Fasig-Tipton July sale: Wounded Warrior Stables buys Tapit colt for $375,000

A colt by popular commercial sire Tapit sold for $375,000 to owner Chip McEwen’s Wounded Warrior Stables on Monday at the Fasig-Tipton July yearling sale.

Consigned by Gainesway, as agent, the colt is out of the winning Tale of the Cat mare Sunny Morning, whose first starter is the winning 3-year-old Mudflats, by Tapit.

Sunny Morning is a half sister to stakes winner Langston and stakes placed Mississippi Madam. It is the family of Italian champion Dyreen and of Grade 2-winning millionaire Gander.

“He looks like an athlete,” said Danzel Brendemuehl, who signed the ticket for McEwen. “I think that we wanted him for a lot less, but we stayed fighting, and with [McEwen] on the phone, I got a little braver.”

The colt was bred in Kentucky by Gainesway, which also stands sire Tapit at its Lexington, Ky. farm. Monday’s sale price makes the colt the most expensive foal out of his dam. The colt ranked as the second highest-price through midafternoon Monday at Fasig-Tipton – behind a $460,000 Desert Party filly sold to Nat Rea’s Regis Farm – and was the second price of this sale to eclipse last year’s sale-topping $375,000 Malibu Moon colt.

McEwan’s Wounded Warrior Stables, also an active buyer in this year’s 2-year-old market, donates 10 percent of each of its horses’ purse or sale earnings to the Wounded Warrior Project and other organizations to assist veterans and their families. The stable’s horses are trained by Gary Contessa and Eoin Harty.

“He’s a great sportsman, a real hero for the Wounded Warrior program,” Brendemuehl said about McEwan.