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If you were a commercial breeder, finding the silver lining in the cloud at the Keeneland September yearling sale was difficult. High stud fees for this crop of yearlings, a huge supply of horses at a time when demand was falling, and the effects of months of economic woes here and abroad created at perfect storm of misery for sellers and for ...

I arrived back home in Lexington yesterday morning after a much-enjoyed week of sunny relaxation on the Florida Gulf. Because of friends' status updates on Facebook (sad but true), I knew Kentucky had experienced a week of non-stop rain, and that the temperatures had dropped a bit. I guess I sort of ignored the news though (it was in the 90s and ...

Bloggers: I'm off for a few days, be back at the end of the week. In the meantime, here's a guest blog to help get us pumped up for the Breeders' Cup. Jason By Dani Pugh In recent years, racing seems to have fallen from its previous throne of excitement, beauty, and majesty. It is a far cry from where it was in the seventies, eighties, and ...

Europe fired off its first salvo at the Breeders’ Cup Classic (gr. I) when the heavy favorite Rip Van Winkle captured Saturday’s Queen Elizabeth II Stakes (Eng-I) at Ascot, which served as a launching pad for Raven’s Pass’ Classic victory last year. After the race, trainer Aidan O’Brien confirmed that Rip Van Winkle indeed will be pointed for the ...

Kona Gold [brightcove videoid=''14463958001''] Chocolate Candy This is a video of Chocolate Candy receiving a bath Monday or Tuesday of Kentucky Derby week. We did not use this video for anything and since I shot it and had it captured, why not post it for those of you who might be interested. However, it did glitch as I was capturing the ...

Walmac Farm in Kentucky will once again sponsor complimentary TrueNicks on all of their stallions for the 2010 season.Despite a crop of only 43 foals conceived when standing in Florida, Successful Appeal (TrueNicks,SRO) was the leading first crop sire of 2004, with progeny earnings of over $1.7 million. Nine stakes winners (21%) eventually emerged ...

Question: At this time last year, if you had to name the one juvenile filly with the best chance of being a 3-year-old superstar, who would it be? Chances are, most of you would have chosen champion 2-year-old filly Stardom Bound, not Rachel Alexandra. I know I would have. I was blown away by her spectacular late runs in both the Oak Leaf and ...

Watching Dr. Bryce Peckham, the state veterinarian in Kentucky, go from stall to stall doing pre-race examinations on horses entered to race on a recent evening at Turfway Park wasn't my idea of a day at the track. But the 90 minutes or so spent in the receiving barn opened my eyes (even if it numbed my brain) to a few things: Peckham and ...

It was during the Keeneland September auction a year ago that we first saw the devastating impact of a plummeting economy on Thoroughbred sales. The large scale of the industry's largest yearling sale makes it a bellwether for every tier of commercial Thoroughbred breeding, and it quickly became clear that the recession would leave little room for ...

By Alex Waldrop, President and CEO of the NTRA  Next week, it’s my privilege to speak to marketers from racetracks and ADWs across the country at the NTRA’s Annual Meeting and Marketing Summit in Las Vegas.  I plan to speak frankly about the challenges Thoroughbred racing faces as a result of a down economy and a business model that ...