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The Nov. 1 Breeders' Cup Classic (G1) at Del Mar looms not only as a $7 million shoot-out at 1 1/4 miles but also a battleground on which Horse of the Year and other year-end titles may pivot.

There's an overpowering foreign flavor providing the spice in a field of 14 entered in the $5 million Breeders' Cup Turf (G1T) Nov. 1 at Del Mar.

Seismic Beauty will aim to use a well-timed arrival at the top level when she faces an expected 13 rivals in the $2 million Breeders' Cup Distaff (G1) Nov. 1 at Del Mar.

Straight No Chaser, who won the 2024 Breeders' Cup Sprint (G1), could become the fourth horse to win back-to-back editions of the race when he starts in the Nov. 1 edition at Del Mar.

After beating the boys in the Jaipur Stakes (G1T) earlier this year, Ag Bullet aims to become the sixth filly or mare to win the $1 million Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint (G1T) at Del Mar Nov. 1.

Although East Coast-based horses have captured the last three runnings of the Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Sprint (G1), it's safe to say there is a strong chance a California-trained contender could take this year's $1 million prize.

European-trained runners have won 12 of 18 runnings of the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf (G1T). They're favored to win another: the Oct. 31 race with the Aidan O'Brien-trained Gstaad.

The $2 million Breeders' Cup Juvenile (G1) usually features an East vs. West showdown. Yet the Oct. 31 edition of the champion-making race at Del Mar offers a matchup with more pizzazz than normal.

A year after Lake Victoria exceeded expectations in the $1 million Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf (G1T), Aidan O'Brien and Coolmore aim to do it again with Precise.

Iron Orchard, trained by Danny Gargan, recently sold for $2.5 million and is undefeated going into the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies (G1).

After adding to an already impressive initial campaign with a victory in the Cheveley Park (G1), True Love will aim for success in North America when she makes her overseas debut in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint (G1T) Nov. 1 at Del Mar.

ESPN Louisville will be live at the Breeders' Cup, offering two days of shows from the shadows of the Del Mar paddock, anchored by BloodHorse Monday co-host Louie Rabaut.

Mike Smith, the all-time leader in wins (27) at the Breeders' Cup, has given patient and professional Breeders' Cup rides to some all-time greats in horse racing, including Lure, Skip Away, Azeri, Zenyatta, Royal Delta, Songbird, and Arrogate.    

Owner/breeder Debby Oxley may have a mere 20 mares on the farm and a few graded stakes winners to her credit as an owner, but the impact of her breeding operation has been nothing short of potent.

BH Interview: Robbie Medina

Pete Williams made the decision to keep Distorted d'Oro (Medaglia d'Oro) in training another year when she finished a close-up fourth in the Tom Benson Memorial Stakes at Fair Grounds Mar. 22, only to completely change his mind just a week later when the 4-year-old filly's half-brother Tappan Street (Into Mischief) won the GI Florida Derby. Instead, Williams chose to send Distorted d'Oro to visit Tappan Street's sire Into Mischief and he has now made the difficult decision to offer the mare at the Fasig-Tipton November Sale Monday in Lexington. She will go through the ring as hip 207 with the Nicky Drion Thoroughbreds consignment.

“This is really bittersweet,” said Williams, a real estate developer who began building his MKW Breeding commercial broodmare band just four years ago. “This all has to do with the business and we are in a business. This isn't a hobby and you have to make some crappy decisions sometimes. It's a business and you are trying to make money and you want to at least try to pay for your operation.”

The MKW Breeding band currently numbers 17 head and includes Midnight Snack (Distorted Humor), a half-sister to Grade I winner Speed Boat Beach (Bayern), and Mo Town Mayhem (Uncle Mo), a full-sister to multiple graded winner Souper Hoity Toity, while a pair of young runners waiting in the wings include recent maiden winner Malibu Muse (Malibu Moon).

“We bought probably seven or eight of those as broodmares or broodmare prospects and the others have been developed through our racing program,” Williams said of the band. “If we think we can buy fillies right that we like–I call it buying broolings. I have a list of broodmare sires and I am looking for those pedigrees. I wanted a Blame broodmare. And instead of finding a Blame broodmare, we bought a yearling filly by Blame last year. I loved her pedigree, she's a full-sister to a graded stakes winner. And hopefully, we can make that pedigree even better, but if we can't, it's already good enough to send to the breeding barn. That's kind of been the overarching business plan.”

