Breeder Stonestreet glad to remain invested in Good Magic

The fall of the hammer on a seven-figure auction purchase is usually where the breeder’s part in a horse’s story ends, but Barbara Banke’s Stonestreet Stables doesn’t always play by that narrative.

Banke has been a frequent partner with other major owners in the auction ring and on the racetrack. When the Stonestreet-bred Good Magic sold to bloodstock agent Mike Ryan on behalf of e Five Racing Thoroughbreds for $1 million at the 2016 Keeneland September yearling sale, it didn’t take long to open the lines of communication and go back in for a piece of the Curlin colt.

With an Eclipse Award, the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, and now the Grade 2 Blue Grass Stakes on Good Magic’s résumé, and a gate in the Kentucky Derby clinched, it’s clear Banke made the right call.

“I knew that I really didn’t want to sell this horse,” Banke said. “I’ve known Mike Ryan for a long time. He was the one who sold me Hot Dixie Chick, who was actually my first stakes-winning filly. Mike said, ‘Yes, we’d be interested and we’d like you to stay in.’ It was a perfect match.”

Ryan co-bred Hot Dixie Chick through his Santa Rosa Partners, and the filly sold to Banke’s Grace Stables for $435,000 at the 2009 Fasig-Tipton Florida select 2-year-olds in training sale. She was consigned at that sale by Niall Brennan Stables, a regular business partner with Ryan, and became a Grade 1 winner for Banke.

Ryan’s eye for horseflesh has been especially lauded over the past year. He co-bred last year’s Kentucky Derby winner Always Dreaming, and selected Preakness Stakes winner Cloud Computing at auction. He finished the 2017 season with a pair of Breeders’ Cup winners picked out for the Edwards family’s e Five Racing, with Good Magic winning the Juvenile and Rushing Fall taking the Juvenile Fillies Turf.

:: Get breeding & sales news, Beyer info, and more delivered right to your email!

Good Magic is out of the Grade 2-placed stakes-winning Hard Spun mare Glinda the Good, and he was identified by Ryan as the top yearling of the sale by Curlin, whose stock as a commercial sire was rising quickly. Not normally one to play in the seven-figure range, Ryan said bidding on the colt was a high-pressure situation, but he had the blessing of e Five’s Bob Edwards.

Said Ryan: “I was on the phone with him, and said, ‘Can you hear me, Bob?’ He said yeah, and I said, ‘You want to go again?’ He said, ‘Yeah, poke him again.’ He’s very trusting. He’s got a feel for it, and he knows when I really tell him we’ve got to get tied on, he’s got confidence in what we’re doing. He loves to play the game.”

Good Magic would be the first Kentucky Derby starter for e Five Racing, the nom de course for Bob and Kristin Edwards and their three children – Cassidy, Riley, and Delaney – who entered the Thoroughbred realm in 2015.

Stonestreet’s previous two Kentucky Derby starters were both campaigned in partnership. The champion Curlin ran third in in 2007 with Padua Stables, George Bolton, and Midnight Cry Stables, while Carpe Diem was run with WinStar Farm when he finished 10th in 2015.