Category Archives: Racing

Breeds, Contributors/Press, Racing

Stakes Winner Polish Navy Euthanized at Old Friends

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GEORGETOWN, KY – JANUARY 6, 2011 – Polish Navy, the Ogden Phipps homebred and GR1 winner, was humanely euthanized this morning at Old Friends Thoroughbred Retirement facility in Georgetown, KY.  He was suffering from complications from a hip injury.

Michael Blowen, Old Friends President and Founder, made the announcement this afternoon.

“Polish Navy injured his hip several weeks ago and was taken to Hagyard’s where he received excellent diagnostic care,” said Blowen. “Unfortunately, he just never recovered. Dr. Doug Byars visited with this great old horse several times and, in consultation with Old Friends, advised us that Polish Navy’s time had come.”

The 27-year-old stallion had been pensioned at Old Friends since 2009.

Continue reading Stakes Winner Polish Navy Euthanized at Old Friends →

Associations/Breeds, Awards, Breeds, Championships, Contributors/Press, Disciplines, Events, Racing, Racing Sources

Champions Announcements Broadcast Live January 12

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The American Quarter Horse Journal – The American Quarter Horse Association will announce the 2010 AQHA Racing Champions awards live at 6 p.m. CST on Wednesday, January 12, from Heritage Place in Oklahoma City. With an elite awards-ceremony atmosphere, this year’s event will include champagne and valet parking for attendees. If you can’t make it to the event, the show will be broadcast free of charge on Q-Racing Video.

This year’s awards are wide open, with a number of legitimate contenders in many categories.

The freshman crop saw a number of top performances throughout the year, including that of 2-year-old colt American Runaway, who won the Ruidoso Futurity (G1) and was second in three other Grade 1’s while leading the AQHA Racing-Horseplayernow.com 2-Year-Old Poll for much of the year. The 2-year-old filly category includes 10 tough contenders that include A Snowy Cartel, the only freshman to notch two Grade 1 wins, while California starlet Flying Fig was three times the runner-up in Grade 1 races with purses of $1 million-plus.

Continue reading Champions Announcements Broadcast Live January 12 →

Associations/Breeds, Breeds, Contributors/Press, Disciplines, Racing, Racing Sources

Racing Champions Announcements are January 12 in Oklahoma City

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The American Quarter Horse Journal – Who will be the 2010 World Champion Racing American Quarter Horse?

Watch the 2010 AQHA Racing Champions announcements live from Heritage Place in Oklahoma City on January 12 to find out. The program begins at 6 p.m. CST, and will be available worldwide and free of charge at www.qracingvideo.com. This year’s program will be hosted by Tom Dawson and co-hosted by Remington Park’s Dale Day.

This year’s presentation features three permanent additions to the program: recognition of the new AQHA Dams of Distinction, Supreme Race Horses and open Supreme Champions. In 2010, there were two Dams of Distinction, three Supreme Racehorses and one Supreme Champion.

AQHA will also honor Stolis Winner, who displaced Refrigerator as American Quarter Horse racing’s all-time leading money-earner. Stolis Winner is owned by AQHA Past President Jerry Windham of College Station, Texas.

Continue reading Racing Champions Announcements are January 12 in Oklahoma City →

Breeds, Contributors/Press, Events, Racing

“Hats Off to the Horses,” the Online Derby-Hat Auction Benefiting Old Friends Thoroughbred Retirement, Continues January 1st

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Stunning New Hat Honors Retiree Creator

GEORGETOWN, KY – DECEMBER 30, 2010 – Bidding opens January 1st on “The Creator,” hat number three in the six-part “Hats Off to the Horses: The Road to the Derby,” an online fashion auction benefitting Old Friends, the central Kentucky organization devoted to racehorse retirement.

Handcrafted by milliner Sally Faith Steinmann of Maggie Mae Designs, the hat will be on the block from January 1st through January 11 2011.

