Though she has thus far been mated exclusively to Mr. Prospector-line stallions (save one foal by A.P. Indy’s son Take Charge Indy), we are going to take Winning Bet in a completely different direction for her 2018 cover.  Instead of adding more Mr. Prospector blood (Winning Bet being inbred to him 4×2 already), we are… [Read More]

Our pick to lead this year’s crop of freshman sires is the WinStar stallion Fed Biz. After making his racetrack debut in November of his 2-year-old year (finishing 4th that day), Fed Biz broke his maiden second time out, with a day to spare in his juvenile season.  He won his first start at 3… [Read More]

We have mentioned more than once that starting a young mare off with a proven stallion is a tactic that makes the utmost sense in order to give her the best chance at beginning her breeding career with success.  At the same time, finding an accomplished sire who is both still affordable and offers some… [Read More]

We are very excited to have been able to recommend the brilliant 2-year-old Kantharos, whose success and versatility at stud have already outstripped what he himself accomplished in an abbreviated career on the racetrack, as a first match for the well-bred Midnight Lute mare, Midnight Swinger. Because Midnight Swinger is herself a half-sister to a multiple… [Read More]

Just as with Minnesota Mafia going to Include, when our newest client asked for a mating recommendation for his other mare — again with the intention to breed-to-race — we went right back to our list of proven “Value Sires” to see what might work for Annapolis Harbor, and we quickly landed on another veteran… [Read More]

A new client contacted us recently looking for mating recommendations for his pair of mares, including a stakes-winning Yonaguska mare named Minnesota Mafia, who was actually owned by a Country Life partnership during our time there.  Minnesota Mafia’s new owner specified that he planned to race her foals himself, and – as it does whenever… [Read More]

For Akasha’s 2018 mate, we are going in a different direction than we did for her first two matings, when we targeted the Danzig sire line and bred her to War Front’s sons Data Link in 2016 and Hit It A Bomb in 2017.  Instead of a fast, precocious, turf-oriented stallion whose offspring have yet… [Read More]

We had originally planned to send Tuxedo Annie to the new Maryland stallion Blofeld in 2018, because his pedigree contains two crosses of the Phipps/Wheatley foundation mare, Grey Flight, who is also Tuxedo Annie’s fourth dam.  But due to some unforeseen circumstances, we had to call a last-minute audible, and Tuxedo Annie has instead been… [Read More]

Several of the major racing publications, both in the States and Europe, have recently put out their versions of a “Value Sires List,” which we always read with fascination – and excitement, when those experts validate our own choices or the recommendations that we’ve made to our clients.  Usually the authors of these articles take… [Read More]

Perfect Gleam’s second dam, Anne Campbell, produced a pair of Grade 1-winning sons who both finished 2nd in the G1 Kentucky Derby, and she was a Broodmare of the Year.  More importantly for our purposes, though, she has also founded a high-class family in Europe (and more specifically, at Ballydoyle/Coolmore) via her daughter Mr. P’s… [Read More]

The crux of our mating ideology is, generally, to try and duplicate what has already worked for other members of a mare’s female family.  In the case of Littlemissperfect, we hope to replicate the success of her dam’s full-sister, Procession, who produced Proceed Bee, a Grade 3 winner of 20 races, when bred to the… [Read More]

With breeding season just about upon us, Housatonic Bloodstock LLC is here to help you plan your 2018 matings. Below are excerpts from a project that we completed back in 2017 for a group of clients, who provided a list of stallions that they were considering as mates for their mare last spring, and asked… [Read More]

As a daughter of the Storm Cat stallion Forestry out of a full-sister to Serena’s Song, we recommended that our clients would be best served to consider Mr. Prospector-line stallions for Serena’s Joy in 2018.  With Pioneerof the Nile being one of the hottest conduits of the Fappiano branch of that line out there these… [Read More]

We have have previously discussed how and why we believe that Fed Biz is poised to become an important sire, and are therefor excited to have been able to recommend him to a client as a mate for our recent auction purchase, Notassharpasuthink. Notassharpasuthink is a daughter of Sharp Humor out of a Silver Hawk… [Read More]

We have recommended that the multiple stakes-winning Outflanker mare Kosmo’s Buddy visit the high-class Grade 1 winner and sire First Samurai, by Storm Cat’s son Giant’s Causeway, in 2018. Kosmo’s Buddy won or placed in 14 stakes races from 2- through 5-years-old, winning on both turf and dirt, and her progeny so far include the… [Read More]

With Gosling being from an excellent European family of accomplished turf horses cultivated by Juddmonte Farm, we recommended that she be bred in 2018 to the most promising young American turf stallion to come along in some time:  Dynaformer’s five-time Grade 1-winning son, Point of Entry. Gosling’s first dam is the unbeaten, Group 3-winning Dansili… [Read More]

