Bloodlines

The victory of Instant Coffee (by Bolt d’Oro) in the Grade 3 Lecomte Stakes at the Fair Grounds brings more than hopes of classic glory to the talented colt. It also reminds us of the great rivalry between Lecomte and Lexington, both sons of the great American racehorse and sire Boston (Timoleon). Lecomte and Lexington […]

As a son of leading sire Scat Daddy (by Johannesburg) and a half-brother to multiple leading sire Into Mischief (Harlan’s Holiday), great things were expected of Mendelssohn when he retired to stud at Coolmore’s Ashford Stud outside of Versailles, Ky., and covered his first book of mares in 2019. As a half-brother to champion Beholder […]

The Grade 3 Sham Stakes on Jan. 8 told us several things, most prominently that Bob Baffert’s talented cadre of classic prospects includes some of the most expensive purchases in the crop and that they are very well chosen and prepared. Three of the Baffert brigade filled the first three places in the Sham and […]

The winner of the listed Gravesend Handicap at Aqueduct on Dec. 30, Drafted (by Field Commission) has had the best season of his lengthy career that began with a debut victory as a 2-year-old at Keeneland in 2016 and now counts 10 victories from 33 starts for earnings of $1,157,443. Bred in Florida by John […]

The great proliferation of gray coloring in the Thoroughbred came through The Tetrarch, bred in Ireland by Edward Kennedy, who reportedly purchased Roi Herode because of a fascination with the Byerley Turk line through Herod. Although that color line has remained in racing and breeding at the highest level, the Herod male line is now […]

What difference a year makes! Or not. The Gun Runner Express keeps blazing along, and here at the tag end of 2022, the champion son of Candy Ride is the leading second-crop sire by a massive margin over his contemporaries: $14 million to $7 million , nearly double the earnings of the next-closest pair of […]

One inquiring mind asked, “Why do we have gray Thoroughbreds, and where do they come from?” Who can resist such a question? The first part is fairly easy. Gray Thoroughbreds are part of the breed because they have been here from the beginning, and the coat color is with us today because a gray parent […]

The historical record on different lines of descent in the Thoroughbred shows that the winnowing out of male lines has gone on from the beginnings of the breed. And the great majority of male lines disappeared in the first 75 to 100 years of the formation of the Thoroughbred. By the late 1700s, there were […]

Although there is still quite a bit of purse money to race for in the coming 30-odd days of 2022, the freshman sire list has firmed up considerably. Atop the rankings is the juvenile Grade 1 winner Bolt d’Oro (by Medaglia d’Oro). If the bay colt retains his position, he will become the first son […]

Most of the sources of information about the Thoroughbred declare that there are three founding fathers of the breed. These are the three lines that were still active when bloodstock writing became important toward the middle and end of the 19th century. There are actually quite a few more stallions who played a part in […]