Malibu Moon filly brings $700,000 at Keeneland

Glen Hill Farm president Craig Lavin Bernick raised the bar Wednesday at day four of Keeneland's two-week September yearling sale.

Bernick paid $700,000 for Hip No. 658, a bay Malibu Moon filly out of Grade 3-placed Erhu, by Tactical Cat, giving the session a new leader by price.

Mr. and Mrs. Jody Huckabay's Elm Tree Farm agency consigned the filly.

"I've missed on a couple, but I didn't like any of them physically as much as I liked her," said Bernick, 31, who took over leadership at the Ocala farm from his grandfather Leonard Lavin in 2008. "I wish she had a little more pedigree, but Malibu Moon has just now started getting bred to his best mares. If you look at his Grade 1 winners, very few of them had huge pedigrees, so I wouldn't worry about the pedigree.

"We've always loved Malibu Moon," he added.

The Malibu Moon filly's price knocked off the previous sale-leader, the Mill Ridge agency's Dynaformer-Ensenada colt, who just moments earlier had brought a $500,000 bid from Sheikh Hamdan al-Maktoum's Shadwell Estate Co. The dark bay or brown colt, a May 10 foal, is out of a stakes-placed Seeking the Gold mare that also is out of Breeders' Cup Sprint winner Desert Stormer.