Fasig-Tipton July sale: Pope acquires Bellamy Road colt for $420,000

A Bellamy Road colt became the second highest-priced horse through the first six hours of the Fasig-Tipton July yearling sale Monday at the Newtown Paddocks in Lexington, Ky., as Mandy Pope of Whisper Hill Farm signed the ticket at $420,000.

Consigned by Gainesway, agent, the colt checked in just behind the sale-leading $460,000 Desert Party filly.

“He is just an extreme athlete,” Pope said. “He was always poised, he did everything the same every time. He came out of the stall, walked up and down and never had any hiccups. He’s got such fluid movement, and a long stride – hopefully what makes a Derby horse.”

Out of the stakes-winning Affirmed mare Affirmed Dancer, who is the dam of five winners from five starters, the colt is a half-brother to Grade 3 winner La Gran Bailadora and stakes-placed winners Fun in D’Sun and Affirmed Cat. It is the family of Canadian champions Victorian Prince and Woolloomooloo.

“He’s a great prospect, a wonderful colt,” said Michael Hernon, director of sales at Gainesway. “All class, great temperament. He’s big and bold, he’s balanced and correct, he moved well, and he found himself onto all the buyers’ major lists here.”

The colt’s price made him by far the most expensive prospect out of Affirmed Dancer to sell, surpassing the $190,000 fetched by the mare’s U S Ranger colt as a weanling at the 2011 Keeneland November breeding stock sale.

“The price was very exciting,” Hernon said. “It was way beyond our reserve. It did exceed our expectations a little, but we felt going in that he was a breakout horse.”