Craig Bernick

Glen Hill Farm's Craig Bernick had just enough left in the bankroll to try for one more weanling when he bid on Nola Soul (Justify) at the 2024 Keeneland November Sale. With a $2 million budget, Bernick purchased five colts at the 2024 breeding stock sales in the hopes of coming out with a stallion prospect. Nola Soul was the last to be bought and at $220,000, was the bargain of the bunch. This year, he was the first to make the races, becoming a TDN Rising Star, and he...

"There's no such thing as a mistake." He doesn't mean it literally, of course. Evan Sandhu knows perfectly well how horses can make us repent of words and deeds. But he also understands that the greater your ambition, the more essential humility becomes. At Keeneland last November, Sandhu bought a mare named Sing Me Home (GB) (Muhaarar {GB}), carrying what proved to be a filly by Yaupon, for just $25,000. But both had already been sold on by the time the mare's 2-year-old by Justify, Nola Soul, won the Chesham...

My optimism about the future of Thoroughbred racing stems from a simple truth: we have yet to do even the most basic things to improve the wagering experience. In any successful business, long-term success depends on delivering consistent value and quality to the customer. Consumers reward products that are easy to access, enjoyable to use, and worth returning to. Horse racing's greatest failure has been its inability to fully embrace this fundamental principle. For a century, racing enjoyed a virtual monopoly as the only legal form of wagering in much...

There are times when it seems as though nothing succeeds quite like failure. By then, of course, it's too late. But as night follows day, you know just what to expect whenever a Kentucky stud admits defeat on a stallion and sells him abroad. The latest example is Connect, whose export to Turkey was announced barely three weeks ago. Sure enough, last Saturday he responded by sending out two Classic-placed sons to run 1-2 in the GIII Ohio Derby. By this stage, to be fair, it seems clear that the...

It all began with a pretty innocuous suggestion. Little did Craig Bernick know at the time but his mother Carol's plan to go and try to buy some colts instead of concentrating solely on fillies at the breeding stock sales would bear fruit at Royal Ascot less than two years down the line.  But in Nola Soul, one of five colt foals that Bernick purchased in the winter of 2024, the family now has a potential stallion prospect on their hands after the son of Justify backed up his impressive...

Craig Bernick's $220,000 Keeneland November graduate Nola Soul (Justify) is quite some way from being the finished article, but overcame greenness to secure an ultimately impressive debut success and a TDN Rising Star, presented by Hagyard, rosette in Friday evening's Irish Stallion Farms EBF Maiden at Leopardstown. The seven-furlong heat's recent winners include Italy (Wootton Bassett), Scorthy Champ (Mehmas), Deepone (Study Of Man) and Alfred Munnings (Dubawi), and he becomes the 13th Rising Star for his sire. "He was just about ready to start there today, he's a nice horse...

by Jessica Martini & Christina Bossinakis LEXINGTON, KY - The Keeneland November Breeding Stock Sale, which opened with a strong Book 1 session Tuesday, continued its momentum with the first of two Book 2 sessions with strong demand for both mares and foals Wednesday. "It was outstanding," Keeneland Vice President of Sales Tony Lacy said of Wednesday's session. "Coming off yesterday, it was really positive across all the metrics. And I think we improved the position today. The gross was up 61% over last year, the scratch rate was down,...

Aqaareb, an 8-year-old mare by Bernardini, brought top price of $260,000 at the conclusion of the Inglis Digital October (Late) Sale on Tuesday. Consigned by Paramount Sales, she went to Imad Al Sagar's Blue Diamond Stud, which has bases in England and the U.S. Her first foal to race is a placed Amjaad (Nyquist), who will race in the Dubai barn of trainer Doug Watson during the upcoming U.A.E. racing season. She also has foals by Street Sense, Good Magic, and Cody's Wish. The mare was offered in-foal to currently...

The Jockey Club has announced the election of 10 new members. In alphabetical order, they are: Craig Bernick: president and CEO of Glen Hill Farm, as well as president of the Lavin Family Foundation Peter M. Brant: founder of White Birch Paper Company in addition to a magazine publisher, philanthropist, art collector, and film producer Boyd T. Browning, Jr.: president and CEO of Fasig-Tipton Case Clay: founder of Case Clay Thoroughbred Management Dennis Drazin: CEO of Darby Development, the operator of Monmouth Park; president of Drazin & Warshaw; and chair...

Fabrice Chappet trainee Safia (Sottsass), a debut scorer at ParisLongchamp in October, opened this year with a TDN Rising Star performance at Saint-Cloud in March and bounced back off a fifth in a hot renewal of April's G3 Prix de la Grotte to secure a career high in Sunday's Listed Prix Melisande at ParisLongchamp. Employing waiting tactics in fifth until turning for home, she careered forward to seize control with 300 metres remaining and was ridden out in the closing stages to defeat Ilda Rosa (Lope De Vega) and La...

Sottsass (Fr) had two deeply promising fillies in Saint-Cloud's Prix Kizil Kourgan on Tuesday and despite his Ultrafragola (Ire) starting favourite it was the other daughter Safia (Fr) who emerged best to earn TDN Rising Star status. Carrying the colours of racing and breeding's rising force David Layani, the Fabrice Chappet-trained descendant of Sophisticat (Storm Cat) and Serena's Song (Rahy) travelled easily throughout the mile Classic pointer under Cristian Demuro and readily held White Birch Farm's TDN Rising Star Ultrafragola by two lengths. Chappet was pointing to the May 11...

Fozzy Stack shares his loathing of the limelight, quest for finding a good horse and more There is a famous quote attributed to Benjamin Disraeli that says, "talk to a man about himself, and he will listen for hours." Poor old Benjamin clearly never spent a morning in the company of Fozzy Stack-a man who is nothing short of allergic to any form of self praise or adulation.  For the best part of 25 years, Fozzy has sent out a raft of high-class winners for some of the biggest names...