From the windows of his childhood home in Ocala, FL, Carlos Manresa could see J.J. Pletcher’s training facility, and in the mornings, he would look out the back windows to see young Thoroughbreds training. “It’s a very vivid memory that I shared with my dad, which is really special,” said Manresa, sitting outside the Sequel…
Two colts by grade 1-winning Kentucky sires led the first session of the Fasig-Tipton sale of preferred New York-bred yearlings, purchased by buyers with deep ties to New York racing. Hip 315 is a Constitution (Tapit) colt out of the Forestry mare See the Forest and sold for $300,000 to West Bloodstock, agent for Repole Stable. Consigned by ELiTe,…
John Stewart’s Resolute Bloodstock got its third seven-figure yearling at Fasig-Tipton’s The Saratoga Sale, going to $1.2 million for a Ghostzapper filly (Hip 147) consigned by Gainesway during the Aug. 6 second session. Payson Stud bred the filly out of the Arch winner Seeking the Blue, who has already produced graded stakes-placed winner Janis Joplin (California Chrome) and stakes-placed…
Kristen and Matthew Esler may be relative newcomers to New York’s breeding industry, but the experience that they bring to their farm is rooted in decades of some of the state’s most successful breeders. Their Saratoga Springs property is the site of the old Stepwise Farm, owned for decades by Bill Wilmot and Joan Taylor,…
With his Churchill Downs suspension having been lifted, trainer Bob Baffert wasted no time in setting his sights on the first Saturday in May. For Zedan Racing, agent Donato Lanni signed a ticket for $3.4 million for Hip 72 after a protracted bidding battle on the first night of the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Sale for a Not This Time colt…
With apologies to Thomas Wolfe, this year’s Fasig-Tipton Saratoga sale of New York-bred yearlings proved that you can, indeed, go home again. Absent from Saratoga Springs, N.Y., in 2020 because of the coronavirus, the sale returned this year, recording gains in all metrics. Sellers of New York-bred horses last year were forced to set up…
There’s never a good time for a crisis, but it’s hard to imagine a less convenient time for Covid-19 to have hit the New York racing and breeding industries than mid-March. Mares were foaling and being bred; high-stakes races were on the calendar at Aqueduct; and the popular sales for two-year-olds in training were hitting…
“One of the chief subjects of discussion in the paddock was the sale of yearlings at the Fasig-Tipton company mart last night…” The Daily Saratogian, Aug. 11, 1917 That time-honored Saratoga tradition began 100 years ago this month, when Fasig-Tipton held its first Thoroughbred sale in Saratoga. Established in 1898 to sell riding and driving…
Though several indicators were down from last year in Monday night’s first session of the annual Fasig-Tipton yearling sale, the evening did provide some fireworks, most notably when a half-sister to undefeated champion Songbird by 2004 Horse of the Year Ghostzapper brought $800,000, and again towards the end of the night, when a colt sired…
On Saturday morning, Andrew Motion didn’t look like a man who hadn’t had much sleep over the last couple days. Two days earlier, he’d loaded a yearling filly onto a van and driven overnight to Saratoga from his Upperville, VA farm; three days before he’ll send his first horse through the auction ring here, he…
Brooklyn Backstretch 