A colt by Bertrando sold for $50,000 to top Tuesday's northern California yearling sale in Pleasanton, helping the sale, in its second year, to establish increases in gross and average over last year. The median declined, however.
The sale-topping colt was consigned by River Edge Farm, agent, and was purchased by Super Horse Inc. He is out of the unraced Storm Cat mare Sweet Paradise. The colt's second dam is the California champion mare Bountiful Native.
Naevus, who ranked as Texas's leading active sire by lifetime progeny earnings, was euthanized last Friday because of complications from laminitis, according to officials with the Texas Thoroughbred Association. He was 25.
Naevus, based in Texas for the last 10 years, had lifetime progeny earnings of more than $21 million. The only Texas stallion with more progeny earnings is Sunny's Halo, said Denis Blake, a spokesman for the Texas Thoroughbred Association. Sunny's Halo died in 2003 and has progeny earnings of more than $25 million.
Fasig-Tipton's Saratoga preferred yearling sale, which enjoyed double-digit gains last year, ended Monday night with a jump in the median price but declines in the average price and gross receipts.
The buy-back rate also climbed sharply, rising from 38 percent last year to 43 percent.
LAS VEGAS - With the 2-year-olds out in force from coast to coast, nine freshman sires merit an "A" on their mid-season report cards. Four others are noteworthy enough to deserve a "B."
Grade A sires
* Songandaprayer: His offspring are showing the brilliant speed that characterized their sire and tail-male grandsire, Unbridled's Song. From 12 starters, he has 5 winners, including undefeated two-time stakes winner What a Song, as well as He's Got Grit, Praying for Cash, Stolen Prayer, and Golden Silk.
Owner John Fort has sold his promising juvenile filly India to her breeders, Frank and Jane Lyon, of Summer Wind Farm, for $2.05 million. The deal was finalized Monday, Fort said.
India, whom Fort purchased for $400,000 at last summer's Fasig-Tipton sale in Saratoga, will remain in the barn of trainer Todd Pletcher.
Eurosilver, a multiple graded stakes winner owned and bred by Buckram Oak Farm, has been retired after a hairline fracture was diagnosed in his left hind leg, his connections said Saturday.
Stallion plans have yet to be finalized, said Mohammed Moubarak, racing manager for Buckram Oak.
Eurosilver, 4, who won the Grade 2 Lane's End Breeders' Futurity in 2003 when trained by Nick Zito, suffered his injury when he finished sixth in the Grade 1 Whitney Handicap at Saratoga on Aug. 6. The injury was diagnosed at the Hagyard Equine Medical Institute in Lexington, Ky.
The New York Breeders' Sales Company's summer yearling sale ended Friday night in Saratoga with a $150,000 sale-topper but a 36-percent buy-back rate.
The two-night auction sold a total of 107 yearlings for $1,251,400, resulting in an average price of $11,695. The median price was $5,000.
The sale-topper at $150,000 was a Not for Love-Pentatonic filly that Dick Lossen bought from McMahon of Saratoga Thoroughbreds, agent, at Thursday night's opening session.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Audrey Haisfield, who races under the name of NeverTell Racing, will relocate the stallions Doneraile Court, Medaglia d'Oro, and Marquetry from John Sikura's Hill 'n' Dale Farms in Lexington, Ky., to open her own stallion division.
The NeverTell stallion division will be known as Stonewall Farm and be located in Midway, Ky. Haisfield has hired former Damara Farm manager Bert Welker to run the stallion operation.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - What would a select yearling auction be without a sale-topping colt by Storm Cat? The most commercially accepted stallion in the world, Storm Cat is prized around the world not only as a sire of a high percentage of top-class stakes horses but also as the most desirable sire of stallions.
So when a big, good-looking son of Storm Cat out of a Grade 1 winner comes up for auction, all the long-ball hitters in the sales game give the youngster a very close look.
