Charge It

In its annual Report of Mares Bred (RMBs) released Thursday, The Jockey Club estimates that the 2026 foal crop will be 17,000. That represents a slight decline of 300 from the 2025 crop. The foal crop projection is computed by using RMBs received to date for the 2025 breeding season. RMBs are to be filed by August 1 of each breeding season. The number of mares bred has fallen every year since 2015, when 34,122 mares were bred. Over that ten-year period, the foal crop has dropped by 28%. During...

1st-Churchill Downs, $131,055, Alw (C), Opt. Clm ($100,000), 5-22, 3yo/up, 1m, 1:34.09, ft, 1/2 length. WILL TAKE IT (c, 4, Tapit--Lady Take Charge, by War Front) was the third fiddle from a pari-mutuel perspective, but was the recipient of a cerebral ride from Brian Hernandez, Jr. to spoil the return to action of dual Grade III winner and heavily favored Dragoon Guard (Arrogate). Off at odds just under 7-1, the $700,000 Keeneland September graduate was content to sit fifth down the back in the slipstream of Juddmonte's gray colt as...

The first mares bred to MGISW Muth (Good Magic) and MGSW Charge It (Tapit) have been checked in foal, Gainesway Farm said via dual press releases on Wednesday. Muth, a 2023 $2-million OBS March topper for Zedan Racing who became a 'TDN Rising Star' and won a pair of Grade Is, covered Indy Business (A.P. Indy). The mare is owned by Paul Pruett and boarded at Tracey & Clay Caudill's Watershed Equine. Muth stands for $35,000 LFSN at Gainesway. Visiting Charge It, Delovely (More than Ready) is a winning mare...

With 'TDN Rising Stars' Sierre Leone (Gun Runner) and Fierceness (City of Light) extending their rivalry into 2025, and the GI Kentucky Derby winner also persevering to a third campaign, there's no denying that the new intake of Bluegrass sires has a fairly bunched look. A cluster of second-tier names can duly compete for mares that might otherwise have favored one of the sophomore leaders, with eight of the 23 newcomers targeting broadly similar budgets between $40,000 and $30,000. Whether that qualifies any of them as "value" can only be...

Gainesway's General Manager Brian Graves looks ahead to breeding season with a stallion roster that includes four new recruits on this week's TDN Writers' Room.

Four new sires have joined Gainesway's stallion barn for 2025, bringing their roster up to 12 members. Tapit still reigns supreme at the Paris, Kentucky farm and the leading sire's stud fee will hold steady at $185,000 next year. McKinzie, whose first crop of 2-year-olds include Grade I winners Chancer McPatrick and Scottish Lassie, is in a tight battle for leading first-crop sire and his fee has increased from $30,000 to $75,000. Also in 2025, Raging Bull, a son of Dark Angel (Ire), will be represented by his first 2-year-olds...

Tapit, North America's all-time leading sire by progeny earnings and the leading active sire by lifetime Grade I winners and graded stakes winners, will again lead the 2025 Gainesway stallion roster at a fee of $185,000, according to a press release from the farm Thursday. The son of Pulpit is represented this year on the racetrack by GI Whitney Stakes winner Arthur's Ride, GII Woodward Stakes winner Tapit Trice, and additional graded winners May Day Ready, Scylla, and Batten Down. He continues to be in demand in the auction ring,...

Whatever Next? It's as big a question for the throwback gelding of that name as for his sire, both standing at an exciting crossroads in their respective careers. Next's domination of a niche division of the American Turf is now such that he may now try to adapt to a more competitive, mainstream discipline at the Breeders' Cup. But whether this switch concerns distance or surface, in the Classic or Turf respectively, nobody should be surprised if the gray proves equal to the challenge. For his sire Not This Time...

Whisper Hill Farm's multiple graded stakes winner Charge It (Tapit--I'll Take Charge, by Indian Charlie) has been retired from racing and will begin his stud career next season at Gainesway. Charge It followed a 'TDN Rising Star' maiden victory with a runner-up effort in the 2022 GI Florida Derby. He demolished the field with a 23-length victory in the GIII Dwyer Stakes and returned as a 4-year-old to win the GII Suburban Stakes. "Winning any graded race by 23 lengths, as Charge It did in the Dwyer, takes an immensely...

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y.--Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert, who has won the GI Travers Stakes three times, could be going for No. 4 in this year's Midsummer Derby Baffert, speaking from his summer base at Del Mar in California, said that one of his 3-year-olds--Parenting (Justify) or Muth (Good Magic) who were both tabbed as 'TDN Rising Stars'--could represent him in the $1.25 million race at Saratoga Race Course Aug. 24. "Potentially," he said. Parenting, owned by Wathnan Racing, was a $750,000 purchase at the 2023 Ocala 2-year-olds in training...

The Todd Pletcher-trained trio of Fierceness (City of Light), Antiquarian (Preservationist) and Mindframe (Constitution) all visited the track Friday morning in preparation for upcoming starts in the GI Belmont S. held at Saratoga. 'TDN Rising Star' and Champion 2-year-old Male Fierceness marked his first work since finishing off the board as the favorite in the GI Kentucky Derby earlier this month. Working in company with stablemate Mindframe, the pair covered a half-mile in :50 flat over the Oklahoma training track, galloping out in 1:02 2/5, 1:14 3/5 and 1:28 2/5....

Trainer Todd Pletcher breezed a remarkable 12 of his intended Breeders' Cup starters at Keeneland on Thursday morning over the main track.  Heading the dozen was GI Breeders' Cup Classic hopeful Bright Future (Curlin), who arrived in Kentucky this week from Saratoga. He worked five furlongs in 1:01.40. Also working five furlongs for a possible Breeders' Cup start was Charge It (Tapit), who covered the distance in 1:01.20.  "We originally were going to work all of our Saturday (Nov. 4) horses tomorrow but with rain in the forecast for tomorrow,...