At the Keeneland September sale of yearlings in September, Bridlewood Farm’s John Malone set a personal record when he bought a $1.1 million filly, more than he’d ever paid for a Thoroughbred. Bidding again at Keeneland yesterday, he went one better, setting a North American record for a weanling when he went to $3 million…
In September, the Keeneland Association in Lexington, Kentucky held its world-renowned September sale of yearling Thoroughbreds; 2,819 racing hopefuls went through the ring, selling for an average of nearly $100,000 each and a total of $280.5 million. Following its boutique, three-week October racing meeting, Keeneland will turn its sales eyes next to the November sale of Thoroughbred…
The road to the Kentucky Derby is nearly at an end, and with it our Kentucky Derby charity league. John Perotti has taken a commanding lead, but remember that the points in our league go to the top 5 Derby finishers (300-120-60-30-15), leaving plenty of participants in striking distance. Brian Nadeau of Horseplayer Now takes…
Keeneland: The Grade I, $750,000 Blue Grass at 1 1/8 miles #1 Asserting Bear: One of the longer shots in the field has some ground to make up on a few of these who beat him when he was fourth in the GIII Spiral at Turfway Park last month and looks a bit out of…
“Spectacular.” That was the word the Keeneland Association used to describe the results of its Thoroughbred yearling sales last month. The 12-day sale started with a bang, with four horses selling for at least $1 million on the first day; by the time it was over, the sale price for 18 yearlings had reached seven…
Call me “the woman who left Keeneland to drive to Charles Town.” It’s true, even if no one would believe it. Charles Town Races sits in the Blue Ridge Mountains, roughly equidistant, a 90-minute car trip, from both Baltimore and Washington, D.C. It’s been around since 1933, and visitors walking through the facility will see…
It’s a few minutes past 7 a.m. on a Saturday morning in Lexington, Kentucky; it’s still pretty much dark out, and the temperature is a few ticks north of 40 degrees. But it’s opening weekend at Keeneland Race Course, and the ground floor of the grandstand is bustling. The horses have been on the track…
Two years ago, a yearling bay filly went through the sales ring at Keeneland. Her sire, Empire Maker, won the Florida Derby, Wood Memorial, and Belmont Stakes, and he finished second in the Kentucky Derby. Still, no one was much interested in the filly; bidding reached $22,000, less than her reserve, and she left the…
When Emma’s Encore walks onto the track at Keeneland this afternoon for the Grade II Thoroughbred Club of America, she will, in a sense, be coming home. She was sold for $22,000 at the Keeneland September sale in 2010; she ran here as a two-year-old; and her owners both live in the Bluegrass. Their proximity…
It’s Sunday morning in Lexington, Kentucky. Sundays are meant to be a day of rest…but there’s much, much too much to do to rest. On the road to Keeneland for workouts, we end up behind a horse van, and we wonder which Kitten might be inside. If the race card holds any hints, we are…
Brooklyn Backstretch 