Buyers show increased interest in New York-breds

Hopes for New York-bred sales yearlings are high this year, now Aqueduct’s gaming machines are due to push $40 million into New York’s purses and another $6 million into its statebred fund.

Fasig-Tipton’s Saratoga select sale cataloged eight yearlings bred in the Empire State, and those generally fared reasonably well. Hip No. 54, a Medaglia d’Oro-Summer Flash colt from the family of champion Stevie Wonderboy, was the most successful sale by hammer price. Gallagher’s Stud consigned him through the Denali Stud agency and received $500,000 for him from Sheikh Mohammed al Maktoum. But another Gallagher consignee, an Awesome Again-Hostess colt, was a $70,000 buyback.

Pinhooker David Scanlon signed for a $285,000 Street Boss-Open Window filly that Wood Edge Farm consigned, saying he intended the filly to be a resale prospect for next spring’s juvenile sales. Live Oak Plantation picked up the Taylor Made Sales Agency’s Kitten’s Joy-Caterette colt for $155,000. Two other New York-bred yearlings sold for $150,000 each. They were Avandelle Farm’s Bluegrass Cat-Silence Please colt, a half-brother to recent Grade 3-placed Brigand, who went to Robert Castro, and a colt by first-crop sire Big Brown out of La Femme Galante that the Three Chimneys agency sold to William Schettine.

But a pair of Hard Spun yearlings failed to reach their reserves. Saratoga Glen’s colt out of Sugarkey went home on a $110,000 hammer price, and Legend Land Farm’s daughter of Argentina was unsold at $20,000.

All told, the five New York-bred yearlings who found buyers brought a $1,240,000 gross and a $248,000 average price.

◗ Saratoga and Kentucky consignor John Stuart of Bluegrass Thoroughbred Services has announced his engagement to Ms. Douglas Wise of Virginia, a new Thoroughbred owner and joint-Master of Fox Hounds at Virginia’s Old Dominion Hunt. The couple, who met three years ago at Saratoga, will wed on Oct. 1 in Prouts Neck, Maine, and will reside in Lexington, Ky., and Warrenton, Va. Stuart will continue to operate Bluegrass Thoroughbred Services out of central Kentucky.