Reduced to a one-day sale, the Fasig-Tipton Texas summer yearling auction posted a gross that was down significantly Aug. 31 at Lone Star Park. Under last year's two-day format, 443 horses were cataloged, but only 319 were offered this year, contributing to a 43.9% decline in the gross, from $3,369,700 to $1,889,400. The buy-back rate rose from 36.6% in 2008 to 42%, with only 185 head selling. While the median increased to $5,000 from $4,500, the average dipped from $11,992 to $10,213, a 14.8% decline.
Attendance and handle turned down fractionally for the first time during the 2009 Saratoga Race Course meet after two inches of rain Aug. 28 and 29 lowered attendance on Shadwell Travers (gr. I) Day and forced seven of the weekend's 11 carded turf races off the turf. Attendance was down 1.6%, on-track handle down 1.6%, and all-sources handle down 2.8% from 2008 totals through week five.
Jockey Calvin Borel was back on board Mine That Bird on the morning of Aug. 31 as the winner of the Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (gr. I) worked a half mile in :51.16 over the main track at Saratoga Race Course.
Strike the Tiger, who had an historic victory in the Windsor Castle Stakes in Great Britain this year, and Two Notch Road, who broke his maiden in winning the Continental Mile Stakes at Monmouth Park in his turf debut, head a full field of 2-year-olds entered in the Sept. 4, $100,000-added With Anticipation Stakes (gr. IIIT) at Saratoga.
The New York Racing Association is making special plans as "The Rachel Alexandra Show" comes to Saratoga Race Course for Saturday's grade I, $750,000 Woodward Stakes.
The Aga Khan, one of Europe's major owner/breeders, has signed up Christophe Lemaire as his new retained rider in France for 2010, replacing Christophe Soumillon.
Rachel Alexandra, whose eight-race win streak includes four grade I stakes, turned in her final preparation for the Sept. 5 Woodward Stakes (gr. I) when she breezed four furlongs at Saratoga on the morning of Aug. 31.
Man o' War is one of the most famous horses in the history of Thoroughbred racing. His full brother, Playfellow, who earned the highest sale price of the season decades ago, is famous for a very different reason. In June 1921 the title of the New York Times article read, "Playfellow Not Sound...[Owner] Requests Return of $115,000."
Abdominal tumors are only rarely diagnosed in horses, but the amount of time horses usually survive after such a finding is shockingly short. Because the signs of gastric cancer are vague, diagnosing gastric cancer in horses can be challenging. Often, even narrowing the problem down to the stomach in a timely fashion proves to be near impossi...
A quarantine at Rolling Hills Ranch stable in Bridgeville, Allegheny County, Pa., has been lifted after samples collected from all 116 horses there tested negative for the neurologic form of equine herpesvirus-1, or EHV-1, said Agriculture Secretary Dennis Wolff .
The quarantine was established on July 20 when at least three horses tested positive...
