Jockey Joree Scriver, who was hospitalized when her mount fell in the third race Jan. 1 at Sunland Park in New Mexico, has suffered lower-limb paralysis, Daily Racing Form reports.
The 21-year-old had two surgeries last week after sustaining multiple vertebra fractures and is undergoing treatment at Las Palmas Medical Center in El Paso, Texas. She also is recovering from a collapsed lung, facial fractures, and broken ribs and remains in intensive care.
Scriver's mount, Champion Racing Stable's No Huddle, fell on the backstretch during the six-furlong race for $5,000 claimers. The 3-year-old Fast Anna gelding, trained by Casey Lambert, raced in midpack through the opening quarter mile and appeared clear when he went down. He was subsequently vanned off.
Jockey Luis Fuentes, Scriver's boyfriend, was riding in the same race and said she had no indication of impending peril.
“I was right next to her in the race,” he told the Form. “It happened really quick.”
Both Fuentes and Scriver's family said they are hoping she can be transferred to Craig Hospital, a neurorehabilitation and research hospital in Englewood, Colorado, that specializes in spinal cord injury and traumatic brain injury rehabilitation.
A native of Washington, Scriver began her professional career in 2019 and rode primarily in the West and Southwest and in 2021 took meet titles at Grants Pass Downs in Oregon and the Elko County Fair in Nevada. Overall, she has won 168 races from 1,274 mounts that have earned $2,581,652 in purses.
What a strange bloodstock marketplace we find ourselves in.
Baseline returns have perhaps never been higher at auction, and the number of mares bred and foals on the ground are at decades-long lows. The top of the marketplace is dominated by a shrinking handful of elite principals and partnerships, whether we're talking about buyers or stallion operations, and the number of active stallions has declined while average book sizes rise.
More money seems to be getting spent by a smaller group of people, and on balance, most everyone seems pretty alright with it.
Working off that general model of the industry, here are my five predictions for how the bloodstock market will play out in 2023. If you want to take a look at my predictions for 2022 and see how I did (some hits, some misses), click here.
1) Into Mischief Will Repeat As Leading General Sire Again…But Someone's Nipping At His Heels
Into Mischief
Into Mischief just keeps topping the general sire list and setting records, and as his books of mares continue to be top-shelf. That's not going to change anytime soon. He's got big crops, and the attention of every major buyer, breeder, owner, and trainer is squarely on Spendthrift Farm's ace. He should breeze to his fifth consecutive general sire title in 2023.
With that being said, the greatest threat to Into Mischief's throne has made himself known over the past couple years, and once he gets some more crops to the races, we're going to have to have some tough conversations.
With just one crop of racing age available to race from January to December, along with a class of 2-year-olds bringing up the cavalry charge, Gun Runner finished fifth on the general sire list by earnings.
Gun Runner will have to prove that he can do just as much with his second and third crops as he did with his debut group of foals. Few modern sires are immune to a dip in quality and quantity of mares in their follow-up books after commercial breeders move on to the next new thing, but Gun Runner has hit it so far out of the park to date that I don't expect it to be an issue. Even if his numbers do sag a bit, he'll be set for life once the top-flight mares he's seen over the past couple years – and that he'll likely see for years to come – start entering the chat with foals and runners.
The battle for supremacy between Into Mischief and Gun Runner might still need a few years before it becomes a truly even match, but I wouldn't be surprised if the insurgent at least teases giving the incumbent a run for his money in 2023.
2) The Projected North American Foal Crop Will Continue To Decline
The North American foal crop surely has to rebound at some point, but if record sales figures in 2021 weren't enough to get people out and breeding more mares, I don't know what will.
As I mentioned in the introduction, the direction of the commercial bloodstock market has been trending toward contraction and consolidation for a long time, and the market has zero patience for anything non-commercial. Many state-bred programs are toiling to retain mares to send to their stallions, as well. Of the top 10 states by mares bred in 2022, eight of them posted declines.
I don't expect a drastic dip in mares bred for 2023, or in projected foals for 2024, but I also don't see any good reason why we haven't found the bottom of the contraction of commercial breeding. I see the projected foal crop shaving off another 100 or 200 members in 2024, based on mares bred during the upcoming season. I'd love to be wrong on this one.
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As we've discussed in the past, current commercial trends dictate that a top-five North American freshman sire must have covered at least 100 mares during his inaugural book. The number of foals they actually put on the ground is a different matter, but the “breeder intent” key must be turned for a freshman sire to succeed on a greater scope.
Okay, so that's a lot of them. Why does Omaha Beach stand out? It's part numbers game, part owner/breeder intent, and part racetrack performance, both real and projected.
