Danzig

Unfortunately, they only have one Two Phil's (Hard Spun). If they had another, presumably making Four Phils in all, then they might yet have the consolation of a proxy in the big races through the second half of the season. As it is, we can only offer our sympathy to the heartbroken team around a horse that brought us such precious cheer during what is proving a challenging year for our sport. Because that's the whole point, really. The big programs would be able to temper their disappointment, on losing...

As a year of unprecedented achievement draws to a close, the distribution of laurels among our champion stallions must first and foremost celebrate their sheer potency. For while we already know Into Mischief to be a phenomenon, he demands fresh admiration in sealing his third consecutive general sires' championship with a prizemoney haul just shy of $25 million, shattering the $22,507,940 record he set in his second; the work of 260 winners, similarly raising the bar giddily on the 221 who compiled his first. As the revelation of the year,...

Claiborne's been running an eye-catching ad on its two young sires War of Will (War Front) and Silver State (Hard Spun) that ties them to their illustrious Claiborne-based grandsire Danzig, under the heading, "The Danzig Legacy continues at Claiborne." What really hits home about this ad is that Danzig's legacy in North America is now limited to two stallions, Claiborne's War Front and Darley's Hard Spun, and their sons. In contrast, Danzig is a massive sire-line influence in Europe and Australasia through many different strains, led by Danehill but also...

According to Walker Hancock, Silver State (Hard Spun - Supreme, by Empire Maker) has been an easy sell as breeders have stopped by Claiborne Farm in the past few weeks to see the new, Grade I-winning arrival. "Everyone who has come to see him has absolutely loved him," Hancock reported. "They can't get enough of him. We've even sold shares to him just with people who have come out to see him. The comments we get are that people didn't realize how big he is. He's 16'3 and is dappled...

In just its first 14 years of running, the GI Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile has emerged as a stallion-making race and in recent years, its winners are making top headlines as they kick off their stud careers. Goldencents (Into Mischief), winner of both the 2013 and 2014 edition, now leads his class of third-crop sires. The following year's winner, Liam's Map (Unbridled's Song), is already a two-time Grade I producer with his first crop of 3-year-olds while 2016 champion Tamarkuz (Speightstown) now has a Grade III winner in his first...

War Front is undoubtedly heralded as one of America's top turf sires, but Claiborne's Bernie Sams said he finds any stereotype that the stallion is solely a grass producer is unjustifiable. "I think War Front has been labeled to some extent as a turf sire, but unfairly so because he got his start with dirt stakes winners," he said. "Then a lot of people started breeding to him and taking a lot of them to Europe. He probably is equally as good on dirt as he is on turf, if...

The advent of Twitter over the last decade or so has made racing results quickly accessible to fans and observers anywhere in the world, so much so that it seems that a greater number of people in the U.S. are more familiar with European racing than ever before. Back when I was a kid, we'd have to wait for the Blood-Horse magazine to arrive in the mail to scan the 10-day old European results in the agate type in the back pages. Now, we get a video of a race...

As the start of the flat season dawns, all eyes will be on Night Of Thunder (Ire). Can the champion first season sire maintain the dizzying momentum with which he rolled through 2019? Will the Guineas winner's first-crop train on as 3-year-olds, and will his second crop pick up the baton? Reflecting back on Night Of Thunder's performance last year-which placed him among the best first-season sires in recent memory-a glaring trend is apparent among his progeny: all four of his pattern-race winners, and six of his nine stakes winners,...

All week in this ongoing series, we have been talking to stallion managers and others about the difficulties in filling books for stallions other than first-year and premier stallions. In terms of the difficulties of filling books for third- and fourth-year stallions, I would say that we have been lucky this hasn't really been a problem at Claiborne. However, I have seen it be tricky for some of our less-expensive stallions. The different incentive programs that other farms offer have probably hurt us because breeders can breed elsewhere for deep...

TDN is proud to partner with the Keeneland Library and the Nunn Center for Oral History at the University of Kentucky Libraries in a very special collaboration: the Keeneland 'Life's Work' Oral History Project, a series of filmed interviews by TDN columnist Chris McGrath with significant figures in the Thoroughbred industry. The current installment, with Gus Koch of Claiborne Farm, appears here. Legends, to you and me. Immortals, paragons. But to Gus Koch, they were the flesh-and-blood companions of his daily toil: some were cherished friends; others, just a pain...

Horse breeding is a science of sorts, or more specifically a series of science experiments. In every stud farm there are categories of 'scientists': the careful technician, the white lab coats and protective goggle-wearers that use tried and tested formulas, with slight variations, to create newer versions of successful models; career professionals who have done their homework and work with what works for good reason. Then there are the creative geniuses/mad scientists that test the limits and push beyond, creating new theories that only see the light of day if...