"Our 2004 auction will feature yearlings registered with the Jockey Club and the Virginia Thoroughbred Breeders Association," said James Bowen, interim director of the Middleburg center. The yearlings have been bred and cared for as part of the research program at the Center.
Yearlings sold at previous sales have matured to show, hunt, race, and jump. This year's sale includes a granddaughter of Secretariat whose half siblings have won close to $450,000. Many of the yearlings in the sale were sired by Ball's Bluff, a stallion at the center who was named Virginia's leading sprint sire based on earnings for 2004 with total earnings reaching more than $620,000. For example, recently Bluffie Slew, which was sold at a previous auction, a filly by Ball's Bluff out of Our Lady Slew, was first in the Brookmeade Stakes race at Colonial Downs.
"The Center has approximately 45 Thoroughbred broodmares who produce between 25 and 30 foals annually. The growing foals provide researchers an opportunity to study how nutrition affects metabolism and skeletal development," said W. Burton Staniar, assistant professor of equine nutrition.
The Middleburg center's pasture-based equine nutrition research relates the care and welfare of the horse from conception through its older years to its interaction as a grazing animal with the land.
The research objectives are to develop pastures and pasture supplements that improve the reproductive efficiency of mares, optimize growth in the young horses, enhance athletic performance, and protect and improve the land and
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Contact: Mary Ann Johnson
jnayram@vt.edu
540-231-6975
Virginia Tech
1-Oct-2004