Bargain blue hen Special Me produces $1.2 million yearling

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Special Me is an aptly named broodmare. Not only is she in rare air as the dam of two Grade 1 winners, she also has produced a pair of Grade 2 winners to go with them. The special mare continued to knock it out of the park for her longtime residence, Craig and Carrie Brogden’s Machmer Hall, with a $1.2 million Into Mischief colt sold to Coolmore on Tuesday at Keeneland.

“I’m overwhelmed,” said Carrie Brogden, standing alongside her mother, Sandy Fubini. “I had no idea he was going to bring that much money. Personally, that is our most expensive yearling.”

The price was well beyond a reserve that Carrie Brogden said was in the $500,000 range for the Machmer Hall farm and sales operation in Paris, Ky.

“We are sellers and breeders,” she said. “We’re here to sell our horses.”

Carrie Brogden, a longtime professed fan of Unbridled’s Song mares, purchased the stallion’s Maryland-bred Special Me for $6,000 at the 2009 Keeneland January sale after the filly had gone unplaced in her three starts as a juvenile the prior year. She is now the dam of seven winners from eight starters, led by millionaire Gift Box, whose three graded stakes wins included the Grade 1 Santa Anita Handicap; Gina Romantica, winner of the Grade 1 Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup on the Keeneland turf; and Grade 2 winners Stonetastic and Special Forces.

“We’re never going to get another mare like her,” Brogden said.

Special Me, who is 17, delivered a Twirling Candy filly this year who is a full sister to Gift Box. It is yet to be determined if she will be retained for the Machmer Hall broodmare band or if she will be sold.

“It’ll be a hard decision whether she comes up here or not, because we can buy a lot of new broodmares for a million dollars,” Brogden said. Special Me “is tough as nails. She is in foal to Flightline right now, but we might have to send her back to Into Mischief after this.”

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