Charlie O'Connor

"La vita è una combinazione di magia e pasta." (Life is a combination of magic and pasta.) Such was the opinion of a man who should know, in Federico Fellini. And the great Italian director would surely have savored the slice of life, understood in those terms, now available in the heart of Woodford County, Ky. Because Vallozzi's restaurant, which recently opened in downtown Versailles, does not confine its excellence solely to the kitchen. This is a house of true pedigree and style, surely destined to become an institution of...

Coolmore's Ashford Stud will enter breeders who have booked mares to Corniche, Epicenter, Jack Christopher, or Tiz the Law into drawings to award four no-guarantee nominations to Justify in a promotion called "THE JUSTIFY 4." There will be a separate drawing for each of the four stallions, with one no-guarantee nomination awarded among each pool, for a total of four. The drawing will be held on Apr. 26. The farm said that the event was being held "to celebrate Justify's phenomenal year in 2023." Justify is the cumulative leading third-crop...

If ever there was a horse whose CV matches his pedigree, it is Mendelssohn. He topped the Keeneland September sale on a bid of $3 million from Coolmore in 2016, the year before he captured the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf. And that pedigree? When he won the Breeders' Cup, he pushed his dam, the reigning Broodmare of the Year Leslie's Lady, into rare territory: she became what was then one of five mares to produce two Breeders' Cup winners. The year prior, her multiple champion daughter Beholder had captured...

When Indian Charlie died prematurely from cancer at the age of 16 in 2011, the loss was palpable. He had perennially been among the nation's leading sires, while his prowess as a broodmare sire had yet to fully emerge. He had several sons already at stud, but waiting in the wings was his top successor and one who would ultimately put him on the map as a sire of sires. At the time of Indian Charlie's death, Uncle Mo had just closed out his racing career and was preparing for...

The rules committee of the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission (KHRC) on Tuesday advanced a recommendation to amend the state's horse ownership regulations to do away with a requirement that no more than five individuals can be licensed as owners of a single horse. In addition, a separate tweak would codify that up to 10 individual owners or entities may be listed in the track program as owners of a single horse. That limit was previously five, and it was based on the above-referenced regulation that also stated if more than...

Right now within TDN's Top 12 rankings for the GI Kentucky Derby, seven horses are owned by multiple-entity partnerships. One syndicate maxes out at 10 individual owners, another at eight. If the horses from those larger partnerships (or other syndicates-there are plenty of them and they are growing in number worldwide) make it into the Derby field, they won't have to worry about getting the satisfaction and distinction of seeing their names in print as owners. But that's only because as a courtesy, Churchill Downs takes the extra step of...

No matter how ugly racing can get over here on our dirt tracks, most recently highlighted by the Gl Kentucky Derby betamethasone positive of the Bob Baffert-trained Medina Spirit (Protonico), North American pedigrees have to be reckoned with wherever racing is conducted at the highest levels, and that includes on turf in Japan (Sunday Silence) and Australasia (Danehill) in addition to Europe (Sadler's Wells). No one knows this better than the Coolmore partners, headed by maestro John Magnier, who learned this lesson decades ago on American buying sprees as the...

Scat Daddy's Royal Ascot superstar Caravaggio has been relocated from Coolmore's headquarters in Ireland to its American base at Ashford Stud, Coolmore announced Thursday. "Ever since he retired to stud, Caravaggio has been supported by top [North] American-based breeders such as David Anderson, Peter Berglar, John Gunther, Hunter Valley Farm, Runnymede Farm, Fred Hertrich, Mike Ryan, e5 Racing & Merriebelle Stables," said Ashford's Director of Sales Charlie O'Connor, who co-bred the MG1SW sprinter with his father-in-law's Windmill Manor Farms. "This support carried into the sales ring in both the U.S....

January can be cold, bitter, and snowy in Lexington, but the weather was unseasonably warmer during Keeneland's Horses of All Ages sale, which made life easier for inspecting broodmares and short yearlings on the sales grounds and stallions at the nearby stud farms that power the industry here. Most of the major farms offer daily lunchtime stallion shows during sales week--the food, by the way, varies from farm to farm--but decent weather means outdoor showings and greater flows of traffic, which add some conviviality absent from the proceedings when shows...