Flaw doesn't deter buyer from plunking down $250K

One of the pedigree highlights of the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga select yearling sale was a half-brother to Belmont Stakes winner Tapwrit who sold to bloodstock agent Mike Ryan for $250,000.

The Speightstown colt, consigned by Denali Stud, will race for a partnership that was still forming after the drop of the hammer. Ryan said the colt did not fall into the typical frame of conformation, but it was something he was happy to overlook.

“I knew he had a titch of a roach back, but I loved him,” Ryan said, describing a condition where the curve of a horse's topline is unusually high. “The last good horse I saw with a roach back was Tonalist, and that didn’t stop him a little bit.

“I’ve seen horses run with roach backs, sway backs,” he added. “When you put a saddle on them, you can’t see it.”

The colt is out of the Grade 1-winning Successful Appeal mare Appealing Zophie, who had her first auction breakthrough in 2015 when Tapwrit sold to Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners, Bridlewood Farm, and Robert LaPenta for $1.2 million at the Saratoga sale.

Earlier this year, Ride a Comet, a Candy Ride colt out of Appealing Zophie, sold to John Oxley for $375,000 at the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Co. spring sale of 2-year-olds in training.

Tapwrit, Ride a Comet, and the Speightstown colt were all bred in Kentucky by the Riggio family’s My Meadowview.

“We’ll take him down to Stonestreet and break him and see how he does,” Ryan said about his new purchase. “He’s bred to be a dirt horse, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he was quick enough and had the action to run on the turf. We’ll just see, but hopefully he’ll be a summer 2-year-old next year.

“He’s a real Speightstown,” Ryan added. “Seven furlongs to a mile is probably going to be his optimum, but I loved him.”