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I
COULDN’T wait to get back on you since last week because
of the very interesting news trickling from abroad.
But as I
was about to get down to work on this piece, a slew of
other exciting news came our way which I won’t pass up
in furnishing you today.
First,
Kentucky is now brimming with excitement as world-class
horse auctions have been going on one after the other
these days. The Fasig-Tipton November Sales had hugged
the limelight recently with a number of record-breaking
figures posted on the board.
Round
Pound, the five-year-old daughter of Awesome Again out
of the Trempolino mare Gift of Dance, became the
highest-priced horse sold at the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky
November Select Mixed Sale when she was bought for $5.75
million (some P250 million) last weekend.
The last
year’s Breeders’ Cup Distaff champion which earned a
total of $1,998,700 after winning seven of her 13 career
races was taken by John Ferguson, Dubai’s Sheikh
Mohammed’s bloodstock manager, for the Jonabell Farms.
“Any
mare that wins a Breeders’ Cup is very special and a
mare by a top stallion out of a half-sister to three
group [or Grade] I winners is obviously a really top
prospect. Obviously, it’s a lot of money to pay, but if
you want to buy the best mares you have to bid more than
everybody else thinks they’re worth. We are collecting
an array of really exciting young horses at Jonabell—Street
Sense, Hard Spun and Discreet Cat—and obviously, Street
Cry has had a great start.
Sheikh
Mohammed is very committed to the American program. In
years gone by, maybe we were concentrating more on mares
that performed on the turf. But now, Darley and Jonabell
are a very, very important part of our future. Sheikh
Mohammed feels very strongly that we should support our
American breeding operation, which you can see from the
stud fees that he’s set that give everybody an
opportunity. In return, he’s buying top quality
bloodstock for those stallions. Mares like this will
help in the long run,” Ferguson was quoted as saying
right after the record purchase.
Two
horses have been sharing the record price before and
they are Grade I winner Riskaverse and I’ll Get Along,
the dam of champion and dual classic winner Smarty Jones
at $5 million. Riskaverse was sold in 2005 and I’ll Get
Along was sold in 2004 while in foal to Smarty Jones’s
sire Elusive Quality.
No, no,
no, the exciting stories at the Fasig-Tipton don’t stop
there. Here are the others which I condensed in order to
give you other more interesting stories in the world of
international horseracing:
Indy
Five Hundred, a seven-year-old Grade I-winning AP Indy
Mare which is in foal to Kingmambo, was purchased for
another mind-boggling $3 million (some P150 million,
right) during the opening bidding of the mixed sale in
Lexington. Ferguson, who’s Sheikh Mohammed’s
representative said: “She’s a beautiful mare, a Grade I
winner. Her mother (Lyphard’s Delta) won the Nassau
(Eng-II) and her mother (Proud Delta) was a champion, so
you’ve got three generations of real high performance.
Therefore, we feel this mare has a huge opportunity to
continue the excellent record of her family so far.
Obviously, she’s in foal to a horse that we’ve been
lucky with, and it’s a factor, but, ultimately, it’s the
mare we wanted.”
Records
showed that “Indy Five Hundred captured the 2003 Garden
City Breeders’ Cup Handicap and is a full sister to
Grade-III winner Delta Princess. William S. Farish’s
Lane’s End consigned the mare for Peter Minikes, who
purchased her as a yearling for $210,000 from Lane’s
End’s agent, at the 2001 Keeneland September sale. The
mare produced a War Chant colt last year and a Seeking
the Gold filly earlier this year.
The
wealthy owners of former champion horse Barbaro splurged
on a Grade-I winner recently when they bought Pussycat
Doll, a five-year-old daughter of Real Quiet who had won
several distinguished stakes races this year and last
year. “We’re just looking to upgrade broodmare-wise and
thought she had all the qualities we wanted, so we
thought we would try to buy her. We have looked at a
number of mares and thought she was one of the five or
six we wanted. She had nice conformation, and she was
the first one on our list.
We don’t
really know what we’ll do [race or retire her], but
she’ll be a broodmare for us eventually,” said Roy and
Gretchen Jackson.
The
six-year-old winner of the inaugural Breeders’ Cup Filly
& Mare Sprint, Maryfield, was purchased for a staggering
$1.25 million during the sales by the Southern Equine
Stables of Michael Moreno and trainer Eric Guillot.
Meanwhile, the 64th annual Keeneland November Breeding
Stock Sale will start today also in Lexington, Kentucky.
I was amazed to see that eight-book catalogue that were
sent to me by Amy Gregory last month and found out that
a total of 5,415 horses have been listed for the 15-day
auction, the largest of its kind in the world.
I
understand, the country will be represented in the said
sales by a big delegation of Filipino horsemen to be led
by several Philracom officials. Mares in-foal to 275
different stallions, including such established sires as
A. P. Indy, Awesome Again, Distorted Humor, Dynaformer,
El Prado (Ire), Elusive Quality, Empire Maker, Forestry,
Fusaichi Pegasus, Giant’s Causeway, Gone West, Kingmambo,
Mineshaft, Mr. Greeley, Pivotal (GB), Pulpit, Rahy,
Seeking the Gold, Smart Strike, Storm Cat, Street Cry
(Ire), Tale of the Cat, Theatrical (Ire), Thunder Gulch,
Unbridled’s Song and Vindication, among others, will be
offered.
Also
catalogued are mares in-foal to a number of first crop,
covering sires, including Aragorn (Ire), Bellamy Road,
Bernardini, Bluegrass Cat, First Samurai, Flower Alley
and Henny Hughes, among others.
The
November catalogue features weanlings by some of the
world’s top sires as well as promising young stallions.
Weanlings representing A.P. Indy, Awesome Again,
Distorted Humor, Dynaformer, Elusive Quality, Empire
Maker, Forestry, Fusaichi Pegasus, Giant’s Causeway,
Gone West, Kingmambo, Mr. Greeley, Posse, Pulpit, Rahy,
Smarty Jones, Street Cry (Ire), Unbridled’s Song and
Vindication will be offered.
Additionally, weanlings from the first crop of Afleet
Alex, Consolidator, Eddington, Eurosilver, Forest
Danger, Ghostzapper, Grand Reward, Kitten’s Joy,
Leroidesanimaux (Brz), Limehouse, Offlee Wild, Pollard’s
Vision, Powerscourt (GB), Purge, Rock Hard Ten, Roman
Ruler, Saint Liam and Value Plus, among others, are
catalogued.
Hey, I
haven’t given you the more exciting international news
yet. But we’ve already run out of space, huh! Better
give it to you on Friday. |
