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Breeders’ Cup Box Auction to Honor Richardson

Thoroughbred Charities of America is auctioning off a 2021 Breeders' Cup Stretch Run box at Del Mar to benefit the Race to Give campaign. The box was donated to honor the memory of Dr. J. David Richardson, who passed away in September.

The six-person box, 4G, is on Del Mar's third level, and was donated by Richardson's friend, Dr. James B. Threlkel. It is valid for Friday, Nov. 5 and Saturday, Nov. 6, and includes preferred parking passing for Friday and Saturday. Stretch run boxes are located before the wire.

“Dr. J. David Richardson was a man for all seasons,” said Threlkel. “He was an outstanding surgeon and surgical educator, a successful horseman, a true scholar and gentleman and a friend to many. He was a leader who rose to top leadership positions in many Surgical and Thoroughbred horse racing organizations and in his daily activities. He possessed the ultimate surgical talent of being able to identify problems and then fixing them. It is said that no man is irreplaceable, but David Richardson come pretty close. We shared many interests. This donation is a small, inadequate token of my esteem and love for my dear friend. My family and I will miss you, Dave.”

To bid on the box, visit www.tca.org, or click here.

The Race to Give is an online giving and awareness program to support Thoroughbred aftercare launched by Hagyard Equine Medical Institute and the TCA. RaceToGive.org is its website and central hub.

Richardson, a beloved and distinguished Kentucky-based surgeon who owned and bred Thoroughbreds for nearly half a century, died Sept. 7 in Saratoga Springs, New York, after developing pneumonia related to COVID-19.

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HBLB Boosts Prize Money Contribution For 2022

There will be an increase in prize money contributed by the Horseracing Betting Levy Board (HBLB) in 2022. Fixture-related funding will increase to £90 million for UK racing's 2022 fixture list, with £70 million specifically allotted for prize money, £10 million more than was set aside for that purpose in both 2018 and 2019. These sums do not include the additional grants for prize money and towards regulation and integrity already announced following the HBLB taking a £21.5 million loan from the UK Government's Sport Winter Survival Package. The HBLB is likely to contribute up to £75 million in prize money in 2022 versus around £60 million in pre-Covid years. In addition, the HBLB Board recognises that the investment by the HBLB is likely to decrease in 2023. In 2021, including the additional grants arising from the Sport Winter Survival Package loan, HBLB expects to contribute around £81m to prize money.

A total of £55.8 million of the £67.2 million prize money allocation is via a newly developed ratecard mechanism, £6.9 million for the Appearance Money Scheme, £3.5 million for the Great British Bonus, a Divided Races Fund of £800,000 and an additional fund of £200,000 to support prize money at racecourses most affected by the new ratecard mechanism. For more information, please visit the HBLB website here.

Paul Darling, Chairman of HBLB, said, “The Board recognised the importance of maintaining its higher than usual allocations to prize money in 2022 to support the ongoing recovery of the sport from the effects of the Covid period. This adds to the substantial extra grants that we have made in 2020 and 2021. In addition, by the end of 2021 the Board's contribution to Covid-related regulatory costs is likely to have reached £3.7m.

“We are pleased to have modernised and developed our funding arrangements with regard to both prize money and the fixture incentive fund. Moving to a race-by-race basis for allocating all prize money gives the Board, and indeed all of racing and betting, more transparency as to where Levy funding is being allocated. The additional payments that incentivise racecourse executive contribution are intended to encourage a return of total prize money in 2022 towards pre-Covid levels.

“It must be recognised throughout the sport that although drawing again on our reserves makes it possible to continue with higher funding in 2022, the position in 2023 will be different. The Board is required to make the first repayment to Government of the Sport Winter Survival Package loan that was taken this year. That will be the first call on expenditure in 2023 and in the seven subsequent years.”

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Owner/Breeder Miller Bringing Covid Vaccine to Africa

Where others see insurmountable challenges, Johnathan Miller sees opportunity. That's what led him to serve as the president of the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation, where he worked to help cut off the slaughter pipeline and give a safe and humane retirement to hundreds of equine retirees. It's why, in 2004, he started a foundation to transport badly needed health care professionals and medications to Africa during the height of the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

On Tuesday, Miller officially launched his latest charitable endeavor. That's when his foundation delivered the first of many doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to rural villages in Botswana in southern Africa. Only four percent of the population has been vaccinated in Africa and very few among those living in remote areas of the continent have access to vaccines or any kind of health care.

Miller resides on a farm in Paeonian Springs, Va. with his wife Lisa and operates a small breeding operation. He also served as the racing advisor for the late owner Magalen Ohrstrom “Maggie” Bryant, who campaigned 2014 GI Travers S. winner V.E. Day (English Channel). But he is best known for the work he has done in the public and private sector, much of which has to do with Africa.

“Besides my bride, I have three passions in life–the thoroughbred, aviation and Africa,” he said.

At the age of 30, he headed the branch of the Peace Corps in Botswana and would later become the Africa regional director for the United States Peace Corps, a position he held until earlier this year. He has also worked in various roles in the Reagan administration and the George H. W. Bush administrations, managing the daily operations of Reagan's Executive Office, and serving as Senior Director of the National Security Council. He is the founder of Bluemont International, a company that advises clients looking to do business in emerging markets.

