroughbred Pedigree and Genetics Symposium held Oct. 11 in Lexington. The seminar, presented by The Blood-Horse and Pedigree ...

Hopefully many of you were able to read the unique interview that John Shirreffs gave this morning at Keeneland. If not, here are the highlights. Shirreffs, who prefers to play things close to the vest, was gracious enough to answer questions from a group of about eight reporters for 45 minutes. He was pressed about a variety of tough subjects ...

Photo by Adam Coglianese Multiple grade I winner and track record holder Quality Road (TrueNicks,SRO) has joined TrueNicks in advance of the 2011 breeding season. Following his run in the next month's Breeders' Cup Classic (gr. I), for which he is one of the favorites, Quality Road will retire to Lane's End Farm. The son of Elusive ...

Now that the Fasig-Tipton November select sale catalog is live, I can update my earlier post about MarketWatch Broodmare of the Year candidates being represented at the sales. (A free PDF download allows you to read the original MarketWatch Broodmare of the Year article.) From Fasig-Tipton's 186 hips, 136 are broodmares or prospects. ...