Williams purchased Distorted d'Oro for $325,000 at the 2023 OBS April sale. The mare is out of graded winner Virginia Key (Distorted Humor), a half-sister to graded winners Grace Adler (Curlin) and Pyrenees (Into Mischief). She hit the board in four of eight starts–including a third-place effort in the Searching Stakes at Laurel last year–with three wins.

“She was a hard-knocking filly, she didn't have that incredible turn of foot, but man if you watch the races she won, she would go inside on the rail, she had what it took to race,” Williams said. “She ran in a stakes at Fair Grounds and Jose Ortiz rode her. She just missed getting third by a nose and ran a hard-knocking race against some pretty good horses. I am not in this racing thing, it's either black type or it's not, so I asked Jose, 'If I race her in her 4-year-old year, is she going to put more black-type on her pedigree?' and Jose said, 'Absolutely, let her race this year.' I left there with that decision made.”

Bloodstock agent Alistair Roden and Pete Williams | Fasig-Tipton

And then Tappan Street–still the only horse to defeat Sovereignty this year–put himself in contention for the GI Kentucky Derby with his Florida Derby victory.

“By the end of the week, I had kind of changed my mind,” Williams said. “Obviously, the family is already crazy good, but then he wins that and I said, 'OK, let's retire her.'”

Williams continued, “You know how anytime you get a call from a trainer, or someone at the farm, you just look at the phone and think, 'oh, crap.' So I called Stidham and I said, 'Hey Mike, you know how you always call me with bad news? Well, I am calling you to tell you to ship Distorted d'Oro to Kentucky.' And he said, 'I get it. It's a business and you have to make the best business decision.' So I made what I thought was the best business decision that I could make.”

Williams admitted his yearling sales result were disappointing this fall and that helped him make the decision to put Distorted d'Oro in the Fasig-Tipton catalogue.

“We had a nice Curlin filly and what I thought was a very nice Nyquist filly that I really planned on selling very well,” he explained. “One of them didn't get the interest we were looking for and we kind of knew where we were heading, so we just scratched her and sent her to Margaux to train and race or possibly, I guess, a 2-year-old sale. And then this Nyquist filly did not sell close to where we wanted her to sell.”

Asked what it would be like to watch Distorted d'Oro go through the sales ring at Fasig-Tipton Monday, Williams admitted, “I won't be happy. I really feel like she is the kind of mare you can make $10 or $12 million out of over her life. I looked through the [Fasig-Tipton catalogue] Saturday night and obviously there are some really good pedigrees in there and there are some really talented racehorses, but when I look at her family, as a buyer myself, this is what I would be looking to buy.”

Still in the early stages of his breeding operation–and despite any setbacks–Williams said, “I am excited about what I do. Real estate development has been my business, so I am used to not getting good news all the time. No one ever calls and tells you we are going to finish this project early and it will cost less money. It's always the opposite. Everything always costs more than we thought. So I've got the mentality to take the bad news in this business.”

The post Distorted d’Oro, Half-Sister to Tappan Street, On Offer at Fasig-Tipton November appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Horseshoe Indianapolis in 2026 will stick with the same dates template that has largely been in place since 2023: A mixed-meet racing schedule of 123 dates from Apr. 7 to Nov. 13, with 117 Thoroughbred programs and six for Quarter Horses.

The only time Horseshoe Indy veered from that schedule recently was in 2024, when the track added a 124th racing date to start the season in April on an afternoon when the track was in the path of totality for the rare total solar eclipse that captivated North America.

The Indiana Horse Racing Commission approved the '26 dates unanimously at Tuesday's monthly meeting.

“We worked hard with our horsemen on this calendar,” Eric Halstrom, the Horseshoe Indy general manager, said at the Oct. 27 meeting. “I know all of you are aware of the HISA [Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority] impact on our racing. And to stay at 123 days is actually a real accomplishment. Our [HISA] fees next year will be somewhere in the neighborhood of $3.5 million. Half of that comes out of our purse fund.

“To stay at 123 days took some real work, and we moved some days around here and there [to] keep those purses where they need to be,” Halstrom said. He did not cite specific purse levels for next year's meet.

Halstrom said the track faced a dilemma regarding the scheduling of its signature race, the GIII Indiana Derby, which he said seems to fit best on the first Saturday of July.

“That happens to be July 4 [next] year,” Halstrom said. “We agonized over this one for quite a while, thought about it, and we're going to move that to the week after [the holiday, to July 11] and try not to fight July 4 [when] a lot of people have other things going down.”

Halstrom said the handle on Indiana Derby day has gone from “a shade over $4 million” in 2019 to “approaching $10 million” in 2025.

