Fasig-Tipton has cataloged 216 selected yearlings for the 101st Saratoga Sale, to be held on Monday and Tuesday, Aug. 8 and 9, in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. Sessions will begin each evening at 6:30 p.m. in the Humphrey S. Finney Sales Pavilion.
“We are very bullish on the quality of this year's catalog,” said Fasig-Tipton president Boyd Browning. “Superior sire power, elite pedigrees, and the outstanding conformation that buyers expect at Saratoga will be on offer. We have attracted an increased number of siblings to current and recent graded stakes winners this year, as well.”
The Saratoga Sale is once again the top ranked major North American yearling sale by percentage of Grade 1 winners and graded stakes winners according to statistics recently released by The BloodHorse MarketWatch.
Recent sales graduates are led by the brilliant Grade 1 winners Flightline and Bleecker Street, undefeated on dirt and turf, respectively. Flightline has won his first four starts by a combined 44 lengths, including victories in the prestigious Grade 1 Metropolitan Handicap and G1 Malibu Stakes. Bleecker Street's victory in last month's G1 New York Stakes was her seventh career victory and fourth graded stakes win this year. Maracuja, winner of last year's G1 Coaching Club American Oaks at Saratoga, and Queen Goddess, winner of the G1 American Oaks at Santa Anita are other recent top level graduates.
“For more than a century, the Saratoga Sale has sold the sport's biggest stars,” added Browning. “It is not only a sale to find a Grade 1 winner, but horses that are truly generational.”
The catalog may now be viewed online, and will also be available via the equineline sales catalogue app. Print catalogs are now available from all Fasig-Tipton offices.
Fasig-Tipton hosted a strong opener to the yearling sales season Tuesday with The July Sale held at its Newtown Paddocks in Lexington, Ky. With vibrant trade from start to finish, the session tied the highest median in sale history, set the second highest average, and posted the highest gross since 2008.
DJ Stable went to $600,000 to secure the sale topping Curlin colt (Hip 302) from the consignment of Gainesway, agent (video).
The last horse through the ring, Hip 302 is out Four Sugars (Lookin At Lucky), an unraced half-sister to Grade 1 winner and sire Flashy Bull. Four Sugars is already the dam of two winners from three foals of racing age, including the well-traveled Gronkowski, winner of the Burradon Stakes in England, second in the Belmont Stakes, and second in the Dubai World Cup. The sale topper was bred in Kentucky by Diamond Creek Farm.
“It's always kind of nice to have a major horse at the end of the sale,” said Fasig-Tipton president Boyd Browning of the curtain dropping sale topper. “The reality is that the sale exceeded our expectations. You love to see increases in the activity and the energy on the sales grounds.”
Hip 153, a colt by last year's champion freshman sire Gun Runner, sold for $430,000 to De Meric Sales for the second highest price of the session. Gainesway, agent, consigned the bay colt, who is a full brother to recent maiden winner and G3 Indiana Oaks runner-up Runaway Wife out of the stakes winning Majesticperfection mare Perfect Wife. Hip 153 was bred in Kentucky by Fern Circle Stables.
First-crop yearling sire Omaha Beach was responsible for the sale's top filly (Hip 90), sold for $410,000 to Solis/Litt from the consignment of Woodford Thoroughbreds, agent for Spendthrift Farm. The bay filly is the second foal out of graded stakes winner Gas Station Sushi (Into Mischief), from the immediate family of Grade 1 winning millionaire Taste of Paradise. Hip 90 was bred in Kentucky by Spendthrift Farm.
A pair of $400,000 yearlings rounded out of the top five prices:
– Hip 193, a colt by Uncle Mo out of multiple stakes winner Super Saks (Sky Mesa), purchased by Glassman Racing from the consignment of St George Sales, agent. From the immediate family of multiple stakes winners Slide Show and Voodoo, Hip 193 was bred in Kentucky by T.F. VanMeter.
– Hip 247, a filly from the final crop of Arrogate out of stakes producer Attempt to Name (Consolidator) purchased by Donato Lanni, agent from the consignment of Wynnstay Sales, agent. The filly is a half-sister to five winners from six to race, including three-times takes winner Gray Attempt (Graydar). Hip 247 was bred in Kentucky by Wynnstay, Donna Moore, and Jim Richardson.
“It was good from start to finish,” concluded Browning. “We're very pleased with the start to the 2022 yearling sales season.”
Overall, 189 yearlings sold for $21,763,500 compared to 208 yearlings sold for $21,608,500 last year. The average rose 10.8 percent to $115,151 from $103,887 in 2021. The median was $90,000, up 12.5 percent from $80,000 last year and tied for the sale record set in 2006. The gross was the highest since 2008, when 305 yearlings sold for $28,151,000.
Pavla Nygaard didn't arrive in Lexington, Ky., last weekend expecting to buy a horse.
She was in town from San Diego, Calif., to watch her daughter Keira compete in the Real Rider Cup, raising money for off-track Thoroughbreds. After the event, she learned that Moretti, a Grade 2-placed graduate of her Thor-Bred Stables breeding program, was cataloged as a stallion prospect across town at the Fasig-Tipton July Selected Horses of All Ages Sale, so she decided to stop by.
Moretti had represented Nygaard well over the course of his life. He sold to Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners and Mike Repole for $900,000 at the 2017 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Selected Yearling Sale, then went on to win a pair of listed stakes and hit the board in a couple Grade 2 races over a four-year career.
Nygaard was happy to see an old friend when she visited the Highgate Sales consignment at Fasig-Tipton on Monday morning, but she still wasn't expecting to leave the property with a new horse. She didn't expect it when Moretti was in the back ring Monday evening, and she still didn't when the auctioneer's chant began.
