Fasig-Tipton Midlantic | Horse Racing Free Tips

Delayed Midlantic Sale Starts Monday

TIMONIUM, MD – The Fasig-Tipton Midlantic 2-Year-Olds in Training Sale, postponed from its traditional May date due to the coronavirus pandemic, kicks off its two-day run at the Maryland State Fairgrounds in Timonium Monday morning with bidding scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. A total of 563 juveniles were catalogued for the auction, with 154 listed outs as of Sunday afternoon.

Buyers were out in force on a steamy morning at the sales barns Sunday, with trainers like Barclay Tagg, John Servis, Ron Moquette, Mike Trombetta and Mark Hennig all making the rounds along with bloodstock agents David Ingordo, Dennis O’Neill, Joe Miller, Josh Stevens, Phil Hager, Patrick Lawley Wakelin, Alistair Roden and Patti Miller.

Donato Lanni and owner Michael Lund Petersen who bought the $1.8-million future GI Acorn S. winner Gamine (Into Mischief) at last year’s sale, were out shopping Sunday morning and stopped by the consignment of Bobby Dodd, who sold the record-setting filly in 2019.

Dodd, who returns with a five-horse consignment this year, is hoping for solid sales results despite uncertain conditions around the globe.

“Yesterday traffic [at the barn] was pretty good and today is better,” Dodd said. “I am seeing people today that I didn’t see yesterday, so that’s encouraging. I am hoping and praying it’s going to be good for everybody, but down at OBS [Spring Sale], it was tough. It was either you are all in or not at all. We sold our horses at OBS and just basically got out of the trap, but we didn’t get any cheese. Under the circumstances and the way the world is right now, I think that’s what a person needs to do, unless you are planning on going racing.”

Gamine’s seven-figure price tag was the most ever paid for a horse out of the Midlantic sales ring and highlighted an auction which set records for both gross and average.

“We sold a really nice horse a year ago and everyone is coming back and congratulating us,” Dodd said. “Last year, I really thought that filly was special. Obviously, I didn’t know she was going to bring $1.8 million and I didn’t really know how special she was, but I thought she was a really nice filly. I have some nice horses this year, I don’t honestly think I have one like her. But you never know what’s going to happen-how one is going to bloom.”

Action was constant at Danzel Brendemuehl’s Classic Bloodstock consignment Sunday morning.

“Obviously we are in very difficult times, so it’s very encouraging to see this many people here. We’ve been run off our feet,” Brendemuehl said.

Classic Bloodstock’s main pre-sale attraction is a colt from the first crop of red-hot freshman sire Not This Time (hip 213) who worked in :10 1/5 during last week’s under-tack preview.

“Yesterday we had 60 shows on 213 and probably more–I didn’t record them all because I can’t keep up,” Brendemuehl said.

Asked what she liked about the handsome chestnut, she said simply, “Everything,” before adding, “If you don’t like him, you don’t like horses.”

Brendemuehl purchased the colt for Robert Lambe for $40,000 from Sally Thomas’s consignment at last year’s Fasig-Tipton Midlantic October Yearling Sale.

“I keep my mares with Sally in Kentucky, so when Sally tells me she likes a horse, I listen,” Brendemuehl said. “My client and I went to get lunch at Ryleigh’s Oyster Bar and all of a sudden there were a bunch of outs and he was coming up, so I called Peter Penny at the Fasig office and told him he had to bid on the horse for me. So we bought him and we named him Mr. Penny. He’s been my favorite horse all year long.”

While declining to speculate on what the strength of the market will be in Timonium, Kip Elser said there were plenty of shoppers around his Kirkwood Stables consignment this weekend.

“Traffic is right about normal-certainly no less,” Elser said. “What that translates to for tomorrow and the next day, I couldn’t begin to say, but so far we are right on par with the last couple of years as far as traffic.”

