Polan still ‘looking forward' after selling $1.7 million sale-topper

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Rosilyn Polan had no time to stay and accept more hugs in the back ring of the Keeneland sale pavilion. As she accepted congratulations while walking back across the sale grounds, her mind was already switching off the sale of the $1.7 million City of Light colt she bred, raised, and sent to the top of the leaderboard at the Keeneland September yearling sale and back to the horses waiting for dinner on her Sunday Morning Farm in Woodford County, including some still to come to the sale.

Celebrate? Polan planned to “clean stalls, turn out yearlings, clip ears, feed, go to bed early, get up, and ship tomorrow,” she said. “That’s the best part of it, is that it keeps you real.”

Polan established Sunday Morning Farm, a little less than a half-hour from Keeneland, some three decades ago with her late husband, Kenneth Ross. The farm is now home to eight mares, comprising a boutique broodmare band that is gaining a reputation. Even before Polan’s City of Light colt grabbed this week’s headlines, she was already getting a taste of the national spotlight this year thanks to graded stakes winner Wit, who she bred and raised.

Polan purchased the unraced Medaglia d’Oro mare Numero d’Oro for $175,000 at the 2017 Keeneland November breeding stock sale. The following spring, she bred the mare to multiple Grade 1 winner Practical Joke in his first season at Coolmore’s Ashford Stud. The resulting colt was purchased for $575,000 by Repole Stable and St. Elias Stable at the 2020 Keeneland September sale, with Gainesway later joining the partnership. It was Polan’s biggest sale to date, and she has now watched as Wit won his first two starts, including the Grade 3 Sanford Stakes, before most recently finishing second in the Grade 1 Hopeful Stakes.

Some seven months before Wit was sold, however, a colt was born who would nearly triple his price tag.

“He was the first foal born on my farm last year,” Polan said. “And from that minute, I knew he was special.”

This colt’s dam is the winning and stakes-placed Tapit mare Anchorage, who Polan privately acquired. She sent her to one of 2019’s most anticipated first-year stallions, Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile and Pegasus World Cup winner City of Light, who entered stud alongside his sire, Quality Road, at Lane’s End Farm.

“It was a no-brainer,” Polan said. “I booked sight unseen, because he wasn’t at the farm, he was at the racetrack.”

The rest is now in the Keeneland sale history books, as the colt blossomed into what new co-owner Bill Farish of Lane’s End called “a stunning individual” leading up to his turn in the sale ring on Wednesday during Keeneland September’s Book 2 opener. The Lane’s End-affiliated Woodford Racing, Mike Talla’s Talla Racing, and West Point Thoroughbreds teamed to buy the colt, who surpassed a $1.6 million Quality Road colt sold in Book 1 earlier this week as the September sale leader.

Anchorage delivered a filly from the first crop of multiple Grade 1 winner Omaha Beach this year, and is in foal to another Lane’s End first-year stallion, champion Game Winner. Meanwhile, Numero d’Oro delivered a City of Light colt early this year. She was bred to 2020 Horse of the Year Authentic – who, like Wit’s sire, Practical Joke, is a son of Into Mischief.

The youngsters in the pipeline give Polan even more to look forward to.

“I never have a bad day. I don’t,” the horsewoman said. “My horses . . . you know, there’s always challenges. There’s always death or sickness . . . but I’m always looking forward. They just fill me up. I’m still having fun.

“So now I’m going to have more fun.”