Then, Nygaard flagged down a bidspotter from her spot in the back ring. The hammer fell, and a $30,000 ticket was rushed her way in need of a signature.
“I wasn't going to be in the market, but I found he was in the sale, and wanted to see whether he was going to be going at a price where someone really, really wanted him, and if not, I'd be here as the backup,” Nygaard said.
“Being a backup position at $30,000 might not sound like a great thing to do, but that's what's important to me,” she continued. “Sometimes, it's about jumping off the cliff and hopefully growing wings on the way down.”
Nygaard had the horse, and a place to put him. Those were the important parts. Collier Mathes of Chesapeake Farm in Lexington, Ky., boards her mares and said there was a stall waiting for Moretti. Everything else would come together as they went.
“I have no idea,” Nygaard said about future plans after signing the ticket. “The best case might be that we just breed two or three mares to him, and if there's anybody else that has any interest, we would look at it, but he's part of the family.”
If it was a surprise to Nygaard herself until the last minute, it was certainly not on the radar for consignors Jacob West and Jill Gordon of Highgate Sales.
“She had come by the barn and seen him, and told us how much she loved him,” West said. “I saw her bidding next to the pole over there, and I thought to myself, 'That looks like Pavla Nygaard.' Then, sure enough, Jill came back from over there and said it was her.”
West selling Moretti to Nygaard completed a five-year circle that began when Nygaard sold the colt to West at Saratoga, as agent for Eclipse and Repole, through the Gainesway consignment.
Moretti was one of West's first purchases on behalf of Eclipse as the partnership's vice president of bloodstock, after joining the company in the summer of 2017. He no longer works for the company in that capacity, but he maintains professional relations.
A son of Medaglia d'Oro out of the Grade 1-winning Concerto mare Rigoletta, Moretti's yearling stock was boosted by the success of half-brother Battle of Midway, who would later win the G1 Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile. Moretti was the most expensive purchase by the powerful duo of Eclipse and Repole at that year's elite Saratoga sale.
“The first second we saw him in Saratoga, we knew we'd have to give a lot of money for him,” West said. “He filled out into a beautiful horse, and grew up exactly how you'd imagine when you buy them as a yearling.”
Moretti sold to Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners and Mike Repole for $900,000 at the 2017 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Sale.
Moretti won four of 16 starts over the course of his career with trainer Todd Pletcher, and he earned $367,250. His best running came in the summer of 2020, when he tallied victories in the listed Flat Out Stakes and Birdstone Stakes, with a runner-up effort in the Grade 2 Suburban Stakes sandwiched in between those two wins. He started the following year's campaign with a third in the G2 Brooklyn Stakes.
Injuries started to pile up for Moretti as he got older, and his comebacks were constantly thwarted after making what would be his final career start in the Grade 3 Greenwood Cup Stakes at Parx in September 2021, finishing fifth.
Summer is a tough time to retire a stallion prospect from the racetrack; especially one that's likely headed for a regional market. With the Northern Hemisphere breeding season recently concluded, any potential U.S. buyer would have to pay to keep the horse for half a year before getting a chance to recoup their investment, and the commercial buzz that a new stallion can generate upon his retirement will have long since fizzled.
“We put him in here to market him to see if there was going to be any South American interest, because they could get him down there before the start of the Southern Hemisphere breeding season, but nobody would have ever guessed Pavla would buy him and stand him herself,” West said.
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Moretti will join his dam Rigoletta at Chesapeake Farm, where Nygaard has boarded her mares and foals since 2012. Rigoletta most recently produced a Nyquist filly in February.
“I live in California, so I don't always know them as well as I would like to know them, but I've known all of her foals,” Nygaard said about Rigoletta's offspring. “Most of them are very energetic and lively, and he was a little different than that. He had plenty of class, but he was a little bit more laid back. He'd just kind of look at you from the other side of the field and go, 'Okay, what's my incentive to go your way?' Whereas, Battle of Midway, his ears were always up, and he wanted to be part of whatever action may be going on.”
In addition to being a licensed attorney in New York, Nygaard holds a degree in molecular biology and genetics. She has proven able to harness Thoroughbred genes to create successful racehorses, but proving out a stallion – especially on her own in a market that's often hostile toward non-commercial sires – will be an entirely new challenge.
Even if he never advances past the level of being a backyard stallion, that was never the point. What was important to Nygaard in the moment she raised her hand in the back ring was that he had a backyard at all.
“He sold for $900,000 in Saratoga. From that, it makes more than enough sense to take some of that back, and put it into bringing him home and make sure he's doing fine,” she said. “We have more patience than most, and we have more craziness than most. Most of the time, it doesn't work out, but when it does, it works out great.”
Stallions Lukes Alley and Hello Broadway will relocate to Wind N' Springs Farm in Berryville, Va., for the 2023 breeding season, BloodHorse reports.
The two stallions, co-owned by Michael Ingrassia, previously resided at Flowing Acres Farm at Fleetwood Lane in Charles Town, W.V. Ingrassia-owned stallion Lord of Greatness remains in West Virginia.
Ingrassia told BloodHorse that the decision was made to move the stallions following the purchase of Colonial Downs in New Kent, Va., by Churchill Downs, Inc., which he expected would lead to a boom in business for Virginia breeding and racing.
Lukes Alley, a 12-year-old son of Flower Alley, saw his debut foals arrive in 2022. He is best known for his victory in the Grade 1 Gulfstream Park Turf Handicap.
Hello Broadway, a 16-year-old son of Broken Vow, is a multiple graded stakes-placed runner, turning in runner-up performances in the G2 Nashua Stakes and G3 Hutcheson Stakes. From a limited number of foals, he has sired stakes winner My Sweet Dove and Mahoning Valley track record-setter U and Tequila.
Fees for both stallions will be announced at a later time.
