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Keeneland To Host December Digital Sale

Keeneland today announced it will hold a December Digital Sale for horses of racing age, broodmares, weanlings, yearlings and others on Tuesday, Dec. 15 and will begin accepting entries to the sale on Monday, Nov. 23.

The December sale will be conducted via the Keeneland Digital Sales Ring platform, which is supported by HorseCo. The platform enables Keeneland to host small, select online auctions throughout the year in addition to its four major live sales in January, April, September and November.

The entry deadline for the December Digital Sale is Friday, Dec. 4. To enter horses in the sale, sellers may use the Keeneland Consignor Portfolio. The entry fee for the December Digital Sale is $300. Sales commission is Keeneland's standard five percent and there will be no RNA fees.

The December Digital Sale catalog will be available online on Monday, Dec. 7. Sellers have the opportunity to submit photos, videos and more to the platform to digitally showcase each hip to prospective buyers.

“Thanks to its ease and flexibility, the Keeneland Digital Sales Ring is a useful tool to expand our ability to better serve our sales clients,” Keeneland President-Elect and Interim Head of Sales Shannon Arvin said. “The December Digital Sale provides yet another opportunity for buyers to purchase quality bloodstock in anticipation of the 2021 breeding and racing seasons.”

For more information about the December Digital Sale, please visit Keeneland Digital Sales Ring.

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Prominent Owner, Breeder Frank Generazio Jr. Dies At 91

Frank Generazio Jr., an owner and breeder responsible for some of the most memorable turf runners of the past couple decades, died Saturday at the age of 91.

A resident of Jupiter, Fla., Generazio was a participant in the Thoroughbred business for five decades with his wife Patricia, under whose name their horses usually ran. Their racing operation began in the Northeast at tracks like Suffolk Downs and Rockingham Park, and the stable can primarily be seen today in New York and Florida under trainer Christophe Clement.

Generazio entered Thoroughbred ownership after a conversation at his father's birthday party led to a group of friends agreeing to put in money to claim a handful of racehorses at Suffolk Downs. After a few years, he was the only member of the group still in the game.

The Generazios became fully entrenched in the business after the $27,000 yearling purchase of Concorde Bound, a colt who went on to become a Grade 3 winner in the mid-1980s. He then retired to stud, and though he died of colic after a couple seasons at stud, the handful of foals he produced set the roots for his owner's homebred program through their success on the racetrack and in the breeding shed.

In recent years, the pink and green Generazio colors were best known for flying over a pair of homebred high-level gray turf sprinters in Disco Partner and Pure Sensation. Disco Partner set a world record for six furlongs over the turf at Belmont Park when he won the 2017 Grade 3 Jaipur Invitational Stakes in 1:05.67. Pure Sensation, who is still racing in 2020, is an eight-time graded stakes winner, and he won the Jaipur himself in 2016.

The Generazio homebred program has also included Discreet Marq, who won the G1 Del Mar Oaks for her breeders, then sold for $2.4 million at the 2014 Fasig-Tipton November sale. They also bred and raced Discreet Marq's dam and granddam.

In addition to owning and breeding, Generazio spent time as a trainer in the Mid-Atlantic, racking up 370 wins from 1991 to 2006. His most notable runners in that span included Grade 2 winner Concorde's Gold and Grade 3 winners Unreal Turn and Play It Again Stan. He also trained the multiple stakes winner Concorde's Tune, who became a successful sire.

Generazio was a long-serving president of the New England HBPA, a member of the New Jersey HBPA, and he was a high-ranking member of the National HBPA.

The Generazios have based their breeding operation at Pleasant Acres Stallions in Morriston, Fla., since the 1990s, and they currently board about 35 horses at Joe and Helen Barbazon's farm, between broodmares and young horses.

Though the Generazios were clients well before the transaction, their relationship with the Barbazons was solidified with the private purchase of Presious Passion, a colt bred by the Barbazons.

Presious Passion went on to to earn $2,694,599 over the course of eight seasons, including two victories in the Grade 1 United Nations Stakes, a win in the G1 Clement L. Hirsch Memorial Championship Stakes, and a runner-up effort in the 2009 Breeders' Cup Turf at Santa Anita Park. The gelding returned to Pleasant Acres at the end of his racing career.

Memorial details for Generazio are still to be announced.

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‘Such A Blessing’: Welder Now All-Time Leading Stakes Winner At Remington Park

The Remington Park history book was rewritten Friday night as Welder moved into the number one spot all-time in stakes wins here with 11.

He was in a tie for first with Oklahoma Horse Racing Hall of Famer Okie Ride going into the $70,000 Silver Goblin Stakes at Remington Park on Friday. He also set a record for winning four Silver Goblin Stakes, one more than Okie Ride. Welder also extended his record of most Remington Park stakes wins in a row to 11.

Trainer Teri Luneack put all the records broken and Welder's name being etched in stone in the Oklahoma racing history book in perspective.

“I'm obviously never going to see another horse in my lifetime like this,” Luneack said. “In fact we probably won't see another horse at Remington Park like this in our lifetimes. I mean what horse goes out in 44 (seconds) and change for the half-mile and just drives away without David (Cabrera) ever having to cock the stick? It's craziness.”

Welder, owned by Ra-Max Farms (Clayton Rash) of Claremore, Okla., finished the 6-1/2 furlongs in 1:15.49 seconds over a muddy track and wasn't even breathing hard, returning to the winner's circle. Jockey David Cabrera never asked him to run.