Somehow he found time to start the Airborne Lifeline Foundation. The foundation uses small airplanes and helicopters to bring medical personnel and supplies to African villages that were otherwise inaccessible.

“Years ago, during the HIV/Aids pandemic, it became obvious that if you were in rural parts of southern Africa you were not getting treatment, and not only for HIV/Aids. You were not getting anything in terms of medical care,” Miller said. “TheHIV/Aids pandemic was rife in Botswana, where I used to be the country director for the Peace Corps. I looked at the situation and decided that we needed to get preventive care people out to these rural areas. I formed a foundation with my wife and signed an agreement with the Botswana Ministry of Health. We later expanded to Malawi and Zambia. For eight years, we flew preventive care specialists into very remote clinics on a regularly scheduled basis. I had to mortgage my farm to make it happen because, at first, no one would support us.”

He eventually got funding from PEPFAR (President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief), Merck and Co. pharmaceuticals and some private donors.

In 2018, Miller decided to devote his attentions to his job running the Peace Corps in Africa and hit the pause button on Airborne Lifeline Foundation. But he didn't stay away long. With COVID raging around the world and with Africa falling short when it comes to having the needed resources to deal with the pandemic, Miller decided to revive his foundation.

“I looked at the situation and decided that we needed to start up again and get preventive care people out to rural areas,” he said. “Once we knew we could get our hands on the vaccine we made it a plan to get them to the remote villages. Otherwise, people in those villages were just not going to get vaccines. They can get them in urban areas, but not the villages. Everybody said this was a great idea and we started to put together a game plan.”

Most of the vaccines coming into Africa have been donated and originated in either the U.S. or the U.K. After they arrive in the urban centers of Africa, it is the job of Miller's foundation to ship them to rural areas.

“We're sort of the last mile,” he said. “You need to first get the big supplies into the capital cities and the large areas.”

Miller's vaccines have arrived in rural Botswana | Airborne Life

Miller said Tuesday's destinations were to include 17 villages in Botswana. On Monday, he received word from the President of Namibia that his country was looking to take part in the program. Miller was also hopeful that he could soon begin flights in Zambia and in Malawi.

In the early days of the pandemic, Africa was not hit that hard by COVID, Miller said.

“For a long time in Africa, not withstanding the fact they weren't getting vaccinated, there had not been a real spike, he said. “People have all sorts of different theories about that. Is it because they are so exposed to malaria and Ebola and other diseases? No one really knew. But all of a sudden they are beginning to have higher incident rates. It's gone through the roof in South Africa.”

Another issue, Miller said, is the economic impact COVID has had on African countries.

“We are doing this not just for health reasons but for economic reasons,” he said. “Countries like Botswana rely on tourism to generate hard currency and they can't open the safari camps because the staff hasn't been vaccinated. The economic toll in Africa has been horrific. This will probably set them back 20 years. You can't open these countries up until you get the vaccines out.”
The overall goal for the continent is to have 70% of the population vaccinated by the end of 2022. That can only happen if Miller and like-minded people see to it that the vaccine reaches remote areas. That will take a tremendous amount of time and effort, but that is what is needed to reverse what could otherwise be a crisis.

“Ultimately, what you want to do is to get to point where it is more like flu season,” Miller said. “It's going to take a long time, but we are committed to getting this done. This summer everyone was feeling a little smug in America that we had solved this, but until we get the whole world taken care of, it's going to come back to bite us again and again.”

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Taking Stock: City of Light Stars at Keeneland

There are folks who sound like broken records when it comes to first-crop sires, complaining that breeders who use them and buyers purchasing those yearlings at auction are about as foolish as dunk-tank clowns. However, when one of those sires succeeds with his first 2-year-olds, those same people are usually the first to wax eloquent with platitudes, forgetting what they'd said earlier. That's human nature, I suppose.

What they forget is that all sires start out with first crops, and there are people on the other end that wildcat for next big sire–the next Into Mischief, Tapit, Curlin, Uncle Mo, Quality Road, etc. It's a given that most horses that enter stud will fail, but every year a few stars will appear to justify the process. This year, for example, Three Chimneys's Gun Runner (Candy Ride {Arg}) is on a tear with his first juveniles, with five black-type winners to date, including two at the highest level. In Europe over the weekend, Coolmore America's Caravaggio (Scat Daddy) and Overbury Stud's Ardad (Ire) (Kodiac {GB}) were represented by the winners of the G1 Cheveley Park S. and the G1 Middle Park S., respectively, from their first crops. There are too many current and historical examples of first-season success to list here, but it shouldn't surprise anyone that it happens, because these horses tend to get their best books of mares in their first years at stud, their own intrinsic abilities aside.

Sometimes, yearling sales will tip off future success. Gun Runner, a Horse of the Year who entered stud in 2018 for a $70,000 stud fee, led all first-season sires at Keeneland September in 2020 with an average price of $253,750 for 32 sold, and that was during the height of COVID, which depressed prices across the board. Because of his exceptional early success on the track, Gun Runner's second crop of yearlings benefitted, averaging $325,925 for 40 sold at Keeneland this year.

