Hip 6, a New York-bred colt from the first crop of Cupid, sells for $160,000 to highlight opening session of Fasig-Tipton Midlantic fall yearling sale. Fasig-Tipton Photo.
By Tom Law and Joe Clancy
Fasig-Tipton’s Midlantic fall yearling sale got off to a quick start Monday afternoon thanks to a pair of New York-breds bringing six-figure bids in the opening minutes.
The fourth yearling through the ring, a colt from the first crop of Tapit’s Grade 1-winning son Cupid, wound up topping not only the opening segment for New York-breds but the entire first session on a bid of $160,000 from the Minnesota-based Xtreme Racing Stables LLC. Sold as Hip 4, the colt out of the Stravinsky mare Gottah Penny was bred by Christopher Shelli and Caliburn Farm and foaled at Shelli’s Fort Christopher’s Thoroughbreds in Fort Edward.
Alan Quartucci bought the colt as a weanling for $52,000 at last year’s Fasig-Tipton Saratoga fall mixed sale and he was consigned by Eaton Sales.
Reiley McDonald of Eaton Sales specifically targeted the sale in Timonium for the session topper, liking the extra time with the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga New York-bred yearling sale off the table. He also opted to not sell the colt in Fasig-Tipton’s Select Yearling Showcase or the Keeneland September sale.
“He needed time,” McDonald said. “Then we did not want to be up against it early in the Fasig-Tipton (Kentucky) sale and we didn’t want to crack the yearling market in September. We just thought he’d be a standout here and we thought we’d get some New York trainers and they’ve been here.
“He’s a nice horse. I’ve had him on the farm since Alan bought him. He was a dumpy, little horse back in March and he just stretched and got longer and turned inside out around June, July and we thought he would be a standout here and he was. He is pretty. He just grew up and became a pretty horse.”
The Cupid colt, and another that sold two hips later, helped lead the New York-bred segment of the latest stop on the shifted and altered late summer and early fall yearling sales calendar.
Fasig-Tipton reported sales on 88 of the 119 New York-breds offered on Day 1 of the sale in Timonium, Md., for total receipts of $2,279,600. The average price for New York-breds Monday came in at $25,905 with a median of $19,000 and low buyback rate of 26 percent.
Matt Cutair’s Cutair Racing, with Joe Migliore handling the bidding from the back ring, landed the second most expensive New York-bred of the day when it went to $120,000 for Hip 6, a filly by Overanalyze and half-sister to recent Grade 2 Vosburgh Stakes runner-up and 2020 stakes winner Funny Guy.
Funny Guy, an earner of $553,145, won the John Morrissey Handicap this summer and the 2019 Albany Stakes at Saratoga for trainer John Terranova. The session-topping filly is out of the stakes-winning Distorted Humor mare Heavenly Humor, who is also the dam of stakes winner Super Humor, stakes-placed Three Jokers and five other winners. Each of her eight foals of racing age are winners.
Jon Taisey’s Hibiscus Stables bred and sold the filly, who was born at Waldorf Farm in North Chatham.
“She was going to sell at Saratoga originally,” Taisey said. “I think (the later date) probably helped us a little bit. We got a couple good updates. Her brother Funny Guy was fourth the Forego in that crazy rainstorm at Saratoga and he ran second in the Vosburgh two weeks ago. I think it helped us but down in Timonium compared to the money that’s in Saratoga at that sale it might have evened itself out at the end of the day.”
Hibiscus bought Heavenly Humor for $25,000 at the 2015 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga fall mixed sale, carrying Funny Guy. They later sold Funny Guy for $10,000 and Three Jokers for $50,000. The Overanalyze filly was foaled at Waldorf Farm in Chatham.
“She’s a great horse, she vetted perfect, scoped perfect, has a really good head on her shoulders,” Taisey said. “I wish she was a little bit bigger at this point in time, but we sold Funny Guy down here at the same sale three years ago now and we were lucky to get $10,000 for him then. They brought him back to the OBS sale and he brought 45 so it goes to show you that even with all the horsemen in the world nobody has a crystal ball.”
Sackatoga Stable, which campaigns New York-bred Belmont and Travers Stakes winner Tiz the Law, purchased two of the six most expensive state-bred yearlings in the opening session. Barclay Tagg, who trains Tiz the Law for Sackatoga, picked out both yearlings.
Sackatoga’s first purchase was Hip 97, a colt by Central Banker from leading New York breeders Chester and Mary Broman’s best families, for $70,000. Bred by Sequel NY, Cheryl Prudhomme and the Bromans, the colt is out of the winning Fusaichi Pegasus mare Submerge, a half sister to Grade 1 winner Artemis Agrotera from the family of Stephen Got Even and Baroness Direct.
The colt, the top-selling yearling of the day by a New York-based stallion, was consigned by McMahon of Saratoga Thoroughbreds, agent.
The next for Sackatoga came about an hour later when it went to $92,000 to purchase Hip 138, a filly by Fast Anna named Tap Fast Anna. Co-bred by Harry Landry and Carl Mathiew and consigned by Harry Landry Bloodstock, agent, the filly is out of the unraced Tapit mare Dance by Em.
“Everything’s hard to buy, isn’t it?” Tagg said. “I guess they’re a little bit further along so you know more, or you know a little more anyway. I send them somewhere else to break, so I don’t see them until next January or February or March so it’s not that different. We buy a few every year. Jack buys a few every year. We try to do a very thorough job of it and get the best for the buck. That’s the work you do here. The catalog is a lot of work too. Buying horses is a lot of work no matter what.”
Trainer Mark Hennig was active during the opening session, purchasing three yearlings for longtime client Alan Brodsky and one for new client Little Blue Bird Stable.
Hennig found the shopping and buying “relatively easy.”
“We got what we wanted,” he said. “I didn’t feel like we were scrambling around or had to settle for something we didn’t want.”
Brodsky’s purchases included Hip 2, a colt by Distorted Humor out of the Smart Strike mare Good Omen, for $70,000 out of the Paramount Sales consignment. Hennig usually shops the sales with his owner but didn’t this time around.
“This is when Alan Brodsky likes to fill the coffers,” Hennig said. “We’ve been patient and waited around. Alan wasn’t able to be here which was a shame because he gets a lot of out the sales, likes to be here and he’s actually a lot of help. He’s picked up on this and does a good job. He’s a big help to me.
“We wound up with a Distorted Humor colt form the family of Curlin, a nice Lookin At Lucky filly from the family of Merry Meadow and an Overanalyze filly. … There’s some nice horses in the pedigrees. I try to form a list of what we’re going to look at before we come to the sale. Obviously, you don’t end up with much off that list at the end of the day just because of vettings and other things, but you pick up some that just catch your eye too. I didn’t feel like we were starving for horses, there were plenty of good horses here.”