The post Horseshoe Indy Maintains Status Quo of 23 dates for ’26 appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Iron Orchard stands for trainer Danny Gargan during her bath at Del Mar this week. Breeders’ Cup Photo/Eclipse Sportswire

By Mary Eddy/Breeders’ Cup Notes Team

Grade 1-winning juvenile filly Iron Orchard learned early in life how to stay the course. The daughter of Authentic lost her mother at just four months of age but persevered through tragedy to display that tenacity on the racetrack and put together three flawless starts to begin her career.

Bred by Marty Zaretsky’s Pine Ridge Stables, Iron Orchard is out of the dual stakes-placed Brethren mare Onebrethatatime and was born April 22, 2023. The foaling was routine and uneventful, and about one month later, the filly and Onebrethatatime were sent to Kentucky for the mare to be bred again. The two returned to Pine Ridge shortly thereafter, and that’s when things took a turn for the worse.

“They came back and everything was normal for the most part, but then the mare started getting sick,” said Kenny Toye, farm manager for Pine Ridge Stables. “She kept deteriorating and passed away. You’re dealing with the death of the mare, but you have to focus on what you can save.”

The clock began to tick for the filly, who called out for her mother and would never receive an answer. Toye and his team immediately sprung into action, and contacted Laura Phoenix’s Heavensent Nursemares to find a surrogate for Iron Orchard. Luckily, the farm had a lactating Thoroughbred named Spiteful Love that was ready for a foal, and the two were introduced within 24 hours of Onebrethatatime’s untimely passing.

“It’s a very stressful time for the baby, and the most critical time is when the mare and the baby get introduced,” Toye said. “Their connection was pretty immediate and simple. You think, ‘why would a baby accept a new mom?’ To see that happen is magical, it sticks, and it’s very powerful.”

Iron Orchard flourished with her adoptive mother, and despite concerns that a filly who went through such an ordeal would be behind in her development, she impressed enough as a weanling to sell for $140,000.

“You couldn’t even tell there was any kind of rift,” Toye said. “Around the summertime, consignors will come to look at our breeding stock and we decide who is ready to sell as a weanling and who needs to wait – she was a standout physical. We entered her in the (Keeneland) November sale, knowing that anything can happen and that we would scratch her if we needed to. It never happened, and she kept moving forward every single day.”

Iron Orchard wins stakes debut in the Seeking the Ante at Saratoga. Coglianese Photo/Susie Raisher.

The filly would subsequently sell to Bill Childs and Mark Stanton for $500,000 at this year’s OBS April sale of 2-year-olds in training, and was sent to the barn of trainer Danny Gargan to begin her racing career. A winning debut against maiden auction company this summer at Saratoga Race Course led to a successful stakes debut against fellow New York-breds in Saratoga’s Seeking the Ante Stakes, and a triumph at the highest level in the Grade 1 Frizette Stakes Oct. 4 at Aqueduct.

With her score in the Frizette, part of the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Dozen Bonus Series, Iron Orchard earned her way into the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies. While Gargan will still be the one to saddle her at Del Mar, a new owner will look to claim the floral blanket after she sold to KatieRich Stables for $2.5 million in a Fasig-Tipton Digital auction in mid-October.

“It’s a miracle to even get them to the next day. So many things can go wrong, and for this filly to make it to the races, period, is a miracle,” Toye said. “When she was in that Grade 1, she pinned her ears when horses passed her, and to see her dig in like that, it gives you chills.”

Now, Iron Orchard is facing her toughest task on the racetrack to date, and is here thanks to her doting adoptive mother and a team surrounding her with equal care and attention on both the farm and the track.

“There’s so many things you can say to describe the feeling, but to know that she came from our efforts as a team gives us a lot of confidence in what we’re doing,” Toye said. “We know how special it is to get there to the Breeders’ Cup, and knowing that she came from the farm and that we had that special time with her, you get emotional.”

The post From Orphan to Grade 1 winner: Iron Orchard puts perfect record on the line at Breeders’ Cup appeared first on New York Thoroughbred Breeders, Inc. News.

DEL MAR, CA – As Breeders' Cup hopefuls continue their final preparations in the early morning hours for racing on Friday and Saturday, the Del Mar paddock will transform into an auction ring for the second annual Keeneland Championship Sale on Wednesday evening.

Last year, a share in Horse of the Year Flightline (by Tapit) was the headliner when it went for $2.5-million. Once again looking to create a high-energy atmosphere, Keeneland has put together a robust slate of offerings, which include fractional interests in three racehorses currently in-training–two are intended for the Breeders' Cup on Saturday. Stallion shares and breeding rights will take center stage.