Steinmann, who owns the Massachusetts-based Maggie Mae Designs, is donating the six magnificent millinery creations to raise funds for Old Friends, the 501 (c) 3 non-profit organization that cares for more than 100 retired Thoroughbreds.  Each hat is inspired by one of the retirees at Old Friends and will be auctioned monthly from November to April, leading up to the famed First Saturday in May. One hundred percent of the online proceeds goes to Old Friends.

To celebrate the New Year, Steinmann has created a magnificent chapeau in honor of Old Friends’ 25-year-old retiree Creator, one the first horses acquired by the organization from the breeding sheds of Japan.

Continue reading “Hats Off to the Horses,” the Online Derby-Hat Auction Benefiting Old Friends Thoroughbred Retirement, Continues January 1st →

Awards, Competitions, Contributors/Press, Disciplines, Events, FEI, FEI, Racing, Show Jumping, Western/Reining

FEI Month in Review – December 2010

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12/01/2010 Malmö to host inaugural FEI World Reining Finals in 2011

12/03/2010 Guatemala to stage FEI World Jumping Challenge Final

12/05/2010 Ultimate win for Ulrich in Budapest

12/11/2010 Swiss Jumping team presented with 2008 Olympic bronze at 50th anniversary Geneva show

12/12/2010 Journalists to vote for best press office in Rolex FEI World Cup Western European League 2010/2011 season

12/13/2010 FEI President names Executive Board members

12/16/2010 FEI and Reem Acra give Christmas treat to children from inner city London horse charity

KEY EVENTS, ITEMS AND MEETINGS – DECEMBER 2010

Clean Sport presentation and FEI Veterinarian Course, Budapest (HUN), 1-2 December

FEI Veterinary Director Graeme Cooke presented Clean Sport to members of the Hungarian NF and gave an official FEI veterinarian course.

Read more> http://www.horsesinthesouth.com/article/article_detail.aspx?id=12844

Associations/Breeds, Breeds, Contributors/Press, Disciplines, Racing, Racing Sources

Noconi Looks to Move Up The Rankings

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The American Quarter Horse Journal, December 22, 2010 – Pollsters made no changes to this week’s AQHARacing.com-Horseplayernow.com national polls for 2-year-olds or the older horses, but that figures to change this coming week. Sunday’s Championship at Sunland Park (G1) features the current No. 8-ranked older horse in the land, Noconi, against a field that includes all-time leading AQHA money-earner Stolis Winner and the highly touted Rylees Boy.

The Championship at Sunland contenders figure to move up the national rankings with top performances, but the season’s No. 1 ranking remains securely with Apollitical Jess, winner of the Champion of Champions (G1) and this week’s unanimous choice at the top of the poll.

As for the 2-year-olds, the consistent futurity finalist American Runaway, hero of the Ruidoso Futurity (G1), remains on top of the rankings with just one poll remaining in 2010.

Continue reading Noconi Looks to Move Up The Rankings →

Associations/Breeds, Breeds, Contributors/Press, Racing, Racing Sources

First Down Dash Is Going into the American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame

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Racing champion and all-time leading racehorse sire First Down Dash is joining the next class of inductees into the American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame.

Each Hall of Fame class is selected by the American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame Selection Committee at a July meeting and, following approval by the AQHA Executive Committee, is honored at the following convention. At the 2011 AQHA Convention on March 4-7 in Grapevine, Texas, the following people and horses will be inducted: Mr San Peppy, Skipper W and Streakin Six, as well as Douglas and Nancy Dear, Joe Kirk Fulton and Frank Howell.

“With the untimely passing of First Down Dash in late November, the committees decided to induct him into the Hall of Fame at the 2011 convention,” said AQHA Executive Vice President Don Treadway Jr. “This is only the fourth time that the committee has added a horse to a class of inductees between (the committee’s) meetings.”