First off, Omaha Beach bred a ton of mares. The Jockey Club reports he got 148 live foals, which trails only Spendthrift stablemates Vino Rosso and Mitole and WinStar Farm's Audible in his class. The freshman sire with the most starters has won the title by earnings only twice since 2016 (American Pharoah in 2019 and Violence in 2017), but the top dog still was among the leaders by foals on the ground. Check that box.
Omaha Beach was among the highest-priced stallions of his freshman class, which is usually a good indicator that breeders weren't going to send cheap mares to him. Breeder intent? Check.
As for owner intent, one only needs to look at the names on tickets that bought the Omaha Beaches during last year's yearling sales: Repole Stable and St. Elias Stables, Peter Brant, Starlight Racing, Mike Ryan, Joel Politi, and of course, Spendthrift Farm. These horses are going to be put in the top barns and given opportunities to race at top meets, earn big maiden purses, and run in graded stakes races.
The runners have to live up to those expectations on the track, but the horses will be led to water. I think they'll drink
4) Tapwrit Will Right The Ship
Tapwrit at Gainesway 1.10.19.
Every year, it seems as though there is one freshman sire that severely underperforms during their rookie season, then wakes up in a big way once their oldest runners turn three.
Arrogate rebounded from a finish outside the top 10 in 2021 to have last year's Kentucky Oaks winner, Secret Oath. A year before that, Runhappy struggled during his freshman season, only to turn things around in a big way in the seasons that followed.
Of the candidates of last year's freshman sire class, Tapwrit is both the biggest head-scratcher as to how he ended up here, and the one with the biggest ceiling to improve.
Tapwrit finished 21st on the freshman sire list by earnings, even though he had more winners than one of the top-10 freshman sires, and an average progeny winning distance that moves him much further up the list.
There are already signs that things might be pointing up for Tapwrit. The undefeated Victory Formation struck his claim as an early Kentucky Derby contender with an impressive victory in the Smarty Jones Stakes at Oaklawn Park on Jan. 1.
Tapwrit's 2-year-olds posted an average winning distance of 6.31 furlongs, which is in the neighborhood of the class's top trio, Bolt d'Oro, Good Magic, and Justify. Tapwrit himself only ran one race shorter than a mile, and it was his debut. He proved himself to get better with both age and distance, and I think people bred to that aspect when Tapwrit went to stud. As his 3-year-olds start getting more opportunities to go around two turns, and the precocious types by other sires start falling back to the mean, I expect Tapwrit will find his sea legs.
Will Tapwrit suddenly make up all the ground and contend for the top spot of his sire class? That's probably going to be too much to ask. Can he prove he's more than what the demands of the freshman sire marketplace put on him and his runners in 2022? I think so.
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5) Growth Will Continue In The Auction Market
Keeneland's September Yearling Sale
Every year, I predict that the market will cool off from the new, dizzying heights it just achieved and find a nice cruising altitude, and the only time I've been right about it in recent memory was because a pandemic had brought the gears of commerce to a screeching halt.
With that in mind, I'm just letting the tide sweep me away on this one. Purses are up, people with wealth are spending more money (or partnering up with other rich people to spend even more money), and stud fees continue to float up as breeders pile in to fewer and fewer stallions. I've given up trying to understand why it's happening, but I suppose it's better than the alternative. Let the good times roll.
As we approach the opening of the 2023 breeding season, the TDN staff is once again sitting down with leading breeders to find out what stallions they have chosen for their mares, and why. Here's what Edwin Anthony of Shortleaf Stable had to say about their broodmare band for 2023.
I subscribe to the same school of thought as pedigree gurus like Ken McLean, Alan Porter and Anne Peters when it comes to trying to concentrate the influence of the most effective foundation mares and families. My first job in the horse business (after hotwalker) was doing pedigree research for journalist and consultant Bill Oppenheim at Racing Update, so I learned to compile databases and the importance of recognizing patterns. During that time, I also got to know Roger Lyons, who helped to build the CompuSire computer program for looking at hypothetical matings back to the sixth generation, which I still use.
Using those tools, skills, and nearly 40 years of my own research and experience, I'm able to work with my father (owner of Shortleaf Stable) in arranging our mare bookings each season. It's always a good idea to keep an open mind and look at all parts of a mare's pedigree to forecast what might work for her. You also want to incorporate some common sense regarding size, soundness, speed, stamina and keeping your long-term goals in mind, including staying within a realistic budget. Shortleaf races all of the stock that we breed, so we have a ceiling on what we're willing to spend on each stud fee, since we'd like to see the resulting foal earn back as much of our investment as it can.
