Smolens toast Kosmo's Buddy

Until last weekend, Kosmo's Buddy was the best Maryland-bred filly of her generation not to win a stakes.

Appropriately, she graduated to the rank of stakes winners with a hard-fought, 1 1/4-length victory against nine rivals in Monmouth Park's Crank It Up Stakes for 3-year-old fillies.

It was a thrilling moment for longtime Maryland horseman Arnold Smolen, who bred Kosmo's Buddy and owns her with his 39-year-old son, Adam.

And it also highlighted the steadily rising fortunes of her sire, Outflanker. Relocated to Maryland for the 2004 breeding season, Outflanker, standing at Maryland Stallion Station in Glyndon, has ranked as the state's second-leading sire in 2007 and in 2008.

Kosmo's Buddy is the third stakes winner to emerge from Outflanker's first Maryland-sired crop. With 50 registered foals in that group, he has plenty of opportunities to come.

Kosmo's Buddy - who is named for Adam Smolen's beloved dog, Kosmo - has been developed skillfully by Laurel Park-based trainer Tim Salzman and his father, John Salzman.

Arnold Smolen credits the Salzmans with devoting the same kind of care to his filly as they gave to their million-dollar-earner Xtra Heat, who won the Eclipse Award as the top 3-year-old filly of 2001.

Last year at 2, Kosmo's Buddy won 2 of her 7 starts while placing in three stakes, including thirds in both the Maryland Million Lassie and Maryland Juvenile Filly Championship Stakes. She was second or third in three stakes this season, two of them unrestricted.

In 15 career starts, Kosmo's Buddy has earned $160,185.

Smolen, a retired pharmacist who built and operated a chain of pharmacies in the Baltimore area, once maintained a sizable racing and breeding operation, but now has one horse in training.

Kosmo's Buddy is out of his only broodmare, Vaulted (by Allen's Prospect), whom Smolen claimed as a 4-year-old for $14,500 in January 1993.

Bred by the once-prominent Fourbros Stable (a partnership of brothers Bob and Tom Manfuso and Jeff and George Huguely), Vaulted is a daughter of Fourbros's homebred stakes winner Aube d'Or (by Medaille d'Or).

Vaulted made the bulk of her 48 starts for Smolen, placing in three stakes for him and continuing to race through the summer of her 6-year-old season.

Five of Vaulted's six earlier foals are winners, all except one raced by Smolen, but Kosmo's Buddy is her first stakes horse.

A bonus for Smolen is the opportunity to share Kosmo's Buddy's success with his son.

Adam Smolen, a financial advisor who is president of The Quantum Group LLC in Baltimore, purchased an interest in Kosmo's Buddy when she was a foal. She is the second horse he has owned.

Three years ago, Smolen also became a partner with his father in Vaulted. Together, the Smolens are looking forward to racing her younger foals: 2-year-old and yearling fillies by Bowman's Band and a weanling colt by Rock Slide.

Vaulted, boarded year round at Shamrock Farms in Woodbine, Md., is back in foal to Outflanker.

Maryland-breds sell at Fasig-Tipton

At last week's Fasig-Tipton Saratoga selected yearling sale, six of the seven Maryland-breds to go through the ring found buyers, all for six-figure prices and three bringing at least $225,000.

Topping the Maryland contingent were two fillies owned and bred by Cynthia and Charles McGinnes at their Thornmar farm in Chestertown. Each sold for $250,000 from the consignment of Marshall Silverman, agent.

Leading Maryland sire Not for Love was represented by Thornmar's filly out of stakes winner Taft Lil Queen (by Irish Open). A half-sister to the 2006 co-champion Maryland-bred 2-year-old male El Viento, a champion in Puerto Rico, that filly was purchased by Twin Creeks Racing.

Thornmar's other top seller is a daughter of Silver Deputy out of their noted homebred Georgia K. (by Horatius), dam of stakes winners Aggadan and Love You Madly. Marc Keller was the buyer.