Sponsored content: Keeneland Hidden Gems - Serengeti Empress

Million-dollar horses always grab the headlines at the Keeneland sales, but there are a wealth of “Hidden Gems” mined every year by astute buyers for much lower prices. This new series from Daily Racing Form and Keeneland will focus on those future graded winners who sold for less than $100,000.

A few days after winning the Kentucky Oaks with Keeneland September graduate Serengeti Empress, owner Joel Politi reported he was “going to stay floating for a while.”

That lightness of being in the Oaks winner’s circle at Churchill Downs was possible only after pounding the pavement throughout the Keeneland September yearling sale. It’s been a recurring theme the past three years.

Abel Tasman, the 2017 Oaks heroine, passed through the ring early in Session 4 at the 2015 September sale. A year later, Hip No. 1611, a Tapizar filly eventually named Monomoy Girl, sold for $100,000 on Day 6 at the sale.

Politi and his adviser/trainer Tom Amoss had to dig a little deeper in the catalog to find their lilies filly. Serengeti Empress was cataloged as Hip No. 2471, 43 hips into Day 8 of the 2017 September auction.

The filly by Alternation first sold as a weanling at Keeneland November, also on Day 8, where she was snapped up out of the Taylor Made consignment for $25,000. The ticket was signed by Dixon Enterprises, nom de plume for a pinhooking partnership formed by the Seitz Family’s Brookdale Farm and J.R. Ward.

“Serengeti Empress always seemed to be a very good mover, built like a tank and had a great mind,” noted Brookdale Farm’s Fred Seitz Jr. “I think that plays a big role in some horses’ success as things can come easier to them when they have the mind to handle it.”

Ten months later, her physicality and attitude attracted the attention of Politi and veteran horseman Amoss, and they pulled the trigger for $70,000.

The bay filly banked $18,000 in her debut romp at Indiana Downs on July 4. By mid-August, she had made back her purchase price with a 13 1/2-length score in the Ellis Park Debutante. A month later, Serengeti Empress signaled she was something special, winning the Grade 2 Pocahontas Stakes by a pole at Churchill Downs. Her current earnings stand at just more than $1 million, and her value as a broodmare is likely in seven figures.

Dixon Enterprises has remained tied into the fortunes of Serengeti Empress, thanks to Keeneland’s September Sale Bonus program that awards as much as $10,000 for graded stakes victories by September sale alumni. The partnership earned $7,500 for her Grade 2 victory in the Pocahontas, and there’s another $2,500 check in the mail for the Oaks.

“We got a check from Keeneland a while back for her first graded win,” Seitz said. “But it is very nice to know that there is a decent chunk of change coming our way again.”

Money is often a secondary consideration in one of the world’s most prestigious races, but it certainly spends better than euphoria. Serengeti Empress proved once again that you can earn an abundance of both with a September graduate, no matter the final hammer price.