PANGBURN(m, 11, Congrats—It's True Love, by Yes It's True), booked to Good Magic
We raced this mare after purchasing her as a yearling. She's a big mare, but was precocious and a very sound racehorse, placing in several graded stakes. She has been a good match for Hard Spun (dam of SW Caddo River by him and a just-turned 2-year-old full-brother that is one of our top prospects), so we decided to send her to GOOD MAGIC, who is out of a mare by Hard Spun. Curlin (sire of Good Magic) has an outstanding record on the A.P. Indy cross, and I have concentrated on Hard Spun's blood with her because he carries Roberto and she carries Dixieland Band. When they are combined in pedigrees, you get linebreeding to full-sisters, and I have seen that combination work with great success for decades. It just keeps working.
BENNER ISLAND (m, 9, Speightstown—Spacy Tracy, by Awesome Again), booked to Bolt d'Oro
This mare was another yearling sale purchase and was very fast and classy, winning a Grade II on Derby Day, sprinting. We like to send her to stallions that would logically add some stamina. The obvious choice would be Medaglia d'Oro, since he has nicked so well with Speightstown in pedigrees, but he's always been out of our price range. Since he was so popular at the sales and showed some good results with his first crop of runners, we elected to go with Medaglia d'Oro's son BOLT D'ORO, who is out of a mare by A.P. Indy, which should add some stamina genes as well. In addition, Bolt d'Oro is from the Sadler's Wells sire line and Benner Island carries Nureyev, so having those three or four brothers in a pedigree can't hurt, since they have combined so well.
REEF POINT (m, 10, Giant's Causeway—Dixie City, by Dixie Union), booked to Daredevil
Yet another yearling purchase, this mare didn't have much interest in being a racehorse, but she is from the family of Dehere, out of a Grade II winner, and by a leading broodmare sire, so we never hesitated in spending money on her stud fees. She is the dam of MGSW Bubble Rock (on turf), by More Than Ready. That was an easy mating to come up with given all of the success that More Than Ready has had in reinforcing the influence of Almahmoud through her grandsons Northern Dancer and Halo. There are numerous examples of combining stallions with inverted pedigrees, achieving “balanced” inbreeding/linebreeding through sons and daughters of the same ancestors. This is achieved when you cross Southern Halo (son of Halo, daughter of Northern Dancer) with Giant's Causeway (carries a son of Northern Dancer and a daughter of Halo). Since More Than Ready is no longer with use, a good choice for this mare was More Than Ready's son, DAREDEVIL. He's out of a mare by Forty Niner, who is in turn out of a mare by Tom Rolfe (a son of the notable mare Pocahontas). Giant's Causeway carries Tom Rolfe's half-brother Chieftain, and I have seen linebreeding to Pocahontas and the more general family of The Squaw II (Ack Ack, Sham, etc.) work on numerous occasions.
HOLIDAY'S JEWEL (m, 14, Harlan's Holiday—Denali Red, by Crafty Prospector), booked to Twirling Candy
We bought this mare as a maiden at the Keeneland November Sale. She was a sound campaigner in New York (made 40 starts) and had plenty of stamina. She was another mare in a good position to take advantage of linebreeding to Almahmoud (Halo, Northern Dancer), so we sent her to More Than Ready several times and were rewarded with the GSP filly Caldee from that union. I recognized that she had some other interesting ancestors that made her a good match for Candy Ride's son TWIRLING CANDY, and we have been anxious for our breeding program to have more exposure to Candy Ride's growing influence, so we decided to go that direction with her. Twirling Candy was the choice because Harlan's Holiday is out of a mare by Triple Crown winner Affirmed and Twirling Candy traces to the dam of Affirmed, Won't Tell You (his fifth dam). Harlan's Holiday is also from the important Alanesian/Alablue family and Twirling Candy has three crosses of that family close up in his pedigree–via Ride the Rails and Cryptoclearance (sire and grandsire of Candy Ride), as well as Boldnesian (grandsire of Seattle Slew).
MERRY MITTENS (m, 13, Harperstown–Weatherfield, by Elusive Quality) booked to Plainsman
This mating is the very definition of “homebred.” We raced the sire Harperstown (SP son of Devil's Bag–Halo, from a mare by Northern Dancer) and stood him in Arkansas. We had a couple of full-sisters by Elusive Quality that we bred that were out of a daughter of our classic winner Pine Bluff (a son of Danzig–Northern Dancer, from a mare by Halo). We've had good luck reinforcing all of this Almahmoud blood (Halo, Northern Dancer) so we bred both of the Elusive Quality mares (with Pine Bluff) to Harperstown. From those unions, we got the very legit GSW Trace Creek (an allowance winner at Churchill and Keeneland) and this mare, an open allowance winner sprinting and the dam of Arkie-bred SW Sekani. She makes a lot of sense for our new stallion PLAINSMAN (a son of Flatter that won three graded stakes for us) since he needs some mares with speed and this mating results in linebreeding to three sets of full-siblings–Devil's Bag and his brother Saint Ballado, Hero's Honor and his sister Wild Applause, and Graustark and his brother His Majesty. We'll know in about four years if it was a good idea.
