Hip 296, Tiznow colt bred by Avanti Stables, brought highest price for New York-bred at Fasig-Tipton Midlantic sale on bid of $375,000. Photos by Z/Fasig-Tipton Photo.
By Tom Law
Eleven New York-breds, including a colt that brought the seventh most expensive price, sold for six figures at the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic 2-year-olds in training sale that ended Tuesday in Timonium, Md.
Southern California-based trainer Ron Ellis, acting as an agent, landed the top-priced New York-bred, going to $375,000 to buy Hip 296, a colt by Tiznow out of the Tale of the Cat mare Tanglewood Tale.
Bred by Mario and Dawn Martinez’s Avanti Stable and raised at their farm in Greenfield Center just outside Saratoga Springs, the colt was consigned by Bobby Dodd, agent. He originally sold for $130,000 out of the Paramount Sales consignment to Grand Oaks at last year’s Fasig-Tipton Saratoga New York-bred yearling sale.
Mario Martinez followed the action Tuesday and the price for the colt didn’t surprise him a bit.
“I was expecting it,” he said. “He was a very good natured horse, very sweet. Easy to handle and turned into a real gentleman as he grew up.”
The Tiznow colt, foaled at Song Hill Thoroughbreds in Mechanicville and a half brother to the winning Union Rags colt Tale of the Union who brought $925,000 at the 2018 Fasig-Tipton Midlantic May sale, helped spark strong sales for New York-breds in Maryland.
Fasig-Tipton reported sales on 70 of the 85 New York-breds offered for $3,880,500, an average price of $55,436 and median price of $32,500. The RNA rate for New York-breds came in at a low 17.6 percent.
Overall, 303 horses sold for $23,572,500, an average price of $77,797 and a median price of $40,000. Fasig-Tipton did not compare this year’s sale to last year because of the shift in dates for the annual auction from mid-May to late June due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Avanti also bred Tale of the Union, a winner in his debut last August at Del Mar for Bob Baffert and owner Michael Lund Petersen. He’s run twice since, finishing seventh in a Santa Anita Park optional claimer May 15 and third in his return to his home state in a New York-bred allowance at Belmont Park June 6.
Tanglewood Tale also produced six-time winner Big Thicket, a now 5-year-old gelding by Union Rags who sold for $70,000 at the 2016 Saratoga New York-bred sale and Price Target, a 3-year-old Lemond Drop Kid colt who brought $150,000 at the same auction in 2018.
Not bred in 2020, Tanglewood Tale is the dam of a yearling filly by Union Rags named Tiffany Tale and a weanling colt by Candy Ride.
“I have two mares, Tanglewood Tale and the other Speightful Lady, that both produce terrific offspring,” Martinez said. “This year we decided not to sell, we’re keeping the offspring from Tanglewood Tale. … When Fasig-Tipton canceled the sales (in Saratoga) it was a good time to not sell anyway.”
The second day of the sale also saw Speedway Stable go to $325,000 to buy the top-priced New York-bred filly, a daughter of American Pharoah out of the Any Given Saturday mare Choice Pearl.
Bred by Martin Zaretsky’s Pine Ridge Stables Ltd., the filly originally sold for $75,000 to Gulfstream Gallop LLC/Kirkwood, agent, at the 2019 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky October yearling sale. Kip Elser’s Kirkwood Stables also sold the filly at the Midlantic sale.
