HIP 123 De Kooning, a Muscle Hill colt consigned by Concord Stud Farm as agent for Order By Stable AB, got top honors in Monday's opening session of the Standardbred Horse Sale in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, after selling to Burke Racing Stable, Brixton Medical and Bud Hatfield for $600,000. The colt is a full brother to the likes of near $500,000 earner Kings County, and the family has been well-received in the past, with all four of the Muscle Hill offspring out of the dam (the Conway Hall mare Brooklyn) having fetched $210,000 or more. "Bud (Hatfield) and those guys thought it was the best trotting colt in the sale and Dr. Jablonsky loved him. They said buy him pretty much no matter what. They've had really good success buying off Order By Stable and Concord, so they like to go back to where they've done well," said Ron Burke after his father Mickey signed the ticket. "Bud, I know he really wants to win a Hambletonian. He's not getting any younger. He went out and he said that's the best colt, he wants it. I give those guys credit for stepping up and it'll be cool. It'll be something different. I'm used to pressure anyhow, so it doesn't bother me. "I actually thought he would bring more, so I was all right with it. They were prepared to go more, so I'm sure they're happy with the price they got, but Bud and them are happy with the price they gave." De Kooning was the latest Harrisburg sale topper for Concord Stud Farm, which Julie Meirs was delighted with after an up-and-down day up to that point. "It was a rollercoaster of a day, but in the end we came out and we're happy with the day. I wasn't sure where we were going to be, if we were going to be sale topper, but we are, which is awesome," she remarked "Especially with how soft it was starting, I wasn't sure what that final number was going to be."   While De Kooning was the highest-priced seller for Burke and company, trainer Andrew Harris and his owner William Pollock cleaned up the remainder of the top-five spots on Monday. Their biggest purchase was HIP 103 Voguish, a filly from the first crop of Gimpanzee consigned by Hunterton Sales Agency as agent. Voguish is a half-sister to Venerable, a Dan Patch Award winner and earner of over $1.1 million. "She's just royally-bred. Hopefully she works out to be a nice race horse, too," Harris said of Voguish. "Venerable is a nice mare. That's why she's worth so much as a broodmare on the other side. She's one of those ones where if you want those types, she's the one that's worth it because if something happens and it doesn't work out, you can breed her." Harris went to $500,000 to get HIP 155 Twin B Euchre, a Twinbrook Farms product who is a Bettor's Delight half-brother to Twin B Joe Fresh and also grabbed HIP 41 Hatfield and HIP 142 Penny Benjamin for $400,000 apiece. Hatfield, consigned by Concord Stud Farm, is a Cantab Hall full brother to T C I, now harness racing's all-time leading earner for a 2-year-old trotter, and Penny Benjamin, a Sweet Lou filly, is a half-sister to Breeders Crown Open Pace champion Bythemissal. "I think everybody likes the family. T C I has been an absolute creature, and his brother (Global Pandemic) was a great horse before he died," Harris said. "They were all Cantab Halls and they were all full brothers. He was a really good-looking colt. He was a touch skinnier than what T C I looked like, but other than that, he had no real major faults. If you're looking for a top trotter, he was one of the top trotters in the sale. "I thought the Cantab Hall would keep it a little bit lower, but T C I's got $1.4 million made, so I knew he'd have the attention of a lot of people." In regards to Penny Benjamin, Harris added, "To me she was the wow filly of the whole sale. Bythemissal has been a freak, she just looked the part, and nobody has to say anything more about Sweet Lous right now. I love the chrome on her and stuff like that. She's a gorgeous filly. Her video is unbelievable. I went and saw her at the farm and she was fantastic out there. She is just a really nice filly. "This was the one I wanted the most. If they said pick one, I would have picked her all day. I thought she'd go for about $425,000, which is a lot for a pacing filly, especially here. I was thrilled with that price, but it's still a lot of money." Harris also remarked that he was surprised at the price for Twin B Euchre, as he thought he'd bring around $300,000. Today's purchases for Harris and Pollock, which also included HIP 33 Millie May Hanover (a Hanover Shoe Farms-bred/consigned half-sister to 1:47 performer Mad Max Hanover and a full sister to multiple stakes winner Mirage Hanover, added to a number of big ticket buys