 

The catalogue includes:

– A 25% fractional interest in Jose D'Angelo trainee Bentornato (Valiant Minister) (Hip 7), who is considered a leading contender in the GI Cygames Breeders' Cup Sprint on Saturday. The 4-year-old Florida-bred ridgling was the runner-up in the 2024 Breeders' Cup Sprint to Straight No Chaser (Speightster) and was last seen winning the Louisville Thoroughbred Society Stakes where he earned a 108 Beyer. The interest is consigned by D'Angelo, agent.

– A 25% interest in GISW & million-dollar earner Mullikin (Violence) (Hip 9), who is also a contender for the Breeders' Cup Sprint. Owned by WinStar Farm, the dark bay ran third in last year's race. The 5-year-old was the first-top level winner for trainer Rodolphe Brisset. Plans are to retire Mullikin after the Breeders' Cup and he will stand the 2026 season at WinStar.

Not This Time | Sarah Andrew

Potentially the most sought after stallion share on offer is a 2% fractional interest, consigned by Taylor Made Sales Agency, agent for Aaron & Marie Jones LLC, in the red-hot Not This Time (by Giant's Causeway) (Hip 3). The sire of nine Grade I winners and a stud fee of $250,000, the Taylor Made resident is the #2 'General Sire' this year with more than $19-million in progeny earnings. Keeneland reported that the purchaser will receive all income associated with this share from the 2025 breeding season. Last week, Taylor Made's Travis White spoke with TDN's Bill Finley about the opportunity.

Other stallion shares in the catalogue include a pair of 'TDN Rising Stars' presented by Hagyard in Life Is Good (by Into Mischief) (Hip 1), consigned by Christie DeBernardis, agent, and MGISW Mindframe (Constitution) (Hip 2), consigned by Claiborne Farm, agent. The 4-year-old, who will stand at Claiborne in 2026, will make his final appearance at the racetrack in the GI Longines Breeders' Cup Classic on Saturday.

Lifetime breeding rights in Constitution (by Tapit) (Hip 4), the property of Randy Gullatt, and Nyquist (Uncle Mo) (Hip 5), consigned by Hill 'n' Dale at Xalapa, agent, will also be part of the bidding.

Last but not least, a 20% fractional interest in recently retired Horse of the Year and broodmare prospect Thorpedo Anna (Fast Anna) (Hip 6) is consigned by McPeek Racing Stables, agent for Richard M. Edwards.

“We've designed this as a party with a sale and I think now that we proved ourselves last year, people really understand the concept which is exciting because the goal has always been to combine the social aspect with the importance of the Breeders' Cup,” Vice President of Sales at Keeneland Tony Lacy said. “We have some outstanding offerings. The Not This Time share is really unprecedented and it gives unique access to the stallion. The chance to own a piece of Thorpedo Anna makes this sale diverse and we are looking forward to it.”

Attendance to the Championship Sale is by invitation or request with both buyers and sellers individually invited to attend. Qualified, registered bidders may participate in person at the event, remotely via Keeneland's online auction platform or by phone with a Keeneland representative.

The Championship Sale event will begin at 5 p.m. PT. The sale will begin at 6:30 p.m. PT. Click here to view the online catalogue.

The post Keeneland Championship Sale Ups The Ante At Del Mar appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

The National Thoroughbred Racing Association has released a new campaign advocating for passage of a bill that would repeal a wagering tax as part of legislation passed by Congress earlier this year, the NTRA announced Tuesday.

As part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) signed into law July 4, there was a tax change regarding wagering losses–reducing the deduction from 100% to 90%.

In response, Kentucky Rep. Andy Barr has introduced the WAGER Act (Winnings and Gains Expense Restoration Act), new legislation which would restore the deduction back to 100%.

“While there were many victories for our sport in the legislation passed this summer, we noted at the time that work needed to be done to repeal the language that would effectively tax horse players on phantom income. This provision will have a negative impact on our customers who fuel a $36 billion industry responsible for nearly half a million jobs, thousands of small agribusinesses, and millions of acres of open working space,” said Tom Rooney, President and CEO of the NTRA.

Barr, Chairman of the Congressional Horse Caucus, added, “I'm working right alongside NTRA, Breeders' Cup, Kentucky Thoroughbred Association, Keeneland, Churchill Downs, The Jockey Club, and all our Thoroughbred horse racing advocates to reinstate the full deduction for wagering. Estimates say this could reduce track handles by 5-8%. I'm going to keep pushing the WAGER Act to restore this full deduction so that our industry can flourish.”

The post NTRA Advocates For New WAGER Act As Repeal Of Wagering Tax appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.