The growth of Maryland’s Thoroughbred breeding industry was on display at Saratoga, when 20 yearlings bred in the state sold for an average of $31,910; the sale’s overall average was $30,541 – a new Saratoga record.

A Dr. Fager colt out of Kelso’s half-sister was purchased by Sidney Watters Jr. as agent for Mr. and Mrs. James P. Mills for $160,000, a record for a Maryland-bred sold at public auction. Bred by Allaire duPont, he was consigned to the sale by L. Clay Camp, who purchased him, along with nine other weanlings, from the breeder the previous fall.

• Eugene Mori’s Northern Dancer filly Alma North was proving to be one of the best 3-year-old fillies in training after capturing Atlantic City’s Pageant Handicap, her fourth stakes win of the year. Earlier she won a division of Liberty Bell’s Cotillion Handicap, as well as the Open Fire at Delaware Park and the Post-Deb at Monmouth. Out of the Swaps mare Spaws Arrow, she was bred by the Glade Valley partnership of Dr. Robert A. Leonard and Stanley Bender. Mori purchased her at Saratoga for $15,500.
  
  
• Peter and Linda Green sold a yearling filly by Damascus out of Sunny Morn at the Keeneland Summer Sales for $56,000 to Live Oak Plantation of California. The filly had been foaled at the couple’s Master’s Cave Farm in Sparks, Md.
  
  The filly named Sunny Dame became a foundation mare for Charlotte Weber’s Live Oak Farm, primarily through her daughter, two-time Florida Broodmare of the Year Sultry Sun, dam of Sultry Song and Solar Splendor, who made headlines as Grade 1 winners on the same Belmont Park card in 1992.
  
  
• A 2-year-old filly racing at Liberty Bell was winless in her first two starts and had quite the excuse when she foaled a colt at the track, to the surprise of her trainer and groom. “I went into her stall to put the feed in one morning and there was this foal. At first I thought it was a dog who had gotten in her stall,” said trainer Kenny Heisey.
  
  The filly, Jennifer Lynn, returned to race later in the year but never won. Her colt, named Mr. Liberty Bell, made it to the races, but also never won. It was determined the sire was a yearling at the time of conception, with both parents being by the stallion Bergeruk.
  
  
• The 16-year-old broodmare Miss Jezebel took on the role of adoptive mother when in addition to her own colt, she accepted an orphaned filly. The stakes-producing mare was owned by Mrs. Fred Comyn. Both foals were by Rock Talk.
  
  Miss Jezebell’s flesh-and-blood Night Talk was a modest winner racing in England. The orphan, out of the Alsab mare Moya, was graded stakes winner and Grade 1-placed Kudara, who had 19 stakes wins or placings and earned $205,421.