Craig Lavin Bernick heralded a new era at Glen Hill Farm Wednesday when he bought a $700,000 Malibu Moon filly to lead the Keeneland September yearling sale’s fourth session in late afternoon. Bernick, 31, is the grandson of the Ocala farm’s founder, 90-year-old Leonard Lavin. The elder Lavin, also founder of the Alberto-Culver company, announced two years ago that he was handing the reins to Bernick.
Grade 3 winner Street Magician, a son of Street Cry, will enter stud in 2011 at Northview Stallion Station, the Chesapeake City, Md., farm announced Wednesday.
Glen Hill Farm president Craig Lavin Bernick raised the bar Wednesday at day four of Keeneland's two-week September yearling sale, paying $700,000 for Hip No. 658, a bay Malibu Moon filly out of Grade 3-placed Erhu, by Tactical Cat, giving the session a new leader by price.
The Keeneland September yearling sale got another seven-figure horse Tuesday when George Bolton jetted in from San Francisco and bid $1 million for a son of Smart Strike at the auction's first open session.
Suzie Picou-Oldham has joined Darby Dan Farm in Lexington, Ky., as a bloodstock associate to handle stallion nomination sales, farm owner John Phillips announced Tuesday.
Around the Keeneland sale grounds on Tuesday, consignors still seemed to be breathing a long sigh of relief that the two night sessions – an experimental format change for the Keeneland September sale – seemed to have paid off. Sellers hoped the momentum would carry over to the rest of the week, and, at least by late afternoon Tuesday it was holding up for the upper market. George Bolton, one of the partners in Horse of the Year Curlin, went to $1 million for another son of Curlin’s sire, Smart Strike.
The Keeneland September yearling sale's third session - and first non-select day - got off to a buoyant start Tuesday with four horses selling for more than $200,000 and a $500,000 early session leader. Trainer Bob Baffert, as agent, signed the receipt for the session leader, a $500,000 Stormy Atlantic colt from Gerry Dilger's Dromoland agency. Baffert did not disclose his client.
There was another seven-figure colt Monday night at the Keeneland September yearling sale's second and final select session. The $2.05 million son of Distorted Humor did not bring enough money to bump Sunday night's $4.2 million A. P. Indy colt from sale-leading position, but his price--to an anonymous group bidding under the name Flag Lake #2--gave auction-goers plenty to talk about.
Lane’s End stallion Kingmambo, sire of 1999 Belmont winner and 2000 champion older male Lemon Drop Kid, is unlikely to return to the breeding shed in 2011, farm owner Will Farish told the Blood-Horse.
As the bidding for Hip No. 14 escalated, even the jaded horse-traders in Keeneland’s sale pavilion craned their necks like kids at a circus to spot who, in this infamously lackluster economy, would bid more than $4 million, for a yearling?
