Free Look, Malleymoo sell for $550,000 to top Fasig-Tipton July horses of racing age sale
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LEXINGTON, Ky. – Stakes-performing 3-year-old fillies Free Look and Malleymoo each sold for $550,000 to lead the way as the Fasig-Tipton July horses of racing age sale finished with strong results on Monday evening.
Fasig-Tipton, which also will host its single-day July yearling sale on Tuesday at its Newtown Paddocks headquarters, reported that 142 racehorses sold during Monday's sale for gross receipts of $13,982,000. The average price was $98,465, and the median was $62,500. The buyback rate was 16 percent.
All of those figures were improvements from their respective categories in the 2022 sale, with the average rising 17 percent and the median up 8 percent, showing a continued excitement to acquire active racehorses as the marquee summer meets prepare to open. Last year's racing age sale finished with 129 lots traded for a gross of $10,814,000, resulting in an average of $83,829 and median of $58,000. The buyback rate was 19 percent.
The year-to-year comparisons do come with one asterisk. The past two editions of this sale have also included small selections of breeding stock, and last year's offerings in that regard were jazzed up by the $150,000 sale of a lifetime breeding right to exciting young stallion Girvin.
Malleymoo was the first horse on Monday to break through the $500,000 ceiling, with bloodstock agent Steve Young winning the $550,000 bidding battle. Young was buying for an undisclosed client of trainer Todd Pletcher – as he was last year when purchasing the July sale-topping Kuchar for $500,000.
Malleymoo, by English Channel, was consigned by Gainesway as agent for her former racing ownership of Rockingham Ranch, David Bernsen, Talla Racing, and JWS Racing. The filly, who was stakes-placed last year, came to this sale off a front-running, half-length upset win in the Penn Oaks on June 2 at Penn National for trainer Jack Sisterson.
Later in the day, Free Look matched the top price when purchased by bloodstock agent Chad Schumer on behalf of Imad Al Sagar's Blue Diamond Stud.
"Delighted to add this high-performing daughter of top broodmare sire Tapit to our American-based band," Blue Diamond wrote in a statement.
In addition to being by Tapit, whose representatives as a broodmare sire include Belmont Stakes winner Arcangelo, Kentucky Oaks winner Pretty Mischievous, and multiple Grade 1 winner Cody’s Wish, Free Look is out of a full sister to Grade 1 winner and sire Violence, from a prolific female family that includes champion Sky Beauty and others. She became one of the latest stakes performers from the family when finishing second by three-quarters of a length in the Grade 2 Miss Grillo Stakes last fall at Aqueduct before finishing a troubled fifth in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf. Most recently, she was third in an allowance/optional-claiming race in May at Belmont in her second start off a long layoff for Chad Brown. Elite Sales consigned the filly on Monday as agent for Klaravich Stables.
The last horse through the ring on Monday, Crypto Mo, also reached the half-million mark, selling for $500,000 to Hunter Valley Farm. The 3-year-old Mohaymen filly was supplemented to the sale on Sunday evening, following her two-length victory the day prior in the Grade 3 Iowa Oaks.
Fasig-Tipton president Boyd Browning Jr. noted that a similar scenario unfolded two years ago when Stilleto Boy sold for $420,000 at this sale.
“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 consecutive races since stretching out to two turns this year, 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. The filly was consigned by Taylor Made Sales on behalf of a partnership that includes trainer Travis Murphy.
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