Early on, Welder and Fly to the Bank looked each other in the eye with that lightning fast :44.55 seconds half-mile and the winner was gone by the time he hit three-quarters of a mile in 1:09.04. The 7-year-old gelded son of The Visualiser, out of the Tiznow mare Dance Softly, just turned on the gas from there to win by 5-1/2 lengths over Fly to the Bank. In fact, Welder, who may be the calmest horse ever to be saddled in a paddock, always seems far less worried than his jockey and trainer.

“I'm always so nervous,” said Luneack. “I'm standing over there watching and saying, 'Oh gosh! Oh gosh! Oh gosh!' He's going 44 and just keeps going. I mean, who does that?”

Cabrera reiterated the concern.

“Sometimes I think he goes out there faster than he should but I just let him do what he wants to do, and then he just does it all on his own,” Cabrera said.

Welder, a two-time Oklahoma Horse of the Year and the only horse in Remington Park History to be voted two-time Horse of the Meeting, also won for the 14th time at the Oklahoma City track. That puts him one win behind Highland Ice and Elegant Exxactsy, who had 15 apiece. Luneack said Welder would be back to race at 8 years old in 2021 as long as he stays sound. It's possible he could face the Breeders' Cup Sprint winner Whitmore at Oaklawn in Hot Springs, Ark., in the spring. Whitmore beat Welder by two lengths in the 2018 Hot Springs Stakes.

“It's such a blessing to have this horse,” Luneack said as she held her brand new grandbaby girl Ava in the winner's circle. Then nodding to Ava, she said, “She's perfect,” like the legendary Oklahoma-bred sprinter she trains. He was bred by Center Hills Farm's division of Mighty Acres Ranch in Pryor, Okla.

Welder, the last Oklahoma-bred to hit the $1 million mark in earnings, added to that bankroll Friday with $42,000 of the purse pocketed. His race record improved to 37 starts, 25 wins, five seconds and four fourths for $1,179,018. He was purchased as a yearling for $6,400 by Rash.

Welder was sent off at 1-10 odds by the betting public and paid $2.20 to win, $2.10 to place and $2.10 to show. It was the 13th race in a row he has gone off as the odds-on favorite. The last time he was higher than even money was when he went off 9-1 when facing Whitmore in 2018. Fly to the Bank returned $5.80 to place and $2.10 to show. Quality Rocket, one length back of the runner-up in third, also paid $2.10 to show.

Welder's record stakes wins in Remington Park history have been four Silver Goblins, three Oklahoma Classics Sprints, two David M. Vance Stakes and two Remington Park Turf Sprints, one of those being taken off the grass and moved to a sloppy track.

The Silver Goblin Stakes is named after the gray Oklahoma-bred millionaire who won multiple stakes races at Remington Park and numerous graded stakes events around the nation, in a career spanning 1993-1999.

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Accomplished Veterinarian Johnson Dies At The Age Of 81

Dr. Jerry H. Johnson, longtime veterinarian well known in academic and private practice, died Nov. 9 at the age of 81.

Born March 7, 1939 in Gough, Ga., to Julian and Martha Kitchens Johnson, Johnson was raised on his parents' working farm and attended the University of Georgia, where he received both his undergraduate and veterinary degrees. He went on to spend seven years in the U.S. Army Reserves before being discharged in 1963 with the rank of staff sergeant.

Johnson became a boarded equine surgeon and taught for 16 years at the University of Pennsylvania's New Bolton Center, Iowa State University, Kansas State University, Auburn University, and the University of Missouri.

After encouragement from well-known racetrack practitioner Dr. Alex Harthill, Johnson left academia to begin private practice in 1979 in the Central Kentucky area. He is credited with introducing the use of furosemide into racing to prevent incidence of exercise-induced pulmonary hemorrhage (EIPH), as well as being the first veterinarian to use an endoscope to examine the airway of horses at auction. Johnson was also well known as an advocate to end of the practice of soring and “Big Lick” movement in the Tennessee Walking Horse world.

Johnson's work also included field trial studies for pharmaceutical companies, including Merck, Merial, and Schering-Plough. He scoped more than 2,000 horses as part of field trials for the omperazole treatment now commonly known by its trade name of GastroGard.

According to his obituary, Johnson's patients included many Kentucky Derby and Breeders' Cup winners, as well as grand prix jumpers, Paso Finos, Friesian carriage horses, the Budweiser Cydesdales, Belgian pulling drafts, and the occaisonal stable dog or cat.

Johnson was a published author in the American Association of Equine Practitioners Proceedings, Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, and Journal of Equine Medicine and Surgery, and was a member of AVMA, AAEP, ACVS, NAARV, KVMA, KAEP, FAEP, The Thoroughbred Club, The Keeneland Club.

He is survived by his devoted wife of 30 years, Patricia White Johnson, and daughter Julee Johnson, longtime friend Jo Ann Johnson, daughter Kaitlyn Hildenbrand (Maury), sister-in-law Barbara White Crockett, nieces Jennifer Knight (Mark) and Elizabeth Erickson (Nils) (daughters of his late sister-in-law Jacqueline White), nephew Major Roy B. Crockett, USMC (Anais), adopted daughter Elizabeth Connolly (Jim), grandchildren Juel Johnson; Ty, Alexa, and Ashley Hildenbrand; Christopher and John Connolly.

A memorial will be held sometime in 2021. In lieu of flowers, the family has established a memorial fund in Johnson's honor at the University of Georgia, where friends may contribute to the UGA Foundation (note: The Jerry H. Johnson, DVM Memorial Fund) or online here.

Read an extended obituary of Johnson here.

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