Awesome Feather will have steep reserve for Sunday's Fasig-Tipton sale

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - It won’t be long into Sunday’s Fasig-Tipton November breeding stock sale where the future of Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies winner Awesome Feather will be decided.

Awesome Feather is hip No. 10 in the sale that starts at 4 p.m. Eastern in the Newtown Paddocks in Lexington, Ky.

Awesome Feather completed a perfect 6-for-6 campaign Saturday with a 1 3/4-length victory in the $2 million Juvenile Fillies, a win that should clinch an Eclipse Award for her as the nation’s top 2-year-old filly.

Fred Brei, the owner and breeder of Awesome Feather, said he will set a high reserve on Awesome Feather, a figure he wouldn’t reveal Saturday morning and one he said that he’s not even sure of yet. As an active breeder who said he’s been on hand for the foaling of nearly 200 foals at his farm over the last 14 years, Brei is less interested in traveling around the country running Awesome Feather in the races she should be running in next year.

“When you do [the breeding] side of it and you enjoy it then we go to south Florida and we race in Miami,” Brei said. “The thought of me now sending her to a trainer in New York or California next year so she can run in the graded races just doesn’t fit me. It’s not what I want to do or like to do. Let somebody else own her and take her to those venues.”

However, Brei said if the filly fails to sell Sunday, he would take her back to south Florida, run her in the major races for 3-year-old fillies at Gulfstream next year before sending her to another trainer for the spring and summer races.

“If she goes home, she goes home,” Brei said. “Then we’ll figure it out where to send her after the Gulfstream races are over.”

Stanley Gold, who trains Awesome Feather, said if the filly was sold he’d be interested in talking to the new owner about keeping her in his barn at Calder.

“I’d certainly be willing to listen to what they had to say,” said Gold, who added he will be as curious as everybody else whether Awesome Feather is sold or not.
Gold said Awesome Feather came out of the Juvenile Fillies “with more gas in the tank.” Gold, 62, said the win was extremely gratifying to him.

“The best you can hope for is bring them over there a hundred percent and get a hundred percent and you’re either beaten by better horses or you’re not,” said Gold, who has 20 horses based at Calder. “She overcame not the best trip in the stretch. It’s very satisfying, like the completion of a job well done. It doesn’t happen that often.”