Thursday, October 29, 2009

Super Stud

Before we jump into today's post, let's all take a minute and admire one of racing's handsomest celebrities: Medaglia d'Oro.

That gorgeous face is responsible for Rachel's stunning looks, and some of this year's top prices in the yearling market. It's no surprise that the king among sires is now standing at Darley stud along with a host of other recent shedrow legends, including Bernardini, Street Cry, Street Sense, Discreet Cat and Hard Spun. That Darley America has raised Medaglia d'Oro's 2010 fee to a "reasonable" $100,000, thereby, in Darley's own words, ensuring "exceptional value" to potential breeders, is testament to the stallion's capacity for throwing gorgeous babies that also happen to be blazing fast. Considering the values some of those babies have already captured at auction, $100,000 for a Medaglia foal seems almost a bargain.

And the Blood Horse reported today, that, just as I mentioned yesterday, a big race to watch in this year's Breeder's Cup will be the BC Dirt Mile. The field is ripe with heavy contenders from Godolphin Stables, and several entries have the year's most prestigious competitions already under their girths. Several of the Dirt Mile contenders are cross entered with a first preference in the Classic itself, which highlights the strong potential that almost every one of these horses has to wind up in the winner's circle. It will be a great race to watch, and the first place finisher is anybody's guess at this point.

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