Blood-Horse

Touchuponastar has now gone one better in the Louisiana Champions Day Classic Stakes than his sire, Star Guitar, winning the $150,000 state-bred race for a fourth year in a row, surpassing Star Guitar's three-peat.

After missing out on his few opportunities to run the dirt marathon distances in 2025, Next is back in training with Doug Cowans at Turfway Park as they assess a potential final season in 2026.

Tappan Street, last seen in action while upsetting Sovereignty in the $1.02 million Florida Derby (G1) March 29, has been entered to return in a mile allowance optional claimer Dec. 19 at Gulfstream Park.

In the eighth and final race Dec. 12 at Fair Grounds, veteran jockey Jareth Loveberry scored the 2,000th win of his career, guiding the front-running Island Cabana to victory for trainer Justin Jeansonne.

With a Winter Storm Warning and extreme cold and snow in the forecast, officials at Turfway Park have canceled racing for the evening of Dec. 13.

Trainer Linda Rice captured a record 165th training win on the New York Racing Association circuit for 2025 when Snide posted a 28-1 upset in the fourth race Dec. 12 at Aqueduct Racetrack.

Dylan Browne McMonagle admits it will be hard to top his breakthrough 2025, when he won his first Irish jockeys' championship and scored in the Breeders' Cup Turf (G1T) at Del Mar, but he has no intention of resting on his laurels.

Two starters from the Breeders' Cup Sprint (G1), 2024 participant Skelly and 2025 runner Banishing, headline the $150,000 Ring The Bell Stakes for 3-year-olds and up at 6 furlongs Dec. 13 at Oaklawn Park.

The 2025 International Conference for the Health, Safety, and Welfare of Jockeys Dec. 11-12 in Hong Kong saw science-based research on rider safety and performance medicine translated to ideas that jockeys can use in their day-to-day routines.

Echo Town, winner of the 2020 H. Allen Jerkens Stakes (G1), has been purchased by Tyree Wolesensky and has relocated to her Leadem Farm near Leola, Ark., for the 2026 breeding season.

Next year's Epsom Derby (G1) will be worth £2 million as part of a £6 million investment by the Jockey Club (UK) to reinvigorate Epsom and Britain's premier classic, with the aim of attracting a crowd of 100,000 for the festival by 2030.

The Hanshin Juvenile Fillies (G1) Dec. 14 is the first of three big races for Japanese 2-year-olds with connections hoping to find contenders for next year's classics.

The final installment in the 2025 OwnerView webinar series was held Dec. 9 and covered industrywide efforts to support individuals in need. The PDJF, Stable Recovery, the RTCA, and the Jockey Club Safety Net Foundation were in focus.

A 2% share in the Aga Khan Studs' leading sire Siyouni topped the Tattersalls Online December Sale when selling to TCT Bloodstock for 175,000 guineas Dec. 11.

A 17-horse field has been entered for the Gran Premio Carlos Pellegrini Internacional (G1) at Hipodromo de San Isidro Dec. 13 in Argentina, part of the Breeders' Cup Challenge Series: Win and You're In.

Grandmoral Lodge Racing's Fraser Auret has made a special journey to Hong Kong this week in order to see Ka Ying Rising for the first time since he left his former home in rural New Zealand.

Tampa Bay Downs has imposed a quarantine on barns 25 and 26 after a horse was confirmed to have the neurological form of equine herpesvirus type 1, also known as EHV-1. The track canceled live racing Dec. 21 and Dec. 28.

Keeneland has supplemented 42 horses—including King’s Plate Stakes winner Mansetti, along with In a Jif, dam of grade 1 winner Cogburn, and her 2025 colt by Into Mischief—to the 2026 January Horses of All Ages Sale, Jan. 12-13.

Bob Baffert, who has won 14 renditions of the Los Alamitos Futurity, has entered Litmus Test, Provenance, and Blacksmith this year.

Local horses, led by Romantic Warrior and Ka Ying Rising, look like solid bets in at least three of the four races comprising the Longines Hong Kong International Races Dec. 14 at Sha Tin Racecourse.