LEXINGTON, Ky. - The results of this week's Keeneland April sale of 2-year-olds in training emphasized once again that quality brings money, as the sale's top lot at $1.05 million was a grand bay colt by Kentucky Derby winner Fusaichi Pegasus out of a stakes-winning daughter of the highly successful sire A.P. Indy.
The decisions that yielded the sale-topping colt at Keeneland were put in motion by breeder Chester Broman, who bred the colt in New York at Chestertown Farm.
ARCADIA, Calif. - In May 2004, breeders John and Diane Fradkin were optimistic that they owned the sale topper for the Barretts May sale of 2-year-olds in training. Their Avenue of Flags filly had impressed consignor Mary Knight before the sale. All that was needed was a quick presale workout to impress buyers.
The Ocala Breeders' Sales Company's spring sale of 2-year-olds in training begins on Tuesday, and there are a slew of stallions in this sale who have first crops racing this year. For stallion owners, the wait until the first offspring of a stallion wins his maiden can be a time of angst. Not so for those at Hidden Point Farm, owner of the stallion Three Wonders, or McKathan Farm, owner of Gibson County. Both stallions had their first runners in April, and both sired a winner.
New York stallions Catienus and Rizzi are represented by a collective 25 young horses cataloged for the Ocala Breeders' Sales Company spring 2-year-olds in training sale, scheduled for Tuesday through Friday.
More than 100 statebreds are set for the auction, which also includes juveniles by New York sires such as Freud, Millennium Wind, Prime Timber, Thunderello, Tomorrows Cat, and Wheelaway.
Catienus, who stands at Highcliff Farm in Delanson, N.Y., has 13 in the catalog, including six New York-breds.
Maryland-bred Point Determined, considered among the leading prospects for this year's Kentucky Derby, sought to make a big impression almost from the day he was born, according to his co-breeder Milton Higgins.
"He was a plain brown colt," said Higgins, who with his longtime partner, Tom Bowman, bred the son of Point Given in a foal-sharing arrangement with Three Chimneys Farm owner Robert Clay.
"But he had a way of making you look at him when he was turned out in the field as a youngster. He liked to be the center of attention."
LEXINGTON, Ky. - Australia's Inglis Easter sale got the select yearling auction season off to a promising start this week. The three-day sale in Newmarket, Sydney, broke records for top price, top filly price, gross receipts, and average price.
The sale-topper, a $3 million Australian Redoute's Choice-Deja Slew colt, soared past the previous Australian yearling record of $2.5 million Australian, set at this sale in 2005. Trainer Charles Laird bought the colt from Yarraman Park's consignment. In American currency, the colt's record price was approximately $2,240,849.
Two colts by Redoute's Choice - including one who sold for an Australian record $3 million - gave consignor Arthur Mitchell "the best 24 hours of my life" Wednesday at the Inglis Easter yearling sale in Australia.
Mitchell sold a son of the Slew o' Gold mare Deja Slew to South African trainer Charles Laird for the record sum of $3 million Australian, or about $2,240,849 U.S. That beat the record of $2.5 million Australian set at the Inglis Easter sale in 2005. The colt is a half-brother to two Australian stakes-placed runners, Bull Market and Top Slice.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - The select juvenile market, which saw a $16 million Forestry colt set a world record auction price in February, ended on a less flashy note Tuesday at Keeneland's 2-year-olds in training sale. Despite a strong campaign by Keeneland officials to bring buyers to the pavilion from around the world, prices generally did not keep pace with consignors' hopes. But the sale produced gains overall.
LAS VEGAS - Last call for the Derby. The Lexington Stakes, run at 1 1/16 miles this Saturday at Keeneland, is the last opportunity for 3-year-olds who need graded earnings to get a berth in the Kentucky Derby. While the top contenders are finished with their preps, the Lexington could yield some Derby hopefuls, and the race has played a key role in past Derbies.
