Sunday’s Racing Insights: Pricey In Utero Buy Gets Going

Sponsored by Alex Nichols Agency

11th-GP, $55K, Msw, 3yo, f, 6f, 5:48 p.m. ET

Giverny (Tapit) makes her first start here for Bill Mott and owner/breeder Alpha Delta Stable. She was being carried by her SW and MGSP dam Oscar Party (Dixie Union) when Jon Clay's operation purchased that one for $1.9 million at the 2017 Keeneland November sale. Giverny is the half-sister to MGISW Room Service (More Than Ready)'s second foal–a year-older Tapit colt RNA'd for $675,000 at the same KEENOV renewal.

Chad Brown pupil Goodnight Olive (Ghostzapper), a $170,000 Fasig-Tipton October yearling, is out of MGSW miler Salty Strike (Smart Strike). Sierra Farm homebred Mischiefful (Into Mischief) was second on debut to Goodnight Olive's well-regarded stablemate Boston Post Road (Quality Road) here Feb. 7. She's a daughter of MSW/GSP Shannon Nicole (Majestic Warrior). Likely longshot A Higher Love (Sky Mesa) didn't do much running in a rained-off race at Aqueduct Nov. 27, but she sports an upbeat local tab of late and gets first-time Lasix and blinkers. The dark bay Is half to GISW grasser Carrick (Giant's Causeway). TJCIS PPs

The post Sunday’s Racing Insights: Pricey In Utero Buy Gets Going appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

Great Island Overcomes Stumble To Win Off-The-Turf Suwannee River   

Alpha Delta Stables LLC's Great Island overcame a bad stumble at the start to put her head in front at the finish of Saturday's $100,000 Suwannee River at Gulfstream Park in Hallandale Beach, Fla.

Making her first main-track start in the 1 1/8-mile stakes for older fillies and mares that was taken off the turf due to afternoon rain, the 4-year-old daughter of Scat Daddy collected her first career stakes victory while narrowly prevailing over pacesetter Drop a Hint on a sealed sloppy racetrack. The Chad Brown-trained filly provided jockey Irad Ortiz Jr. with his fourth of six victories on Saturday's 12-race program.

Sent to post as the 1-5 favorite in a field reduced to six by scratches, Great Island stumbled leaving the starting gate to drop several lengths behind the field heading into the first turn. Drop a Hint set fractions of 24.28 and 48.81 seconds without pressure for the first half mile and continued to show the way on the far turn after rebuffing a challenge by Loving Moment. Great Island steadily advanced along the backstretch and far turn to reach contention on the turn into the homestretch, but Drop a Hint wasn't showing any signs of weakening under Edgard Zayas.

“It's hard to overcome after that in the first part of the race,” Ortiz said. “She just stumbled, big-time, twice. After I said, 'Let me just see what she can do.' I just let her settle and by the backside she started moving really good so I didn't want to take too much hold of her after what happened in the beginning. I just let her roll and find her stride.”

It took the entire length of the stretch, but Ortiz succeeded in urging the Chad Brown trainee to victory by a head.

“By the quarter pole. I had to start working on her, but thank God, she kept coming. The trainer did a great job. She had a lot of stamina,” Ortiz said. “For a second, I thought she didn't want to go by the other horse probably, and she was looking at her, so I just tried to stay a little away in the stretch so she can feel free and go on and pass that horse. I got lucky I could go by.”

Great Island, who was placed third after finishing second in the Via Borghese at Gulfstream in her previous start, ran 1 1/8 miles in 1:52.51.  Drop a Hint finished second, a half-length ahead of Mylastfirstkiss.

The post Great Island Overcomes Stumble To Win Off-The-Turf Suwannee River    appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

Source of original post

Felicita Brings $250,000 To Top Keeneland December Digital Sale

Felicita, a half-sister to recent Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies runner-up Dayoutoftheoffice, sold for $250,000 to Alpha Delta Stables to headline Keeneland's December Digital Sale, held today as part of Keeneland's Digital Sales Ring platform.

The one-day sale grossed $508,000 for 15 lots, for an average of $33,867 and a median of $11,000. Summary results of the sale are available by clicking here.

Consigned by Taylor Made Sales Agency, agent, Felicita is a 4-year-old daughter of More Than Ready out of the Indian Charlie mare Gottahaveadream. She was offered in foal to Not This Time.

Four Bridges paid $55,000 for Warm Water, in foal to City of Light. The 5-year-old mare by English Channel is from the family of Horse of the Year A.P. Indy and Preakness Stakes winner Summer Squall. She was consigned by Machmer Hall Sales, agent.

Song of Melody, a winning 5-year-old mare by Flat Out, in foal to Not This Time, brought a final bid of $50,000 from Rose Hill Farm, agent. Consigned by Taylor Made Sales Agency, agent, Song of Melody is from the family of Breeders' Cup Classic (G1) winner Raven's Pass and multiple graded stakes winner E Dubai.

The post Felicita Brings $250,000 To Top Keeneland December Digital Sale appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

Source of original post

More Than Ready Filly Tops Keeneland December Digital Sale

Felicita (More Than Ready), an unraced 4-year-old half-sister to Grade I-winning juvenile and Dayoutoftheoffice (Into Mischief), topped Tuesday’s Keeneland December Digital Sale when hammering for $250,000 to Jon Clay’s Alpha Delta Stables. The auction, Keeneland’s third foray into the nascent online sale marketplace after its June Online Select Horses of Racing Age Sale and October Digital Sale, was seen by leading consignors as a clear improvement while still having kinks that need ironing out as the sector evolves.

