Unbridled Honor can give Pope a return on investment in Preakness

Mandy Pope has spent well over $50 million on broodmares for her Whisper Hill Farm operation in the last nine Novembers at Kentucky’s elite sales. The total purse of Saturday’s Preakness Stakes is $1 million, with $600,000 going to the winning connections. But a victory by Pope’s homebred Unbridled Honor would be priceless.

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Unbridled Honor, by Honor Code and out of Silvery Starlet, earned classics consideration when he finished second to King Fury in the Grade 3 Lexington Stakes on April 10 at Keeneland. The colt will mark the most significant involvement in the Triple Crown series yet for Pope, who is known for breeding and selling multiple Grade 1 winner Tizway. Pope is the breeder of one Kentucky Derby starter – 2007 ninth-place finisher Sam P., whom she sold as a yearling. She owned Mylute with business partner GoldMark Farm, which purchased the colt as a yearling; he was fifth in the 2013 Derby and third in the Preakness.

A little less than a decade ago, Pope decided to make major upgrades to her broodmare band the focus of her investments. She launched that campaign by landing Horse of the Year Havre de Grace for $10 million, a North American record for a broodmare prospect, at the 2012 Fasig-Tipton November mixed sale. Pope has spent $36.5 million on broodmares alone at that boutique auction since 2012, including two-time champion Songbird, who flirted with the record price when purchased for $9.5 million in 2017.

Meanwhile, across town at the Keeneland November breeding stock sale, the nation’s other marquee mixed auction, Pope has spent $21,105,000 in broodmares alone since 2012. That includes buying Kentucky Oaks winner Plum Pretty for $4.2 million in 2012; two-time champion Groupie Doll for $3.1 million in 2013; and Breeders’ Cup Ladies’ Classic winner Unrivaled Belle, dam of dual champion Unique Bella, for $3.8 million in 2018.

That staggering bankroll does not take into account Pope’s purchases of broodmares at other sales, or of weanlings and yearlings, mainly fillies, to bolster her band. Her high-ticket purchases of young horses included Silvery Starlet for $1 million at the 2011 Keeneland September yearling sale. The Unbridled’s Song filly hails from a regal pedigree, as she is a half-sister to Grade 1 winners Roman Ruler and El Corredor, Grade 3 winner Silver Tornado, and Grade 1-placed Maimonides.

Racing for Whisper Hill, Silvery Starlet won her debut in March 2014 at Gulfstream Park. Over the next two years, she managed a second and two thirds in allowance company at that track before retiring to Wayne and Cathy Sweezey’s Timber Town Farm, where Pope boards her broodmare band outside of Lexington, Ky. Barren in her first season when bred to War Front, the mare was sent to the court of Honor Code in 2017, when the champion son of A.P. Indy was in his second season at Lane’s End Farm.

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Silvery Starlet is the dam of an unnamed juvenile filly from the first crop of Horse of the Year Gun Runner, and an unnamed yearling Tapit colt. She delivered a Tapit filly on April 26 as foals from Pope’s stellar broodmare band continue to arrive. This year, Havre de Grace delivered a colt by Triple Crown winner Justify, while Plum Pretty had a filly by fellow Triple Crown winner and leading young sire American Pharoah. Songbird and Unrivaled Belle both had fillies by Tapit, with Unrivaled Belle’s daughter a full sister to Unique Bella.