Read more> http://www.horsesinthesouth.com/article/article_detail.aspx?id=12769

Associations/Breeds, Breeds, Contributors/Press, Disciplines, Racing, Racing Sources

Spit Curl Diva Honored as Supreme Race Horse

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The American Quarter Horse Journal, December 9, 2010 – With her victory in the November 19 Merial Distaff Challenge Championship (G1), Spit Curl Diva became the 24th racing American Quarter Horse since 1983 to earn the distinction of an American Quarter Horse Association Supreme Race Horse.

The honor is given by AQHA to a horse which during its racing career earns $500,000 or more and wins at least 10 races, including two or more open Grade 1 stakes races.

Owned by the Lepic-Morgan Partnership of Iowa City, Iowa, Spit Curl Diva has won 16 of 29 starts, including nine stakes, and earned $695,938. She won the Refrigerator Handicap (G1) on October 2, then earned her second Grade 1 victory in the Merial Distaff Challenge Championship.

Spit Curl Diva is a nine-time stakes winner, and her other stakes wins include the Speedhorse Gold & Silver Cup Futurity (RG1), Blue Ribbon Futurity (G2), Bob Moore Memorial Stakes (G2), Oklahoma Derby (G3), Decketta Handicap (G3), Keokuk Stakes (G3) and Merial Arapahoe Distaff Challenge.

Spit Curl Diva is by Spit Curl Jess out of the Some Dasher mare Some Kinda Diva. She was bred in Oklahoma by Little Deer Creek Quarter Horses of Thomas, Oklahoma.

Prior to 1983, there were 71 Supreme Race Horses that were retroactively given the award.

There have been two other Supreme Race Horses named in 2010, including world champion Freaky and champion Stylish Jess BR.

AQHA news and information is a service of AQHA publications: The American Quarter Horse Journal and America’s Horse.

American Quarter Horse Association
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Amarillo, TX 79104

Breeds, Competitions, Contributors/Press, Disciplines, Events, Racing, Racing Sources

Freaky Chases Second World Title in Champion of Champions

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The American Quarter Horse Journal, December 9, 2010 – Armando Aguirre’s Freaky, the unanimous No. 1-ranked American Quarter Horse in the AQHA Racing-Horseplayernow.com poll, races to enhance his prospects for a second-straight world championship when he heads the $750,000 Champion of Champions (G1) at Los Alamitos on Saturday night.

The Adan Farias-trained Freaky (TR Dasher-Chickasecret by Raise A Secret) won the 2009 Champion of Champions and was rewarded as the 2009 world champion, champion aged horse and champion aged gelding. He would be the prime contender to retain each of those titles with a win in the 440-yard Champion of Champions.

If Freaky is honored as the 2010 world champion, he would be the first back-to-back world champion since SLM Big Daddy earned the 1997 and 1998 world titles.

The 2010 champions will be announced in mid-January.

Continue reading Freaky Chases Second World Title in Champion of Champions →

Associations/Breeds, Breeds, Conferences, Contributors/Press, Racing, Racing Sources

AQHA Studies Clenbuterol Abuse, Recommends Action

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The American Quarter Horse Journal, December 3, 2010 – Veterinary medical professionals and horsemen gathered at the American Quarter Horse Association’s annual racing conference on November 18 in New Orleans to consider the use – and misuse – of drugs and medications in racehorses. Topics included laboratory testing and procedures, out-of-competition and pre-race examinations, therapeutic and illegal medications, joint injections, acceptable threshold levels and withdrawal time, zero-tolerance policies, public education and the Racing Medication and Testing Consortium.

Once the panelists and attendees started talking, the discussion focused primarily – indeed, almost exclusively – on clenbuterol.

Approved for veterinary use in horses with allergic respiratory disease and for medical use in humans with asthma, clenbuterol acts as a bronchodilator. The problem, however, is how the drug is being misused – both in horses and humans: While it is not an anabolic steroid, clenbuterol has some of the same effects, increasing muscle mass and enhancing performance.

Read more> http://www.horsesinthesouth.com/article/article_detail.aspx?id=12657