In her nine previous matings, Rough Water has visited More Than Ready or his sons four times, Mr. Prospector-line sires three times, and Awesome Again’s son Paynter twice.  This year, for her tenth foal, we are going to take an entirely new direction with her and will send Rough Water to Cupid, the exciting first-year… [Read More]

As breeding season fast approaches, Housatonic Bloodstock LLC is here to help you plan your 2018 matings. Below is an excerpt from an analysis that we completed back in August of this year for a client who was seeking mating recommendations for his young Uncle Mo mare, Mo Light.  The client is looking to breed… [Read More]

Last year, we laid out all of the reasons that we were looking forward to breeding I’m Engaged to the exciting first-year stallion, Lord Nelson.  Unfortunately, Lord Nelson developed health issues which meant that he missed the 2017 breeding season, so we did not get that chance. But Lord Nelson has now recovered sufficiently to… [Read More]

For Tuxedo Annie’s 2018 mate, we are looking at a variation on the theme of line-breeding to high class Phipps family mares.  This time, we are targeting Tuxedo Annie’s fourth dam, the foundation mare Grey Flight, who also appears twice in the pedigree of her 2018 mate, Blofeld. Last year, in her match with Golden… [Read More]

Previously in this space, we have discussed the journey we are taking with one of our first homebreds, the now-2-year-old gelding Nautical Nature. A son of The Factor out of the first mare that we ever purchased, Atlantic Rainbow, we attempted to sell the then-colt at last year’s Keeneland September Yearling Sale. But his lack… [Read More]

With Keeneland’s November Breeding Stock Sale fast approaching, Housatonic Bloodstock is ready to help you find the right horse for your program, whether you’re looking for a mare to foal next spring, a broodmare prospect to breed in 2018, or a weanling to pinhook. Our prior purchases include: Hula Skirt (in-foal to Twirling Candy) – a… [Read More]

It’s never too early to start thinking ahead to next year’s mating plans, and as we get ready to head to Keeneland next week for the start of their marathon September Sale, we’re looking forward to checking out some of the first yearlings by a pair of exciting young stallions who are on our early… [Read More]

The catalog for Fasig-Tipton’s Midlantic Yearling Sale, which will be held October 2nd and 3rd in Timonium, Maryland, has been posted online at www.fasigtipton.com.  The sale catalog features 495 yearlings, many of them locally-bred horses by both national and regional sires. We at Housatonic Bloodstock would be happy to help you identify your next (or… [Read More]

As the 2017 foaling and breeding season wraps up, we can’t help but begin looking forward to the spring of 2018.  After welcoming five Housatonic-bred foals this year, we will be looking forward to five more next year: Akasha is due February 16th with a foal from the first crop of Grade 1-winning juvenile Hit… [Read More]

Winning Bet is now being bred in 2017 to Munnings (Speightstown x La Comete, by Holy Bull; $25,000 LFSN at Ashford) As excited as we were to breed to Vancouver after we saw him at Ashford earlier this year, we have made a last-minute call to switch Winning Bet to Munnings this spring instead. From the first… [Read More]

Our pick for the 2017 Kentucky Derby likely will not come as a shock to many of you given that Winning Bet just delivered a colt by Bodemeister on Wednesday, but, just to make it official, we are going with the Bodemeister colt, Always Dreaming. Despite having been burned by a lightly-raced Todd Pletcher trainee… [Read More]

Trying to predict the leading freshman stallions each year often seems little more than a crapshoot.  For instance, who could have foreseen last year that Dialed In would eek out the title over the more fancied Union Rags and Bodemeister?  Or that Henrythenavigator would lead the list in 2012 despite his exclusively non-dirt race record? … [Read More]

Curlin’s Needle is now being bred in 2017 to Jump Start (A.P. Indy x Steady Cat, by Storm Cat; $10,000 LFSN at Northview PA)  After finding out that Curlin’s Needle is, in fact, pregnant to Discreet Cat off of a June cover from last spring, we have changed our plans with her and will no longer be… [Read More]

When we bought Rough Water and Winning Bet at auction in January, they certainly had plenty of appeal in and of themselves, physically and on the basis of their respective produce records and female families.  But another very attractive aspect was the stallion to which each was in-foal at the time of the sale –… [Read More]

Tuxedo Annie is being bred in 2017 to Golden Years (Not For Love x Sweet Annuity, by Oh Say; $1,500 LFSN at O’Sullivan Farms)  Unlike the rest of our mares, Tuxedo Annie is not being bred with a commercial purpose; rather, her foals will be kept to race with our partner.  As such, a slightly different set… [Read More]