at the Lexington Selected Yearling Sale. Harris said that he's looking forward to getting to work with his horses. "It's a great family. She had a sister named Mollop Hanover that was second in 1:48 4/5 at Lexington this year. She's a Betting Line and she did that. This is a Bettor's Delight," Harris offered about Millie May Hanover. "There's a little bit more depth there. I thought she was probably one of the better pacing fillies. I went a little bit over on her, but at the same time, if you want them you've got to pay for them. I had in my book $250,000. $50,000 extra, it's a lot to me, but it's not as much to (the owners). "The spring will be very busy. There will be a lot of late days training all these guys, but that's the fun part. There's a lot of dreams in here, and with what we bought, we should hit on something." ► Sign up for our FREE DRF Harness Digest Newsletter Jeff Snyder, who bought the sale topper Date Night Hanover for $600,000 last year, purchased two horses this time around, grabbing HIP 87 Royal Mission for $390,000 and HIP 24 Lorax Hanover for $300,000. Both by Chapter Seven, Royal Mission, a Concord-consigned filly who is a full sister to stakes winners Ahundreddollarbill, Slay and Royal Filly, and Lorax Hanover, a colt, is a Hanover-bred/consigned yearling out of world champion and millionaire Lifetime Pursuit. "We got what we wanted to get. We had two or three picked out with the help of Dr. Goodrow and Paula, my wife, and Michael, my son. (Royal Mission) was a little more than we expected it to be. We got a colt and a filly, and that's what we wanted to get," Snyder said. "We've had luck with Chapter Seven. The colt was dual-eligible, Kentucky and New York, and this one is New York. With the filly we could always fall back and get some residual value with the breeding. She's just a beautiful filly. We loved her. We fell in love by looking at her. "One of them we thought we underpaid. We were prepared to go more for the colt, and the filly went a lot higher than we thought it would go. We averaged out. She just was such a beautiful filly, and we've had luck with fillies, too. I didn't have any doubt, I just didn't think she'd sell for as high as she did." Snyder also provided an update on Date Night Hanover, who made the Breeders Crown 2-Year-Old Filly Trot final but went off-stride in that event. "We did well last year. We bought Date Night Hanover, and she turned out to be very good. She won the final of the Kentucky Sires Stakes, and we've pretty well got our money back basically," he noted. "She's earned over $300,000 so far, and she'll probably race in the Goldsmith Maid, that's the plan right now." As Meirs noted, the sale struggled out of the gate some, and although it did pick up noticeably, especially late, the session ended up down on average ($99,497 versus $119,491) and gross ($15,223,000 versus $19,716,000) year-over-year. "A good way to sum it up is putting that Monday catalog today is like doing artwork. Not everybody is going to like it. There were probably some things I would have done differently had I sat down and really hammered it out, but you try to keep everybody as happy as you can," said Standardbred Horse Sales Company President Dale Welk. "Our consignors had the opportunity to switch around and we did do some switching. Everybody up until now had a great buzz. There were a lot of great buyers here. They'll step up. It's going to come around." Welk did add that he's still optimistic about what lies ahead in the catalog and the mixed sale the remainder of the week. "There were soft spots, but there were great spots. The good horses people want. We have some great horses coming up. I'm looking forward to tomorrow. I think we'll get more back on track tomorrow," he stated. "There were some great horses bought at good prices today, so I think there should be a lot of happy buyers, and I know we've got some happy consignors. "Obviously there are several stallions that they've really gotten off of, and as I told a couple of consignors, we were talking this morning, there's been a lot that's happened just in the last month worldwide and economy-wide and everything else. I think there's still money here. I heard quite a few buyers today saying they can't wait until tomorrow. They didn't buy today, they're going to buy tomorrow. We've come off two great years. You've got to accept the fact that sooner or later it's going to happen. It's tough, but I think everybody understands what's going on and like I said, I'm still looking forward to the rest of the week and a great sale yet." The Standardbred Horse Sale resumes tomorrow with HIPs 161-516 on offer starting at 10 a.m. (EST). --quotes by Derick Giwner--