Elser had planned to offer a group of horses who would gallop at the under-tack show ahead of the Fasig-Tipton Gulfstream Sale in March, but with that boutique auction cancelled, the group all turned in quarter-mile works last week in Timonium.

“The [Gulfstream] sale was cancelled and the normal progression is that those horses would be breezing by this time of year,” Elser said. “So that’s what we did. We put more bottom in them. We were actually considering going three-eighths here with all of them and just showing the logical progression to get to the races. But the way the track is laid out here, I didn’t think coming right out of the paddock where it is gave them enough of a warm-up to go three-eighths. So we went quarters and galloped out. They were very consistent and did what they were supposed to do. And I hope that people see it as one more step on the way to getting to the races. This would have been our third year doing it. I still like the idea and the program just as much.”

While the recent OBS Spring Sale suffered declines, consignor David Scanlon is looking for increased action in Maryland as buyers adapt to market conditions and take advantage of the geography of an auction held within a few hours drive of several racetracks.

“I am highly optimistic [about the sale],” Scanlon said. “We brought more up here, I thought maybe with the little bit later start, it would give everyone time to get going. After seeing one sale already happen, I think people are going to see it’s a buyers market. Plus, I think because of the location of the sale, people have been able to drive here. So I think it’s going to be ok-as good as it can be everything considered.”

During last year’s Midlantic sale, 326 horses sold for $29,374,000 for an average of $90,104 and a median of $43,000.

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Wicked Strong Colt Swiftest at Midlantic Under-Tack Finale

TIMONIUM, MD – The three-day under-tack preview ahead of next week’s Fasig-Tipton Midlantic 2-Year-Olds in Training Sale concluded Friday under glorious blue skies and temperatures in rising steadily into the 80s through seven sets of workers.

“It was a terrific under-tack show. All of the credit goes to [Maryland State Fairgrounds maintenance director Don] Chief Denmeyer,” said Fasig-Tipton President Boyd Browning, Jr. “We had challenging weather at the beginning of the week and this racetrack was as good, from beginning to end, as any under-tack show we’ve ever conducted. The first horse worked very, very well on Wednesday and the last horse worked very, very well on Friday. The consignors brought quality horses to the grounds and we are very pleased with what we saw on the racetrack.”

A colt by Wicked Strong (hip 512) turned in the fastest quarter-mile work Friday when covering the distance in :21 1/5. The juvenile, purchased for $9,000 at Keeneland last September, sold for $20,000 to D and B Racing following a furlong work in :10 2/5 at this year’s OBS March sale.

“He was bought in March by a group from California who bought him to pinhook back here,” explained Ciaran Dunne, whose Wavertree Stables consigns the chestnut colt. “They were buying horses that they thought the sale had come maybe too early for or they didn’t fit, but had shown them something on the racetrack. They took him back to California and he was a horse they were very high on all of the time they had him out there.”

Dunne continued, “The plan was originally to sell him out there [at Fasig-Tipton Santa Anita Sale], but obviously that sale didn’t happen, so they rerouted to here. This is not the first time they’ve done this, but it’s the first time they brought a horse here.”

The colt worked four times in May and June at San Luis Rey Training Center, most recently going three furlongs in :37.20 June 12. He worked two furlongs June 2 in :21.60.

“He is a big, two-turn looking horse,” Dunne said. “He doesn’t look like he’d be that fast.”

The colt is out of E Classic (E Dubai) and is a half-brother to stakes placed E Rated (Special Rate).

Also from the Wavertree consignment, hip 443, a colt by Candy Ride (Arg) out of Causara (Giant’s Causeway) worked a furlong in :10 1/5 Friday. Purchased by Ron Fein’s Superfine Farms for $175,000 at last year’s Fasig-Tipton October Sale, the bay colt had originally been targeted at the OBS March sale.

“He had a little setback through the winter,” Dunne said. “He was originally targeted for OBS March and we could have carried on, but we thought he was such a nice horse that we waited and gave him the time. He’s a great big, two-turn type of horse and maybe wasn’t suited to this track, but I think at the end of the day, he’s got a lot of quality and will be a really good horse down the road.”

