A son of Nyquist brought a sale-topping $205,000 during Tuesday's second and final session of the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic Fall Yearlings Sale in Timonium, MD. With a catalogue some 20% smaller than it was last year, the 2023 renewal of the auction saw 289 head fetch $7,078,000 at an average of $24,491 (down 7.9% year over [...]

Rosedown Racing Stables LLC's Champions Dream (Justify–Dancinginherdreams, by Tapit) entered this unveiling with sparking clocker reports and lots of buzz, and made his $425,000 OBS March price tag and 6-5 odds on the tote look like value as he earned 'TDN Rising Star' status Saturday at The Spa. Just a $25,000 Keeneland September yearling purchase [...]

Saturday's GI Runhappy Santa Anita Derby was billed mainly as a match-up of back-to-back Grade II winner Forbidden Kingdom (American Pharoah) and 15-length GIII Robert B. Lewis S. romper and 'TDN Rising Star' Messier (Empire Maker), but the former dropped out of it in the lane after setting the pace, and $1.7-million FTFMAR buy Taiba [...]

While Saturday's GII Santa Anita Oaks seemed all but a procession for 13-length GIII Las Virgenes S. romper Adare Manor (Uncle Mo) in her first start since being transferred from Bob Baffert to Tim Yakteen, Desert Dawn (Cupid)–the longest shot in the field of five at higher than 14-1 odds–had other ideas. Desert Dawn broke [...]

Sponsored by Alex Nichols Agency 7th-GP, $60K, Msw, 3yo, 7f, 4:07 p.m. ET A trio of Hall of Fame barns send out five of the eight entrants in this elongated sprint. Todd Pletcher saddles Repole Stable and St Elias Stable's $560,000 KEESEP buy Gate Runner (Arrogate). Out of stakes-placed turf router Nerfertiti (Speightstown), he's half [...]

Morello obliged as the 7-5 favorite in Sunday's Jimmy Winkfield S. to become the third black-type winner from his sire (by Pioneerof the Nile)'s first crop. A $250,000 Fasig-Tipton Midlantic juvenile off a good-looking :10 1/5 breeze, the chestnut opened his account with a clear-cut victory going a furlong shorter here Nov. 27 and was [...]

Lightly raced Speaker's Corner had earned some strong speed figures up to this point for a horse without a stakes win, and he kicked off his 4-year-old campaign auspiciously with a breakthrough tally in Florida. A second-out graduate in New York as a fall juvenile over a very salty bunch of future stakes runners (Caddo [...]

Sponsored by Alex Nichols Agency 3rd-GP, $60K, Msw, 3yo, 1 1/16mT, 12:58 p.m. ET Todd Pletcher-trained Native Thunder (American Pharoah) is one of a trio of well-bred sophomores who makes their debuts here. Out of 2002 GI Del Mar Debutante S. heroine Miss Houdini (Belong to Me), the $200,000 Keeneland September yearling is half to [...]

Sponsored by Alex Nichols Agency 6th-OP, $84K, Msw, 3yo, f, 6f, 3:51 p.m. ET The first of two strong-looking groups of sophomore fillies line up here in Hot Springs. Brad Cox-trained second timer Firewolves (Practical Joke) gets the tepid morning-line nod coming off a runner-up outing over track and trip Dec. 3 that earned her [...]

Already with a record seven GIII Sham S. trophies, including the two prior runnings and three of the last four, trainer Bob Baffert and the ever-present ownership group nicknamed The Avengers celebrated another big score Saturday at Santa Anita with front-running Newgrange (Violence). The handsome dark bay earned an 80 Beyer Speed Figure for a [...]

Though he was a bit chilly on the board for a Bob Baffert-trained, John Velazquez-ridden, $475,000 KEESEP buy by the powerful ownership conglomerate nicknamed The Avengers, Wharton (Candy Ride {Arg}–Her Smile, by Include) earned 'TDN Rising Star'-dom all the same Friday as he left a highly regarded second timer in his wake at Santa Anita. [...]

Sponsored by Alex Nichols Agency 2nd-TAM, $26.5K, Msw, 3yo/up, 1m40yds, 1:08 p.m. ET    While their other four competitors are a combined 0-for-37, late-debuting newcomers Aussie Pride (Curlin) and Mint (Bodemeister) sport huge pedigrees and in one case, a massive price tag. The former, who carries the Godolphin blue for trainer Bill Mott, was the [...]