“What everybody dreams of”: Maryland farms hit Saratoga sale
Teresa Genaro- August 11, 2023
Though Kentucky-breds were the ones that got the most attention at this year’s Fasig-Tipton Saratoga sale of select yearlings, horses bred in the Mid-Atlantic didn’t do too badly, hitting a milestone for one Maryland farm and showcasing a new dimension for another.
A Gun Runner filly out of the First Dude mare Starr of Quality, hip 174 was bred by Country Life Farm, and the $775,000 she brought set a new record for a horse sold by the 90-year-old farm.
“None of us thought she would bring that much,” said Christy Holden, the farm’s general manager. “This is what everybody dreams of doing.”
Both Holden and farm co-owner Mike Pons figured that the chestnut filly would go somewhere in the $200,000 range, and they’d have been happy with that. Neither was prepared when the bids kept coming… and coming.
“I was standing in the back [of the sales pavilion] watching the board,” said Pons. “I put my head down for a minute at $300,000, and when I looked back up, the board said $750,000. I had to check my catalog, then the board, to make sure that I wasn’t hallucinating.”
He wasn’t, and the bidding continued until the hammer dropped, the filly purchased by Solis/Litt bloodstock for LNJ Foxwoods.
“I heard that they thought she was the best filly in the sale,” said Holden. “They’re a great outfit, and I hope the filly will stay on the East Coast. Maybe we’ll even see her running in Maryland.”
2023 has been a bit of a rough patch for Country Life: bookings to the three stallions that stand at the farm were down, they’d won just two races in six months, and they experienced a six-week drought this spring.
Then on July 8 at Laurel, two of their horses won; a week later, the farm’s Virginia-bred Galilei – out of, wait for it, the Galileo mare Fairytale Ending — won the Brookmeade Stakes at Colonial Downs.
And then they sold a horse for three-quarters of a million dollars.
“It was a wonderful, very welcome turnaround,” said Pons.
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Describing the evening at the sales at “magical,” he went on, “After she sold, we walked by the Fasig-Tipton team on the sales grounds. (Fasig-Tipton president and CEO] Boyd Browning and the crew were cheering us as we went by. It was like walking back to the dugout after hitting a home run.”
Maryland’s Northview Stallion Station was represented by six yearlings at the sale, two homebreds and four horses they bought as weanlings to pinhook.
“Pinhooking is a new venture for us,” said David Wade, the farm’s general manager. “It’s a new avenue to generate income, and we’re focusing on weanlings to yearlings.”
Three of the four pinhooks they brought to Saratoga did indeed generation income: hip 93, purchased for $75,000, sold for $100,000; hip 150 sold for $350,000, $125,000 more than they paid for it; and hip 220, one of the last horses to go through the ring, brought $650,000, 38% more than the $400,000 they paid.
“We were happy,” said Wade. “You always hope for more for certain horses, but looking at the group as a whole, we did pretty well. We came here last year with one to pinhook, and we did very well with that filly. It encouraged us to go back to the sales in November and January to buy more.”
Northview had purchased that horse as a weanling for $280,000; at Saratoga, she sold for $425,000 to trainer Ken McPeek for Walking L. Thoroughbreds. Now named Midsummer March, she most recently worked at Saratoga on Aug. 9, breezing three furlongs in 36.88.
Neither of Northview’s homebreds met their reserve, and Wade said that he was fine with bringing them back to sell at the Fasig-Tipton sale at Timonium in October.
“Our Street Sense colt has more of a regional-type family, and the Authentic was one of a whole group of Authentics,” he said. “They’ll stand out more at Timonium.”
Virginia-bred hip 36 went to trainer Cherie DeVaux for the Belladonna racing partnership. Consigned by Vinery Sales, agent, the dark bay/brown colt is by Constitution and out of the stakes-placed Ellyb. She sold for $350,000.
“He’s athletic, put-together, balanced,” said DeVaux. “He sold for what we expected him to go for, and we think we paid a fair price.”
DeVaux’s racing operation is based in Kentucky, but the colt’s Virginia-bred status was a bit of a perk.
“We’ve had a couple of Virginia-breds and it’s a good program,” she said. “Mainly, we liked his pedigree, and we try to buy athletes.
“If you have a good regional breeding program, that helps,” she continued. “It’s always good to have if you have a horse that you want to develop along the way.”
The colt was bred by Audley Farm.
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