• For those who have not seen it, the bellwether Keeneland September yearling sale has smashed all kinds of records, with horses selling for insane prices, topped by $8,200,000 spent for a yearling filly as you can read here in the Thoroughbred Daily News. 20 yearlings sold for over one million dollars and 61 sold for $700,000+. This is a very select area of the market where a few billionaires are competing for elite pedigreed racing prospects. The vast majority of these horses will never win a stake of any kind, never earn back a fraction of their purchase price, and never be worth a fraction of what they were purchased for. Many will fail to win a single race of any kind or end up running in claiming races. There’s simply no logic to it, just people with so much money they don’t mind spending a few million dollars for entertainment, just as most people don’t mind spending a few hundred dollars for football or basketball tickets. You can read our blog, The Madness Continues With Record Prices at Keeneland Yearling Sale
  • Starring John Wain was entered for Saturday at Los Alamitos and the race went, a large field, last race of the day. Let’s hope nothing happens so he can finally get to run. Anyone looking for assistance with seating or admissions please let us know.
  • Annie’s Candy is not expected to run Friday at Los Alamitos, totally unrealistic spot for him. We’ll try to scratch and look for something else.  
  • We’d have liked to run ShimmyShimmy Shake at Monmouth Park one more time but the next option is 10 days from now, so we’re going to send her to Sunset Meadows Farm in New Jersey shortly for about 3 weeks just for some R&R and then ship her to Mark Salvaggio at Penn National to race there for the fall-winter. She can’t run outside of Monmouth Park until the end of October, so the timing is perfect for a very quick vacation at the farm before heading to Penn to have her fresh and ready for the season there.
  • Life On the Edge good, will breeze this week. She’s nominated for the $75,000 Hollywood Wildcat stakes on the dirt at Monmouth Park September 22nd. We plan to enter her if she’s doing well, look at the race and either run there or scratch and run in one of several allowance races towards the end of the month at various tracks.
  • Solar seems to be fine now, the cut is healing and did not bleed at all after training the past week so we’ll be looking to breeze him soon and assuming he’s good out of the work look for a race for him later this month at Monmouth Park.
  • Magic Musketier good, there’s a race on Sept. 21st for him at Los Alamitos.  
  • Rapstorerocks good out of his debut, will run back in 3-4 weeks.
  • Start A Fire and Giuliana Vee both good out of their works. There’s a race at Monmouth Park in 2 weeks for Start A Fire’s debut, hopefully it will go. Giuliana Vee continues to impress in her training, about 4-5 weeks away from her debut if all keeps going well.
  • Night Of Idiots good out of her work last weekend  at Golden Gate. “I think she’s getting close (to a race), she got a little tired on the gallop out but she’s doing well, maybe a couple more (works) and run”, trainer Jonathan Wong. 
  • New Found Treasure good. There’s an ideal spot for her against what should be slightly softer company September 21st at Monmouth Park, hopefully it will go. She’s ready!
  • No Good Deed breezed at T-Square Stud Wednesday and did absolutely great. Assuming she comes out of it well she will ship into trainer Ron Spatz at Gulfstream Park next week. 
  • Shake It Up Baby will go back into training at T-Square Stud end of next week.
  • Bullion will return to training Friday with Steve Asmussen at Churchill Downs.
  • Exchanging Ember arrived safely at her new home, St. Omer’s farm in Maryland, where she’ll be bred to new sire Force The Pass her new owner Wasabi Ventures Stables reports. It’s a lovely facility and a great home for her. Remember Kenwood and her co-owners have a participation interest in her first two foals to look forward to. Below is a very nice photo of her just arrived at the farm, she looks wonderful and you can see just from the background it’s a lovely facility.

 

Exchanging Ember at St Omers Farm. Photo courtesy of Adam Parker.

 

  • Lisa Limon’s stock continues to skyrocket, she’s in foal to first crop sire Liam’s Map, whose two year old son Basin ran away with the grade 1 Hopeful stakes at Saratoga and currently ranks as one of the top two year olds in the country. Last weekend Liam’s Map had two more impressive maiden special weight winners at Belmont & Gulfstream. Plus Lisa’s two year old half-brother placed in a stake (2nd by a neck in a very game effort) in his 2nd career start, so there’s a lot of good things going on with her family. She is entered in the Keeneland November sale in Kentucky and we are excited to see her sell there.