Numbers were down at the recent OBS Spring Sale and Dunne said that, while the top of the market remained strong in Ocala, the absence of the usually prolific Korean buyers contributed to much of the declines at the auction which had set records for average and gross the last three years.

“We had a very good sale at OBS,” Dunne said. “The market was down, but a large degree of that was the Koreans. They buy a lot of horses–they will buy 100 2-year-olds a year in that $30,000-$50,000 range, which makes all of the $20,000 horses bring $30,000 to $40,000. And then it makes all of the $50,000 horses bring $60,000-$70,000. It just creates a little bit of demand in that sector that we’re always the weakest in. So they are very important for us in the clearance rate and to give the guys in the lower-to-middle level a bit of a push. When you take them out of there, I think that was probably the biggest factor in OBS’s numbers being off. I think, from our perspective, the top end was as strong this year as it was last year.”

Consignor Clovis Crane, who sent out a daughter of Fed Biz (hip 505) to share the under-tack show’s bullet time of :10 flat Friday, agreed the absence of Korean buyers due to the ongoing pandemic would likely have an impact on his bottom line.

“I always think that this sale has the truest middle market of any sale that there is,” Crane said of the Midlantic auction. “I really don’t have upper-end horses. I buy in the lower end, so this sale suits me the best. I hope that, as normal, the Penn [National], the Parx, the Charles Town, the Delaware Park and the Marylands–all of those trainers show up. And they will because it’s home for them. There are five or six tracks within two or three hours, so all of those guys are there. So to me it makes this the truest middle market that there is.

He continued, “But we are going to sorely miss the Korean buyers. I have reached out to them and said, ‘If you need any help, I am here to help.’ I do think that those folks have some lookers around, so hopefully they can get into the action. I saw that they bought a few horses at OBS, so I am hoping that they found somebody to help them out here. And if they haven’t, I’m applying for the job.”

Working in Friday’s fourth set, hip 505 was the last of five on the day–and 12th overall at the show–to turn in the :10 flat bullet. Bred by Blackstone Farm, the filly RNA’d for $47,000 at last year’s Keeneland September sale and is being sold by Crane in partnership with her breeder.

“We knew she was going to go fast and she showed up today,” Crane said of the chestnut out of the unraced Dream Realized (Awesome Again).

Crane compared the bullet breezer to her look-alike paddock-mate, a daughter of Palace (hip 170) who worked in :10 1/5 Wednesday.

“They are almost identical. The Palace filly has a little white spot on her butt and [hip 505] has a little white on her right hind leg. That’s the only way you can tell them apart,” he said.

Crane said the extra time between sales caused by the reshuffled schedule had helped his horses this spring.

“The extra time gave us plenty of time to get everything exactly right and have everything lined up and the horses all showed up,” Crane said. “And they are coming back good. It gave us a little extra time where we got a few breezes into them, we gave them a little break and then we got a few more breezes in. And our shins are solid and overall, it’s been good for us. And I think the horses have shown it, they have breezed so well and come back well.”

Crane had nothing but praise for the track condition at the Maryland State Fairgrounds this week.

“The track has a little more clay in it than it normally does,” he said. “Which is helpful, it has a little more bounce to it and it feels really nice. And it’s been really consistent. Obviously, my Palace worked in :10 1/5 on the first day, the very last set. And this filly was in the fourth set [Friday] and she worked in :10 flat. Normally, you see the really fast ones early in the day, but it’s been really consistent. I didn’t put my horses in any order, I just threw them in in hip number order and when they went, they went. That’s how we did it. All of my horses were going to show up and do what they were going to do whether they worked in the morning or the afternoon.”

Susan Montanye’s SBM Training and Sales had two bullet furlong workers Friday. During the first set, the operation sent out a daughter of Frosted (hip 518) to work in :10 flat. Out of multiple stakes placed Enchante (Bluegrass Cat), the dark bay filly was purchased privately by Bill and Corrine Heiligbrodt after RNA’ing for $185,000 at the Fasig-Tipton July Sale last summer.

