Sales Tales: “She fit the bill”

Hip 122 at the Fasig-Tipton fall yearling sale, a filly by Tapizar, brought a top bid of $150,000. Photo by The Racing Biz.

Willie White didn’t come to the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic fall yearling sale necessarily planning to buy anything.

But that changed over the weekend when he laid eyes on Hip 122, a Tapizar filly out of a Not for Love mare.

“When we saw her, we decided to get serious,” said White, a former president of the Maryland Horse Breeders Association who races, with partners, as Skeedattle Associates.

White and his partners paid $150,000 to obtain the Maryland-bred, who was consigned by Dark Hollow Farm. That was the highest price paid for a horse on the opening day of the sale.

“It’s nice to have a Maryland-bred top the sale,” White said.

Frank “Goree” Smith advises Skeedattle on its purchases and, White said, was quite taken with the filly.

“He thought she was the best one in the whole sale,” White said. “She fit the bill for us. She’s a beautiful filly.”

She’s also from a top-quality family. Her dam, Flit, is a half-sister to stakes winner O Dionysus and Joy. Her third dam, Safe at the Plate, was a half-sister to Hall of Famer Safely Kept.

White, who said they paid about what he’d expected, has the next moves mapped out.

“She’ll go to South Carolina with Goree Smith tonight,” he said Tuesday morning, “and eventually to Graham Motion.”

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