Fasig-Tipton November: La Cloche sets bar early at $2.4 million

by Joe Nevills and Nicole Russo

Regally-bred graded stakes winner La Cloche set the bar high early at the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky fall selected mixed sale, selling for $2.4 million to Don Alberto Corp.

The 7-year-old Ghostzapper mare, offered in foal to leading sire Tapit, was consigned by her breeder Darby Dan Farm.

"She's a very, very good mare, good pedigree and in foal to Tapit," said Liliani Solari of of Don Alberto, which purchased the Vinery operation in 2013. "We can not go wrong with Tapit."

La Cloche was one of many outstanding runners from her immediate family, winning the Grade 3 Athenia Stakes and the Voodoo Dancer Stakes and finishing second in the Grade 3 Pucker Up Stakes. She earned $299,948. Retired to Darby Dan, she produced a Tapit filly this year before being bred back to the popular sire for 2015.

La Cloche is one of four stakes winners out of multiple Grade 1 winner Memories of Silver, along with Grade 1 winner Winter Memories and stakes winners British Blue and War Trace.

Winter Memories, a daughter of El Prado, earned $1.2 million in her career, highlighted by scores in the Diana Stakes and Garden City Stakes. She won five other stakes races. Winter Memories' first foal, a Street Cry colt, sold for $400,000 to Gainesway earlier in the evening to lead the weanling section at Fasig-Tipton.

“It’s a great family, out of a beautiful mare,” Darby Dan’s Renee Logan said of that colt. “He’s got a world of potential. At this point in time, I think he’s a bit gangly, but he’s going to absolutely grow into himself. He’s got all the right parts with a stunning pedigree. It could be a sire’s pedigree.”

Memories of Silver, a half sister to two stakes winners and several other stakes producers, is from an outstanding family cultivated by Darby Dan over multiple generations, through broodmares Java Moon and Golden Trail. Members of the extended family include champion Sunshine Forever; European champion, multiple Grade/Group 1 winner and stakes producer Ryafan; Canadian champion Rahy's Attorney; prominent sire Dynaformer; multiple Grade 1 winner and leading Japanese sire Brian's Time; Grade 1 winners To Honor and Serve and Angela Renee; Grade 1 winner V. E. Day; and Grade 1 winner and sire Offlee Wild, whose son Bayern captured the Breeders’ Cup Classic.

Shortly following La Cloche was Littleprincessemma, who sold for $2.1 million to Summer Wind Farm. The Yankee Gentleman mare sold carrying a Pioneerof the Nile foal that will be a full sibling to multiple Grade 1-winning juvenile American Pharoah.

La Cloche and Littleprincessemma were the highest-priced of six mares to sell for seven figures early in the racemare and broodmare section of the Fasig-Tipton November sale.