Harness: Chapter Seven colt leads day three of Standardbred Horse Sale

The decision was not a hard one for Benoit Baillargeon when he saw Alarm Detector. “I like the whole package,” he said of the Chapter Seven – Final Countdown – Yankee Glide colt whose sales ticket he signed for $110,000, the day’s sales topper, at the Standardbred Horse Sale on Wednesday.

“There’s a guy (Bryan Montgomery) who put me on to him,” said Baillargeon. He said, ‘Ben, this is a very nice looking colt, you should go take a look at him. He knows I’m a trotting man. I buy mostly trotters all the time. He said you should go take a look at this horse.

“Bryan saw him raised, really, because he lives locally, near the farm (Concord Stud Farm, consignor for Order By Stable). He said he’d seen the horse grow up and he was a nice horse. So I looked at the horse, I looked at the video and he had a beautiful way of going and I said, ‘Well, let’s try to buy him.’

“I know all these horses (in his pedigree), it’s a good family. Trotters have been good to me; they’ve been bread and butter to me. I buy and race a lot of trotters, it’s good fit for me.

“He will head north, in Canada, no Florida for me. I’m at Ideal Training Center, about half an hour north of Mohawk. He will have the harness on him Monday.”

Russell Williams, Chairman of the Standardbred Horse Sale, was pleased with the virtual wrap up of the yearling portion of the sale. “It was the second best average we ever had,” he said. The top average came in 2007, when 1,048 yearlings sold for an average of $40,824. This year’s average was $38,662 for 866 yearlings.

“Very satisfying, particularly when you think of all the work that goes in to raising these horses. It’s really great that our consignors can have a pay day.”

Top ticket horses for the day included:

Hip #515 Photobomb Hanover (Explosive Matter – Phaeton) $65,000 filly to Purple Haze Stables - Hanover Shoe Farm

Hip # 590 Sweet Toujours (Mach Three – Sweet Hedge) $60,000 filly to Determination – Preferred Equine Marketing

Hip # 685 Muscle Miley (Muscle Mass – Bar Ballad) $60,000 filly to Bjorn Noren, Agent – Fair Winds Farm

Hip # 704 Brandon Hanover (Big Jim – Brissonte Hanover ) $60,000 colt to David Menary – Hanover She Farms

Hip # 723 Shadow Moon (Shadow Play – Lofty Yankee) $60,000 colt to Dr. Ian Moore – Spring Haven Farm

Hip # 759 Everyone Hanover (Sportswriter – Edra Hanover) $65,000 colt to Mark Steacy – Hanover Shoe Farms

Hip # 765 Western Passage (Sportswriter – Ever Western) $80,000 colt to Casie Coleman – Winbak Farm

The day’s offering of brought the three day total to 866 yearlings sold for an average $38,662 against $30,818 after three days in 2015 for 1,010 yearlings, and $32,903 in 2014 for 1,089 yearlings.

Trotters led the overall totals, bringing an average of $40,438 against $37,207 for pacers.

The sale resumes Thursday morning at 10 a.m., with a limited number of yearlings and weanlings selling first, then bloodstock. Friday’s sale features racehorses.

For more detailed results and a look at the catalog for the next two days, go to www.theblackbook.com.

--Courtesy of Harness Racing Communications, a division of the U.S. Trotting Association. For more information, please visit www.ustrotting.com--