The one-day sale grossed $508,000 for 15 lots, for an average of $33,867 and a median of $11,000. Overall, 69 lots were available for bidding from an original catalog of 79 horses.

Consigned by Taylor Made Sales Agency, Felicita was a $10,000 purchase by Harris Farms last fall at Keeneland November and received a major pedigree update this year when Dayoutoftheoffice streaked to convincing victories in the GIII Schuylerville S. and GI Frizette S. before running second in the GI Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies. She was offered in foal to Taylor Made’s leading freshman sire Not This Time.

“Felicita is the prototype of what really works in the online environment now,” said Taylor Made Vice President of Sales & Marketing Mark Taylor. “I think that it’s going to expand and the online marketplace will gain more traction in the future, but right now what sells is something that has a really current update or something that’s going on in the pedigree to create a sense of urgency, like, ‘Wow, I need to act on this and get ahead of the curve.’ With her being a half-sister to Dayoutoftheoffice, a [potential] Eclipse finalist and on the [GI Kentucky] Oaks trail for next year, from a hot female family with great horses up and down the page and being in foal to Not This Time who’s doing so well, that made her unique and created that sense of urgency.”

Additionally, Taylor Made was able to sell 5-year-old mare Song of Melody (Flat Out), also in foal to Not This Time, for $50,000 to Rose Hill Farm in a sale that suffered from a high number of RNA’s.

“You can see the results, there were tons of buybacks, but we got another mare sold for $50,000, and that was a fair price, about what we were hoping to get,” Taylor said. “Then a lot of the other mares that didn’t get done, we’ve learned from the online marketplace that if you’ve got a chink in your armor, it gets magnified by the extra hassle. People aren’t just standing around the back ring and seeing horses go through and spontaneously going, ‘Well I’m here at the auction, I’ve got to buy five horses, I’m going to buy this one.’ You’ve got to make the conscious effort to sign up, get your credit, send somebody out to the farm to see the horse, check out everything and [the challenge] is breaking through those mental obstacles that are in people’s brains and trying to draw their attention to something.”

Conrad Bandoroff, Vice President of Denali Stud, concurred that updated pedigrees lead to the most attractive offerings in the new world of digital auctions.

“The digital sales platform isn’t going away, and there was a mare who sold for $250,000. We’re going to see more of this,” he said. “You have the new online platform in Wanamakers, and you can capitalize on immediacy, on a race result or an update.”

Bandoroff and Taylor both agreed one of the issues leading to high RNA rates at the initial online sales is that, due to the relative ease with which horses can be entered digitally compared to the costly effort of physically getting a horse to and through an auction ring, there is less built-in incentive for a seller to complete the transaction online.

“What we’re seeing in these early stages is that when people don’t have to ship a horse into a sale, pay the bigger entry fee, or pay the expenses that come along with it, maybe their level of expectation is higher than where the market is,” Bandoroff said. “I think this is why you see so many horses who fail to meet their reserve. People are testing the market, and if they can get this number, they’ll do it, but maybe they’re not getting what they expected.”

“It’s a learning experience,” Taylor said. “Keeneland did a nice job of moving the ball forward and trying to make the product better, but it’s going to be an evolution and we’ve still got a long way to go to perfect the marketplace and get it really seamless. The seller also has to be realistic about the price. Sometimes, because people don’t have to ship the horse, they’ll think, ‘Yeah, I’ll lob it on there and if I happen to get a premium, I’ll take it, otherwise I’m content to just sit tight.'”

Taylor added that improvements to online sales could come in the form of more consistent presentation, and said that the nature of the medium leads to a more challenging, involved selling process for consignors.

“I think from a consignor’s point of view, the presentations on the website ranged from very low grade all the way to really good,” he said. “Having more photos, really good videos, clear contact information for how to reach out and get more information on the horse, and then being able to be proactive [would help]. This is not passive selling, it’s not throwing them online and hoping somebody bids. It’s more like a private transaction, calling people and saying, ‘Hey, we’ve got this horse for sale, it’s on the digital marketplace with Keeneland, you need to go check it out.'”

He also said that while it’s admirable for a digital sale to contain offerings that fit the lower levels of the market, the evolution of the medium could lead to catalogs of more select offerings.

“From Keeneland’s side, this is just my opinion, but if I were them, I’d start with smaller numbers and I would be more selective about what actually went on there,” Taylor said. “I would curate the catalog for things that I thought really would push the buttons of the buying bench out there. It’s a good thing about their culture that they’re trying to help people at all levels move horses. There were $1,000 horses getting sold on there and that was a service to those people selling the horses. That’s to be applauded, but maybe you could separate the auctions that are curated with really nice offerings that check a lot of the boxes. I think we’re all learning and Keeneland definitely moved the ball forward from where they were in the summer when they did it. It was a better product, better experience, better promotion, everything was improved. It’s going to be evolving and we’ve all got to learn and adjust.”

Keeneland’s January Horses of All Ages Sale, which features 1,588 offerings in its catalog, will take place Jan. 11-14 in Lexington with all four sessions starting at 10 a.m. ET.

The post More Than Ready Filly Tops Keeneland December Digital Sale appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

Verified by MonsterInsights