Palace Malice colt sells for $850,000

Palace Malice showed stamina, emerging from consistent classic sire Curlin’s first crop to win the 2013 Belmont Stakes. One year later, he showed brilliance, cutting back to the one-turn mile at Belmont Park to defeat Goldencents in the Metropolitan Handicap, considered a stallion-making race.

The market responded, as Palace Malice’s first crop of 2-year-olds now features an $850,000 colt sold at the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Co.’s March sale. The colt tied for the highest price for a juvenile from this strong freshman sire class, and the fourth-highest price of the sale.

Signing the ticket and giving his stamp of approval to the stallion’s offspring was bloodstock agent Mike Ryan, whose fingerprints have been on several classic winners and countless stakes winners in recent years. That group includes Palace Malice, whom Ryan purchased as a yearling for $25,000 on behalf of Dogwood Stable. He also bred this colt’s dam, the winning More Than Ready mare Miss Always Real. She is a full sister to stakes winner and producer More Than Real, whose biggest win came in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf.

Miss Always Real was purchased as a juvenile by Three Chimneys Farm, which stands Palace Malice and bred this colt. He was consigned by Pick View LLC, as agent, and was a successful pinhook after Marquee Bloodstock purchased him for $160,000 as a Keeneland September yearling.