With COVID now somewhat under control, yearling prices soared across the board at Keeneland, which concluded last Friday, and the unequivocal star of first-crop sires was Lane's End's City of Light (Quality Road), with an average price of $372,872 for 47 sold–almost an average of $50,000 more than the Gun Runners. More germane, City of Light entered stud for $35,000 in the same year that Coolmore America's powerful Scat Daddy duo of Justify, a Triple Crown winner; and Mendelssohn, a half-brother to Into Mischief and champion Beholder, started out for fees of $150,000 and $35,000, respectively.

Justify had 61 sell for an average price of $367,721, which placed him second behind City of Light. Mendelssohn, with an identical initial fee to City of Light, had 64 yearlings sell for an average of $160,078. City of Light, Justify, and Mendelssohn led all first-crop sires at Keeneland by average price, and the sales results for all of them were excellent returns on investment for breeders and consignors who'd supported them. But it's obvious that City of Light's numbers stand out.

Moreover, a $1.7-million colt by City of Light topped the sale, and for good measure, he had another colt bring $1.05 million.

City of Light

A $710,000 Keeneland September yearling bred by Ann Marie Farm, City of Light is an exceptionally attractive physical specimen, tall, athletic, and rangy, built very much like his sire, who also stands at Lane's End. When it was announced in late 2018 that City of Light would enter stud at Lane's End, the farm contacted me to write a piece about him for its website. I said this about his sire:

“The scope of Quality Road's success at stud has been astonishing, though not entirely surprising given his looks, race record, and pedigree. Bred and raced by the late Edward P. Evans, Quality Road is by Elusive Quality and is therefore a member of the Gone West branch of Mr. Prospector. On the bottom, he traces in tail-female to the highly influential mare Myrtlewood (seventh dam), from which Mr. Prospector (fourth dam) and Seattle Slew (fifth dam) also descended. Speed was the salient characteristic of these horses, and Quality Road expressed that trait by setting three track records, one at 6 1/2 furlongs and two at nine furlongs. He stayed 10 furlongs well enough when second in the GI Jockey Club Gold Cup, beaten a length. He is physically attractive, with height, length, and balance, and he was nimble, athletic, and notably fast for a 16.3-hand specimen. He reliably passes along his physical and aptitudinal traits to his offspring, who are effective from sprints to classic distances on dirt and turf at the highest levels, and as a sire, he has ascended to elite status in a short time.”

Todd Pletcher, who has had his hands on more top-class stallions than anyone else, guided the career of Quality Road after taking over from Jimmy Jerkens midway through the colt's 3-year-old season, and perhaps it's fitting that Pletcher's longtime assistant Michael McCarthy trained City of Light for owners Mr. and Mrs. William K. Warren, Jr.

City of Light was a top-class racehorse, winning six of 11 starts, and he was never off the board in his other five races, earning $5.7 million. Most notably, the colt won two Grade I sprints at Santa Anita over seven furlongs, the Malibu S. and the Triple Bend S.; the GI Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile at Churchill; and the GI Pegasus World Cup Invitational S. at Gulfstream over nine furlongs. In between, he'd also placed third in the GI Gold Cup at Santa Anita over 10 furlongs. By racing aptitude, he was also very much his father's son, and he was unlucky to never have won an Eclipse Award.

City of Light is from the Dehere mare Paris Notion and comes from a family developed by Ray Stark and Fares Farm that also includes Grade l winners Fabulous Notion (his second dam), Cacoethes, Subordination, and Careless Jewel.

With the physique, sire, race record, and female family behind him, it's no surprise he was a hit with breeders from the beginning. WTC bloodstock editor Frances J. Karon tweeted a photo of him at Lane's End in February of 2019 and wrote: “If you like Quality Road–and who doesn't?!–you will *love* his son City of Light, a real 'wow' horse.” And in another tweet on the same thread, she wrote: “City of Light won the GI Pegasus barely more than 30 days ago. Horses aren't supposed to look this phenomenal a month out of training, so that tells you a lot about this guy.”

Usually, a stallion's stud fee will decrease after his first few years at stud, but that wasn't the case with City of Light. In 2020, he went up $5,000 to $40,000–the same fee he was at this year. That's a testament to his popularity.

His first weanlings to sell confirmed this, with 20 selling in 2020 for an average price of $190,875. That was the clue that he was going to be a hit at the yearling sales this season.

So far, there haven't been too many Quality Road sons at stud, but one who is doing well this year with his first crop is Darby Dan's Klimt, a Grade l winner at two. Klimt is in a different price range–he's been at $10,000 all four years at stud–but he's sixth on TDN's first-crop list with progeny earnings of $620,916. Klimt has 12 winners, which makes him co-tied for fourth place in that category, and has three black-type-placed horses.

These are good signs for City of Light, and all eyes will be on him next year when his first runners hit the track.

Sid Fernando is president and CEO of Werk Thoroughbred Consultants, Inc., originator of the Werk Nick Rating and eNicks.

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