“She was slated to go to the Gulfstream sale and unfortunately that was cancelled,” Montanye said. “She has always been a super nice filly, always fast, always says yes. I brought her up here because I knew she loved the dirt.”

In Friday’s second set, SBM sent out a filly by Dialed In (hip 552) to work in :10 flat. Out of Fall Fantasy (Menifee), the filly was supplemented to the Midlantic auction after scratching from the OBS Spring sale.

“The Dialed In is a ship-in for me that belongs to Kevin McKathan,” Montanye said. “The filly was in the OBS sale and had a good work down there, but they opted to bring her up here and put her in the supplement. They said she was a better dirt filly than she was on the Poly and she obviously proved that today.”

A filly by Maclean’s Music (hip 400), consigned by Scanlon Training and Sales, also turned in a furlong work in :10 flat Friday. Out of Ava G (Afternoon Deelites), the dark bay filly is a half-sister to stakes winner Miss My Rose (Magician {Ire}).

“We’ve liked her all year and we’ve just been giving her time to develop,” said Dave Scanlon. “We had her sister before, Miss My Rose and we really liked her. So we pursued this filly with the breeder, Alex Venneri, and we are partners on her here.”

Rounding out Friday’s :10 flat bullet furlong workers was hip 389, a daughter of Twirling Candy. The dark bay was consigned by David McKathan and Jody Mihalic’s Grassroots Training and Sales which purchased her for $30,000 at last year’s Fasig-Tipton Midlantic October sale. She is out of Apple Cider (More Than Ready), a daughter of multiple graded stakes winner Who Did It and Run (Polish Numbers).

The Fasig-Tipton Midlantic sale will be held next Monday and Tuesday with bidding beginning each day at 11 a.m.

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Bourbon Courage Filly Sets Quarter-Mile Mark in Timonium Thursday

TIMONIUM, MD – A filly by Bourbon Courage worked the fastest quarter-mile and three juveniles shared the day’s fastest furlong work time during Thursday’s second session of the under-tack show ahead of next week’s Fasig-Tipton Midlantic 2-Year-Olds in Training Sale in Timonium, Maryland.

Bourbon on Sunday (hip 286), a Maryland-bred daughter of Bourbon Courage consigned by Naoise Agnew’s Nomad Farm Training and Sales, worked a quarter-mile in Thursday’s bullet time of :21 1/5. It was the second fastest quarter-mile through two of three sessions of the under-tack show.

“We actually thought she might go a little faster than that,” Agnew admitted. “She prepped out here really fast, :21 4/5 and they were just sitting on her basically. But we are very happy with her. She did it very easily by herself. And she blew a back shoe as well in the work, that could have been our :21 flat right there.”

Agnew is consigning the filly on behalf of breeder Ron Parker who has a five-horse commercial broodmare band based in Maryland. Parker purchased the filly’s dam Sunday in Malibu (Malibu Moon) for $5,000 at the 2017 Fasig-Tipton Midlantic January sale. The stakes-placed mare is also the dam of stakes placed Faze the Nation (Cal Nation).

Agnew has a farm near Penn National and Bourbon on Sunday has been working at the Pennsylvania track.

“She’s ready to go right on,” Agnew said. “She is a really, really nice horse. I’d put any money on it that she’s going to be a stakes horse.”

A transplanted Irishman, Agnew has been consigning under the Nomad banner for eight years. His four-horse 2020 Midlantic consignment includes Motherland Bourbon (Bourbon Courage) (hip 131), also bred by Parker.

“I come here with a handful of horses every year,” he said. “I have two client horses this year and the other ones are mine.”

