Fasig-Tipton photo
By Sarah Mace
The roster of New York-breds who have earned seven figures on the racetrack is 47-strong and growing, but in the juvenile sales department, the New York-bred program just hit a new benchmark.
At Wednesday’s boutique Fasig-Tipton Gulfstream sale, a colt from the final crop of Ashford sire Scat Daddy out of Sanford Bacon’s multiple stakes-winning homebred Risky Rachel (Limehouse) brought a cool $1,000,000 when trainer Todd Pletcher signed the ticket on behalf of Coolmore Stud’s M. V. Magnier.
The colt, who is his dam’s first foal, was offered as Hip 31 and consigned by Steve Venosa’s SGV Thoroughbreds LLC, agent. He was one of 11 juveniles to post a bullet furlong in the under tack show in a time of :10 flat. Play Video.
Even before the foal was conceived, Venosa had a close connection with Risky Rachel and Bacon. “We had that horse’s mother on the farm,” Venosa said. “We ran her off the farm over at Tampa Bay Downs and she broke the track record over there.” He is referring to the 7-furlong Manatee Stakes on February 8, 2014, when Risky Rachel set a stakes record (1:23.48). By the time she transitioned to broodmare duty, Risky Rachel had competed for six seasons (2009-2015), won six stakes races, placed in four more and earned $493,736.
Fasig-Tipton Photo
When “Rachel” retired, Venosa also had a hand in Bacon’s breeding plans. As he explained, “With the help of some people, we were able to get her to Scat Daddy. We had the foal up in New York [at Sequel Stallions New York in Hudson] and the colt has been on our farm since he was a weanling. He’s been a pleasure to be around.”
Continued Venosa, “It’s kind of unique that we were able to train the mother and then to have the son come here and perform the way he did. They both have a lot of stretch, a lot of size, but the best quality is his mind. They both have the same mind and nothing but class.”
The million-dollar colt is a third-generation product of Bacon’s breeding program and issues from his most successful family. Hip 31’s third dam Lolli Lucka Lolli was a multiple winner campaigned by his Bacon Barn. After retirement, the mare became the dam of two New York legends and was twice honored as New York Champion Broodmare (1997, 2001).
In 1992 Lolli Lucka Lolli produced graded stakes winner Dancin Renee, voted the 1997 New York-bred Horse of the Year, Champion Sprinter and Champion Older Female. Dancin Renee, who has a NYRA stakes named in her honor, is the dam of Risky Rachel.
Two years later, Lolli Lucka Lolli gave birth to eventual $2-million earner, sire and New York legend Say Florida Sandy, another in the family with an eponymous NYRA stakes race. Say Florida Sandy was voted New York-bred Champion Sprinter and Horse of the Year in 2000 and 2001.
After signing for colt Wednesday Pletcher said, “This is a beautiful horse, one that we’ve had on the radar for a while. He came in here and had a super breeze and came out of it in good order. I think when you get to a certain level, you don’t know what they’re going to bring. We knew he wasn’t going to be cheap, but we weren’t sure where he would land.” Pletcher plans to give the colt a break before deciding where to place him for the next phase of his career.
Pletcher added that the colt’s sire Scat Daddy, whom he trained, was, “A world-class stallion, one of my all-time favorites. A great loss to the industry that he’s gone too soon. He gets it on turf, he gets it on dirt.”
Bacon told the TDN, “I’ve never had a horse sell for $1 million, but I’ve had a horse that has won $2 million. I am so glad because I called Todd Pletcher before and said if you get one of your clients to buy it, I’d like to do a deal for a piece of him. He couldn’t work it out, but he got Coolmore.”
Bacon added “Risky Rachel has an Into Mischief [yearling filly] who is absolutely gorgeous and is a few days away from delivering a Tiznow.”
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Venosa commented, “It was bittersweet because it is the first foal out of the mare, and [Bacon] didn’t want to sell. We discussed it and decided if he went to a good home, that would be a good outcome, and it worked out with Coolmore and Todd Pletcher ending up with him. He is a New York-bred, so maybe he will be able to see him run.”
New York-bred juveniles have knocked on the seven-figure door at sales a few times in recent years, without quite managing to break through. At the 2017 Fasig-Tipton Florida sale a Medaglia d’Oro colt out of Wild Chant bred by Gallagher’s Stud brought $900,000. The previous year, the top juvenile brought $825,000. The New York-bred program came closest to a seven-figure two-year-old in 2011 when Brigand, a colt by Flatter out of Silence Please bred by Doug Koch’s Berkshire Stud, topped the OBS March Select sale at $925,000.
In addition to the million-dollar seller, who was the third-highest price horse at the auction, four more New York-breds sold of the seven who went through the ring. The other New York-bred standouts include a pair of fillies.
Hip 124, a dark bay or brown Into Mischief filly went to Allen F. Wise by private sale for $350,000. Bred by Anlyn Farms, the filly’s dam Gracilia (Mr. Greeley) is a half-sister to New York-bred graded stakes winner and sire Sharp Humor. The filly is a graduate of the Keeneland September yearling sale, where she sold to Louis Lazzinarro for $185,000.
Hip 163, a bay filly by Cairo Prince out of winner Spanish Post (Flatter), was purchased by Katsumi Yoshida and will, in all likelihood, go to Japan. Bred by Bluewater Sales, LLC & Three Diamonds Farm and consigned by Randy Bradshaw, agent, the filly issues from the family of multiple graded stakes winning New York-bred Silver Timber. Bradshaw brought the filly for $115,000 at the Fasig-Tipton New York-bred preferred yearling sale last year from the Bluewater Sales consignment.
The New York-bred average price for the five who sold was $410,000 and median price came in at $325,000. As a whole the auction generated the second second-highest average and median in the sale’s history, and the highest in both categories since the move to Gulfstream Park in 2015. The average increased 13.5% to $385,164 from $339,392 last year. The median was up 9.3% to $295,000 from $270,000 in 2017.
