More Than Ready

Ten champions were crowned Saturday in Kentucky at the 2025 Thoroughbred Makeover and National Symposium, presented by Thoroughbred Charities of America. The event offered over $139,000 in prize money awarded out across 10 equestrian sports. The winners included: Barrel Racing: Battle Born (More Than Ready), trained by Elizabeth King (Junior), bred by WinStar Farm, owned by Robert D. Shelburne. Competitive Trail, sponsored by Godolphin: Vestal's Gap (Bullsbay), trained by Nathan Bowers, bred by Sterbenz Racing LLC, owned by Sterbenz Racing LLC. Dressage, sponsored by PTHA's Turning For Home: Patou Road...

5th-Horseshoe Indianapolis, $32,000, Msw, 8-25, 3yo/up, 1mT, 1:36.31, gd, 8 3/4 lengths. GLOBAL ASSET (c, 3, Street Sense--Mexican Gold {GSW & G1SP-Fr, GSP-USA, $234,810}, by Medaglia d'Oro) closed from well back on debut June 14 over this course, and came in second over two next-out winners. Made the 3-5 favorite for this jump, he stumbled badly out of the gate but managed to recover to track from midpack as the pacesetter put up an opening quarter in :23.29 and four furlongs in :47.85. Moved from his ground-saving trip to the...

When Andrew Schwarz and his sister Wendy Schwarz-Gilder decided to turn their longstanding enthusiasm for the Turf into a deeper commitment, in 2017, the option that best matched their outlook was a modest breeding program. If that meant taking their time, patiently building each page, so be it. All they knew was that they wanted to work with others of a similar disposition: people who gave time to each other, and to their horses. Schwarz, after all, is a real estate developer in New Orleans. "And in real estate, five...

Charles Fipke's Ready for Shirl (More Than Ready) hadn't visited the winner's circle since January, however, she found the right time to mark her return, collecting her first taste of black-type in the process, in Sunday's GII Canadian Stakes at Woodbine. Favored Gimme a Nother (SAf) (Gimmethegreenlight {Aus}) soon went to the front, slowing the pace to a modest :24.60 and :49.37 as Ready for Shirl set up shop about three lengths behind in the early stages of the nine-furlong test. Continuing to dawdle along through three quarters in 1:14.24,...

4th-CD, $120k, Msw, 2yo, 5 1/2f, 2:13p.m. ET Leaving the four hole on this unveiling as the most expensive auction buy in the race, CANNONEER (Into Mischief) will be carrying the colors of the partnership of St Elias and Stonestreet Stables. A $1.75-million purchase last year at KEESEP, the son of top sire Into Mischief claims a fleet of accomplished half-siblings, most notable being the late GSW & MGISP Midnight Bourbon (Tiznow) and sire GISW Girvin (Tale of Ekati). Also in dam Catch the Moon (Malibu Moon)'s family portrait is...

Bidding is currently open for the 2025 Inglis Digital USA May Sale, featuring 30 offerings, including fillies closely related to both parts of this year's GI Kentucky Oaks exacta. The first lot will close Wednesday, May 28 at 2 p.m. ET, with subsequent listings hammering in three-minute increments. Among the offerings are nine racing or racing/broodmare prospects, eight yearlings, three broodmare prospects, eight broodmares, and two no-guarantee stallion seasons. "We have a really good group on offer in our May Sale," said Kyle Wilson, Senior Director of Sales and Recruiting for...

Peter Orton will leave his position as general manager of Vinery Stud and pursue his own endeavors in the Thoroughbred industry. Arriving at Dr. Thomas Simon's Vinery Stud in 2000, Orton would go on to shuttle influential dual hemisphere stallions More Than Ready and Southern Halo. Over time, Vinery would also stand prominent sires Red Ransom, Mossman, All Too Hard, and Testa Rossa. The stud also has young stallions Exceedance, Hawaii Five Oh and Ole Kirk to look forward to. Orton told the TTR AusNZ, "I've thought about it for...

Destructive, a three-time winner, topped the Tattersalls Online May Sale which concluded on Thursday. Sold as lot 21, the 4-year-old son of More Than Ready made 76,000gns on the bid of Deva Racing Dubai from the draft of Fitzroy House. "We are delighted to have purchased Destructive online today," said Deva Racing's Ryan Tongue of the gelding, who had finished fourth in the Listed Al Bastakiya at Meydan this winter. "He won three of his last four starts and is on a mark of 97, which is perfect for a...

In a surprising turn of events where none of the betting favorites finished better than seventh, Public Assembly (More Than Ready) gathered the rest and led home a pair of double-digit choices to score her first black-type in the GIII Royal Heroine Stakes at Santa Anita. Coming into the race off a victory last out Mar. 30 against local optional claimers in her first jump for her new connections, the chestnut was bet down to 8-1 odds as 'TDN Rising Star' Raw Ability (Ire) (Belardo {Ire}) commanded the lion's share...

5th-KEE, $110K, Msw, 3yo, f, 6f, 3:08 p.m. ET. Sprinting over the main track is first timer MIDNIGHT MYTH (More Than Ready). The filly was taken home by Kerri Radcliffe for $550,000 at the Keeneland September Sale. Out of GII Thoroughbred Club of America Stakes heroine Fioretti (Bernardini), the Jose D'Angelo trainee hails from an extended female family which includes GISW Fault (Blame). TJCIS PPS 1st-KEE, $90K, Msw, 2yo, 4 1/2f, 1:00 p.m. ET. More first-crop sires will have their initial runners exit the Keeneland chute, as the 'baby races'...

Saturday marked the final day of under-tack previews for the Ocala Breeders' Sales Company's March Sale of 2-Year-Olds in Training and a colt by Gun Runner (hip 654) set the bar within the first six hips of the day with the sales co-fastest time, breezing an eighth in a swift :9 3/5. The grey or roan colt, consigned by Eddie Woods, agent, was a $200,000 Keeneland September grad for St. Clair Stables last year. He is the first foal out of Tynan, a winning daughter of Liam's Map who is...

It was the 2019 Keeneland November Sale and David Ingordo was busy buying mares for a Lane's End partnership. One of the prospects he landed on was Ladies' Privilege, a stakes-winning daughter of Harlan's Holiday in foal to More Than Ready, but he ended up getting outbid when Hinkle Farms went to $575,000 for the maiden mare. Ingordo didn't think much more of it until two years later, when he was out inspecting yearlings at Hinkle Farms ahead of the Keeneland September Sale. "I went through all their yearlings and...