Keiber Rengifo’s Golden Rock consignment sent out a daughter of Fed Biz (hip 276) to earn a share in Thursday’s furlong bullet time of :10 flat. The Maryland-bred filly is the first foal out of stakes-placed Stormin Wendy (Ecclesiastic). She was purchased by Scott and Evan Dilworth for $25,000 as a weanling at the 2018 Keeneland November sale before RNA’ing for $21,000 at Keeneland last September.

“Our client bought her at the Keeneland sale in November as a weanling,” Rengifo said. “She was going to go to the yearling sale, but there were so many horses there she got a little lost. He just decided to keep her. He saw a lot of talent in her when they were prepping for the yearling sale and they decided to send her to a 2-year-old in training sales.”

This is Golden Rock’s second consignment to the Midlantic sale, but Rengifo has plenty of positive memories of the Timonium auction.

“I was working before with Randy Hartley and Dean DeRenzo and they had a lot success at this sale and that’s why I really like this sale,” the Venezuelan said. “When I worked for those guys, they did really good here. So to have a filly like her is something special. Not too many horses can do a :10 flat here.”

The bullet worker capped a big day for Golden Rock, which also sent out three horses to work in :10 1/5: a filly by Munnings (hip 186); a colt by Goldencents (hip 243); and a filly by More Than Ready (hip 258). The consignment also sent out colts by Bodemeister (hip 228) and Constitution (hip 256) to work in :10 2/5.

“Constitution is really hot right now and this horse loved the dirt and we really like the Munnings filly,” Rengifo said. “The Goldencents colt is Pennsylvania-bred, so we decided to bring him up here since it’s so close to Parx and Penn National.”

Rengifo, who rode some 18 winners on the Midlantic circuit in 2015, 2016 and 2017, breezed all of the Golden Rock horses in Timonium and said he thought the track played fair throughout the day.

“It’s not too hard or too deep. They do a good job with the track-they put a lot of water on it,” he said. “Last year, they were breezing 35 of 40 horses a set and they would have four or five sets. Now with the seven sets, I don’t mind because I think it’s the same opportunity for all of the consignors. Every set gives a really good chance to everyone.”

For the second day in a row, Luis Garcia’s L.G. consignment sent out a first-crop juvenile by Speightster (hip 261) to work the furlong bullet time of :10 flat. Garcia purchased the filly, in partnership with Gina Fennell, for $20,000 at the Keeneland September sale. The bay is the first foal out of graded stakes placed Spirituality (Gemologist).

Consignor Al Pike was also represented by his second furlong bullet worker of the under-tack show. Pike sent out a filly by Goldencents (hip 263) to work in :10 flat Thursday. She is out of Spring Zapper (Ghostzapper), a daughter of graded stakes placed Spring Season (Seeking the Gold). Pike purchased the juvenile for $30,000 at last year’s Fasig-Tipton July sale.

The under-tack show concludes with a final session Friday beginning at 8 a.m. The Midlantic sale will be held next Monday and Tuesday with bidding scheduled to commence at 11 a.m.

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Fasig-Tipton Midlantic Under-Tack Show Starts Wednesday

The three-day under-tack show ahead of next week’s Fasig-Tipton Midlantic 2-Year-Olds in Training Sale begins Wednesday morning at 8 a.m. at the Maryland State Fairgrounds in Timonium. The breeze show continues with sessions Thursday and Friday. The auction will be held next Monday and Tuesday. A total of 563 juveniles have been catalogued for the sale and bidding begins each day at 11 a.m.

Fasig-Tipton will debut its new online bidding platform for the auction and has also increased phone bidding capacity. To register for online bidding, visit http://bidonline.fasigtipton.com.

The sales company will also be utilizing a new repository system for the auction with a cloud-based system, the Asteris Keystone Repository, allowing attending veterinarians to review radiographs remotely, instead of having to do so on the sales grounds.

The Midlantic sale, originally scheduled for May, produced its most recent Grade I winner when 2019 graduate Gamine (Into Mischief) won the GI Acorn S. last Saturday. The filly topped last year’s sale when bringing a final bid of $1.8 million.

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