Crypto Mo pays dividends with Grade 3 win, $500K sale

Crypto Mo’s connections continued to cash in on her two-length victory in last Saturday’s Grade 3 Iowa Oaks this week at Fasig-Tipton. Supplemented to Monday night’s horses of racing age sale by her ownership partnership that included trainer Travis Murphy, the Mohaymen filly sold for $500,000 to Hunter Valley Farm, in partnership with Qatar Racing. She will be trained by Brad Cox.

Fasig-Tipton president Boyd Browning Jr. noted that a similar scenario unfolded two years ago when Stilleto Boy sold for $420,000 shortly after winning the Iowa Derby.

“She is a ready-to-go, graded stakes-winning 3-year-old filly with a lot of racing opportunities ahead of her,” Browning said. “She has a similar profile to Stilleto Boy, who came into this sale off a win in the Iowa Derby a couple years back and is now a Grade 1 winner of $1.8 million.”

Crypto Mo has won three straight since stretching out to two turns, with a 17 3/4-length allowance score followed by wins in the Panthera Stakes and Iowa Oaks, the latter with a career-high 90 Beyer Speed Figure.

Elite Sales wades into July sale

Elite Sales, the consignment operation of Liz Crow and Bradley Weisbord, offered its first yearling draft at the Fasig-Tipton July sale. Two of its three offerings, all by first-crop sires, sold, with Lothenbach Stables going to $125,000 for a Spun to Run colt and trainer Kenny McPeek signing the ticket on a $110,000 Global Campaign filly.

Elite, which launched in the summer of 2017, has been focused on boutique consignments of high-end breeding and racing stock, and is among the upper echelon of consignors in that regard. In just six years, the outfit has consigned 21 fillies or mares for seven-figure prices.

Crow is a prominent yearling-purchasing agent, and Weisbord indicated that her expertise with the marketplace is a major asset for Elite’s clients. Elite also hired Beth Bayer, former director of sales for Woodford Thoroughbreds, to run the day-to-day consignment.

“The move into yearlings has been long-planned,” Weisbord said. “Liz and I have some of our own homebreds we will sell, we will sell for our existing clients, and we hope to add some large breeding farms into the mix.”

Elite has a four-horse consignment in its first Saratoga yearling sale. Meanwhile, the operation sold 35 of its 37 horses at Fasig-Tipton’s horses of racing age sale on Monday, led by co-sale-topping Free Look.

Saratoga catalog released

On the heels of hosting the first yearling sale of the season, Fasig-Tipton released the catalog for its high-end Saratoga selected yearling sale, set for Aug. 7-8.

The catalog of 235 includes a Curlin colt out of Hall of Fame racemare Beholder, the dam of a stakes winner this year in Teena Ella. The catalog also includes half or full siblings to Eclipse Award champions Caledonia Road, Improbable, and Shamrock Rose and Grade 1 winners Casa Creed, Count Again, Hunter O’Riley, Leofric, Nickname, Pizza Bianca, Princess of Sylmar, Ransom the Moon, Rock Fall, Silver State, Sippican Harbor, and Verrazano; and yearlings out of Grade 1 winners Icon Project, Paola Queen, Rachel’s Valentina, Separationofpowers, and Yellow Agate.

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