Accelerate

The catalogues for the Tattersalls Guineas Breeze-Up and Horses-in-Training Sale were released on Wednesday. There are currently 206 2-year-olds and 120 horses-in-training ready to go under the hammer on Apr. 28. Beginning at 9 a.m. local time on Apr. 26, the breezes will take place over Newmarket's Rowley Mile Racecourse. They will be shown live on the Tattersalls website and on the Tattersalls Facebook page. Graduates of the sale won group races in Britain, France, Germany and the U.S. in 2021, led by top-level winners Trueshan (Fr) (Planteur {Ire}) and...

From a stellar class, which freshman sire will emerge on top? And what sire currently flying under the radar will be the year's biggest surprise? With the first 2-year-old sale of the season, OBS March, now in the books, we thought it would be a good time to ask the experts: JUSTIN CASSE Top pick: Mendelssohn (Scat Daddy--Leslie's Lady, by Tricky Creek). 2022 fee: $35,000, Coolmore America. "I saw some very athletic two-turn horses by Mendelssohn with size, scope, strength, and balance. They were very athletic types and they breezed...

Though the first three installments of this series have featured the stallions with most to prove, we know that they will collectively be dominating commercial traffic in the new covering season. But today we come to the group that has just completed that first, critical market cycle--and finally stands on the brink of testing their stock where it really counts. Or should count, anyway. The sad reality is that they have already exhausted their usefulness to a lot of breeders, many of whom will meanwhile have ridden the carousel through...

by Joe Bianca & Katie Ritz SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY--The Fasig-Tipton New York-Bred Yearlings Sale completed a successful return Monday at the Humphrey S. Finney Sales Pavilion in Saratoga, as a lively day of trading built on a strong Sunday opener to conclude the auction with average, gross and median numbers up and the RNA rate down compared to 2019 numbers. "We got the sales superfecta: average was up, median was up, gross was up and the RNA rate's down. So we hit the super today and we're obviously very pleased,"...

SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY--The Fasig-Tipton New York-Bred Yearlings Sale, which had a string of record-setting renewals interrupted only by its cancellation due to the COVID-19 pandemic last summer, got back on track with a strong opening session at the Humphrey S. Finney Pavilion Sunday evening. A total of 62 yearlings sold Sunday night for a gross of $6,497,500. The average was $104,798 and the median was $80,000. "It was an outstanding opening night to the 2021 New York-bred sale," said Fasig-Tipton President Boyd Browning. "I was thrilled to have the average...

David Ingordo has undoubtedly inspected thousands of yearlings, many of whom went on to become Ingordo-purchased success stories, since he saw Accelerate (Lookin at Lucky) at the 2014 Keeneland September Sale. Nevertheless, the well-respected agent has a vivid memory of seeing Hip 1162 at the Bluewater Sales consignment, a May-foaled son of the stakes-placed Awesome Again mare Issues. "When a horse first walks out, you get an impression--at least, that's what it is for me," Ingordo said. "And he was an extremely well- balanced horse, plenty of substance to him....

The spoils of victory typically come with a nice polish. Gleaming trophies. Glossy plaques. But not always. "He offered me an egg roll at Clocker's Corner on Sunday morning," said trainer John Sadler, on Ron McAnally's act of largesse the day after Rock Your World (Candy Ride {Arg}), the horse the veteran conditioner bred, careened away with the GI Santa Anita Derby. "It was pretty good, but I don't think it was breakfast food," Sadler added, tongue firmly in cheek, before explaining that McAnally-who also trained both Rock Your World's...

Thursday, Chris McGrath covered the first half of the Kentucky stallions with first yearlings. Click here to read about Justify, City of Light, West Coast, Mendelssohn, Good Magic, Bolt d'Oro, and Always Dreaming. The second part appears below. ACCELERATE (Lookin At Lucky--Issues, by Awesome Again) has also been trimmed to $17,500, at Lane's End, having already been our "gold" value pick of the intake at an opening $20,000. Whatever made him attractive then has scarcely diminished in the meantime, given that he was never going to appeal to those fast-buck...

No matter what he does, Lookin At Lucky (Smart Strike) seems condemned always to be the short guy in the back row of the team photo. In the private duel that defines his stud career, moreover, he has to endure Munnings (Speightstown) moving ever closer, year by year, to front and center. These two splendid sires, who started out together at Ashford in 2011, experienced rather typical fortunes last Saturday when dividing the big sophomore tests in New Orleans between them (along with those skilled gentlemen, Brad Cox and Florent...

VERSAILLES, KY--With the foal crop of 2020 beginning to gradually dot the paddocks of the Bluegrass, excitement and anticipation are running high, perhaps even more so for a stud farm with a stallion celebrating its first arrivals. For Lane's End Farm, the feeling is threefold, with the farm set to welcome the first crops of Grade I winners Accelerate (Lookin At Lucky), City of Light (Quality Road) and West Coast (Flatter). In a media-only event at the farm's stallion complex Tuesday evening, Lane's End's Sales Director Allaire Ryan said she...

The first foals by Grade I-winning multimillionaire Collected (City Zip--Helena Bay, by Johannesburg), have been reported at leading nurseries Airdrie Stud, Anderson Farms and Trackside Farm, Airdrie announced Tuesday. Airdrie Stud resident Believe You Can (Proud Citizen), winner of six stakes including the 2012 GI Kentucky Oaks, foaled a colt by Collected Feb. 1. "We bred the most important mare on our farm to Collected and he has greatly rewarded our faith in him," said Airdrie's Bret Jones. "Believe You Can's colt is an absolutely exceptional foal with the presence...

Over the coming days and weeks, we will be touched by the customary pictures of first foals tottering onto the gawky limbs that must someday propel them around the racetrack, and so determine the viability of their sires' new careers. That's the idea, at any rate. Sadly, we know that the auctioneer's gavel will expel some of these stallions from Kentucky--and just to reiterate, we will be surveying regional sires at the end of this series--before their stock gets any meaningful opportunity to test the heritability of the talent that...