Orb

The Jockey Club of America Chairman Stuart S. Janney III will be honored with the Eclipse Award of Merit at the 53rd Annual Eclipse Awards Dinner and Ceremony at The Breakers Palm Beach in Florida on Thursday, Jan. 25, the National Thoroughbred Racing Association (NTRA) said in a Friday release. "The Eclipse Award of Merit is the Thoroughbred industry's highest honor, bestowed upon an individual who has displayed a lifetime of achievement in service to the sport," reads the press release from the NTRA. "Janney's decades of involvement and leadership...

Stoneware & Co. will offer a limited number of signed Woodford Reserve Kentucky Derby bottles to benefit the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation. This year's signed collector's edition will commemorate the 10th anniversary of Orb winning the Run for the Roses and will be signed by his Hall of Fame trainer Shug McGaughey and Eclipse Award-winning jockey Joel Rosario. "The Kentucky Derby is one of the greatest sporting events in the country," said TRF executive director Kelly Armer. "With a captive horse racing audience, we are thrilled to be able to inform...

Trainer Robert "Robbie" Medina has opened a public stable based out of Lexington, KY and is now accepting new clients. Since April 2020, Medina has served as the general manager and trainer for Blackwood Stables, the state-of-the-art training center near Lexington. At Blackwood, he focused on breaking, training, and rehabilitation for many of the sport's leading owners and trainers. He also ran horses under his own name at Kentucky tracks for a few select clients, including August Dawn Stable's Gun Runner S. winner Play Action Pass (Cairo Prince), who was...

'TDN Rising Star' Annapolis (War Front) makes his belated seasonal bow Friday in the GII Penn Mile S. A perfect two-for-two, the Bass homebred rallied to an impressive debut victory going two turns at Saratoga Sept. 4 and followed suit with a win in Belmont's GII Pilgrim S. Oct. 3, earning a field-best 89 Beyer Speed Figure. Originally scheduled to go on to the Breeders' Cup, the bay was sidelined by a hind ankle chip. Shug McGaughey saddles another talented son of War Front in Fort Washington. Graduating at second...

The shocking loss this week of the young gun Laoban, preceded just days earlier by that of the venerable Malibu Moon, could not fail to renew the kind of questions we should all keep asking themselves about how a stallion can make an enduring reputation. Both had started out in a regional program, having shown only marginal eligibility for a stud career on the racetrack, before quickly earning migration to Kentucky. If that was just about all they had in common, then their different roles on two of the biggest...

The fastest two minutes in sport? Maybe. Only sometimes, these days, it feels as though time is standing still. Last Saturday we had yet another GI Kentucky Derby where the protagonists had already volunteered themselves before the clubhouse turn. For the moment, speed seems to have a lock on the race. You have to go back to Orb for a closer; and beyond, for the flamboyant pounces of Calvin Borel. This time round, the first four were all in the first six at the first bend. At the quarter-pole, they...

Wanamaker's has released the catalogue for its April online auction, which will take place Apr. 29. Highlights from the catalogue include the stakes winner Trixie Racer (Orb), offered as a broodmare prospect, along with yearlings, 2-year-olds, racehorses, and broodmares. The entire catalogue can be found at www.wanamakers.com. Prospective buyers may browse the website to view pedigrees, pictures, and videos. In-person inspections may be scheduled by contacting sellers with the information provided in the catalogue. Live bidding will open at 8:00 a.m. and the first listing will close at 5:00 p.m....

5th-SA, $61K, Msw, 3yo, 6fT, 5:42 p.m. ET NAISMITH (Medaglia d'Oro) will lace them up for the first time for MyRacehorse and Hall of Famer Richard Mandella. The half-brother to GISW and young Darby Dan stallion Klimt (Quality Road) and GSP West Coast Chick (Malibu Moon) was a $385,000 KEENOV weanling and $150,000 OBS July 2-year-old. The rail-drawn Epidemic (Orb) has some bullets in the holster for his unveiling as well. Ryan Hanson trains the half-brother to millionaire Stanford (Malibu Moon), who most recently brought $165,000 as an OBS March...

Today we come to a final group of stallions whose development we're treating separately, before wrapping up our series with a look at those survivors who made it across the highwire and can be grouped together as "Established Sires." (After which we'll also be taking a tour of regional stallions.) In the last couple of instalments, we've observed the Kentucky talent pool in each intake rapidly drying up, so that our review of third- and fourth-crop options respectively encompassed 18 and just six stallions. And we are left with a...

Sponsored by Alex Nichols Agency PAIR OF WELL-BRED DEBUTANTES IN CHURCHILL OPENER 1st-CD, $79K, Msw, 3yo/up, f/m, 6f, 1:00p.m. The appropriately named LUCKY FIND (Uncle Mo), a $50,000 KEESEP buy from a deep Helen Groves family, makes her career bow in this spot for Glen Hill Farm and Tom Proctor. Out of MSW Tea Time (Pulpit), the bay hails from the family of dual champion Covfefe (Into Mischief) and Grade I winners Arch (Kris S.) and Acoma (Empire Maker). Robert and Lawana Low homebred Sea Garden (Curlin) also debuts in...

Twenty-five years is a long time to spend in a job. Especially one in the world of training Thoroughbreds, which necessitates frequent travel, untold hours of overtime, waking up before the sun and physically toiling away at the daily work of controlling and redirecting the energy of half-ton animals. But when you get to spend that quarter-century under the tutelage of a Hall of Fame trainer, the time becomes an asset. And now, with a life's worth of experience accrued working under Shug McGaughey, former assistant Robby Medina has made...

The Thoroughbred Charities of America will host an online auction of halters worn by Triple Crown and Kentucky Derby winners during the upcoming virtual "Kentucky Derby: Triple Crown Showdown." The halter auction is set to open Friday at 9 a.m. and will conclude Saturday at 9 p.m. EST. All proceeds will benefit TCA. "As the 13 Triple Crown winners face off in the virtual running of the Derby, we are excited to offer halters worn by the only two living Triple Crown winners American Pharoah and Justify, as well as...