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Into Mischief Yearlings Highlight Opening Session Of Fasig-Tipton October Sale

A pair of yearlings by leading sire Into Mischief stole the spotlight during the first session of the 2020 Kentucky October Yearlings sale on Monday in Lexington, Ky.

A well-related filly by Into Mischief topped the session when sold for $300,000 to Willis Horton Racing (video).

The bay filly, offered as Hip 202 by Wynnstay Sales, agent, is out of the stakes placed Lemon Drop Kid mare Kid Majic, making her a full-sister to two-time Canadian champion Miss Mischief. Hip 202 is also a half-sister to current stakes-placed winning filly Mind Out (Tapit) and to Rosemonde (Indian Charlie), dam of current multiple Grade 1 placed winner Rowayton, also by Into Mischief. Kid Majic herself is out of stakes winner Call Her Magic, who produced Grade 1 winner J P's Gusto and Magic Appeal, dam of champion and graded stakes winner Letruska. Hip 202 was bred in Kentucky by H. Allen Poindexter.

The session's top colt, also by into Mischief, sold for $260,000 to Juddmonte Farms from the consignment of Lane's End, agent (video).

Offered as Hip 24, the bay colt is the second foal out of the More Than Ready mare Golden Cropper (AUS). That mare's first foal Tete a Tete (Malibu Moon) is a winner this year at two. Golden Cropper is out of Australian group stakes winner Sliding Cube, making her a half-sister to Group 2 winner Rubick. The immediate family includes champion and three-time leading sire Redoute's Choice and additional Group 1 winners Manahattan Rain, Platinum Scissors, and Shoals. Hip 24 was bred in Kentucky by Mt Brilliant Farm & Ranch.

Four other yearlings sold for $200,000 or more during the session, including:

Hip 342, a colt by Maclean's Music out of Microburst (Awesome Again), sold for $240,000 to Mike Ryan, agent from the consignment of St George Sales, agent. Out of a half-sister to 2018 Grade 1 Champagne Stakes winner Complexity, Hip 342 was bred in Kentucky by Susan Moulton.
Hip 282, a colt from the second crop of Liam's Map out of Locked On (Bodemeister), sold for $220,000 to Ten Strike Racing/Rick Kueber from the consignment of Castle Park Farm (Noel Murphy), agent. From the immediate family of champions Weekend Trip and Heavenly Prize, Hip 282 was bred in New York by Loch Grove Farm.
Hip 324, a filly by record-breaking champion first-crop sire Uncle Mo out of Manda Bay (Empire Maker), sold for $200,000 to Nice Guys Stable from the consignment of Denali Stud, agent. A half-sister to Grade 1 placed Voting Control was bred in Kentucky by Three Chimneys Farm.
Hip 91, a colt from the first crop of champion Arrogate out of Hero's Amor (Street Hero), sold for $200,000 to Marc Tacher from the consignment of Woods Edge Farm (Peter O'Callaghan), agent. The first foal out a multiple stakes-winning full-sister to stakes winner Threefiveindia, Hip 91 was bred in Kentucky by Elevated Bloodstock and Raxon Cho.

During Monday's session, 248 yearlings sold for $8,393,800, good for an average of $33,846. The median was $15,000.

The Kentucky October Yearlings sale resumes Tuesday, Oct. 27 at 10 a.m.

Results are available online.

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Yearling Sales Season Concludes with Fasig-Tipton October

LEXINGTON, KY – The curtain comes down on a most unusual yearling sales season with the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky October Sale which begins its four-day run in Lexington Monday at 10 a.m. The auction will be following up on a record-setting 2019 renewal which saw new high marks for average and–from its largest-ever catalogue–gross, and will be held over four days for the fourth straight year as it continues to build its reputation as a must-attend auction for both buyers and sellers.

“This sale has been so good to us almost since we’ve been doing business here,” said consignor Peter O’Callaghan of Woods Edge Farm. “It’s a great savior for one that misses its window at Keeneland, whether it doesn’t quite make the cut at Keeneland and then does well in the meantime and comes back here, it can stand up well and get sold. For a horse that misses his date for some other reason, it’s proved to be a great outlet for them. So I love this sale. I absolutely have no fears of bringing any nice horse here, whether it be an expensive foal or a homebred.”

On a chilly, overcast day at Newtown Paddocks Sunday, O’Callaghan said traffic has been good at the barns through two days of showing.

“We had quite a good day here Saturday,” O’Callaghan said. “I think we had over 70 cards, which is pretty good for here, certainly on a Saturday. And we are tipping our way along quite nicely today. You always look to see some more faces that we haven’t seen yet, but they always seem to arrive here late, whether it’s today or tomorrow morning. You very much have to play it out until the last minute. A lot of the action happens at this sale at the last minute. There are a lot of horses to get around, so we don’t fully know where we stand yet.”

Of the make-up of the shoppers he has seen, O’Callaghan said, “There has been a mix of end-users and pinhookers. You’d always like to see more end-users, but there are a lot of pinhookers here. There are even some of the Irish pinhookers here, that will always be good for the sale.”

He continued, “But like most years here, the top 10% of this catalogue will sell very well and after that it will be touch and go as to what happens to the rest. It definitely trends that way every year. If you’re lucky enough to get one or two at the top end of what’s here, you’ve a good chance of doing well. And if you don’t, you might struggle a little bit.”

Watching the action from Denali Stud’s Barn 1 Sunday, Craig Bandoroff said he expects the prevailing polarization in the marketplace to continue this week in Lexington.

“I’m sure everybody is saying the same thing,” Bandoroff said. “They are going to look at 1,500 horses and decide which 150 they really want. I expect the polarization will be as severe as it’s been any time this year. That would be my guess. There was a period at Keeneland [September Yearling Sale] where it did pick back up and the middle market surfaced. But there was a period where there was none. It was either you got them sold at a price you were happy with or there was the bottom. There was nothing in between.”

Derek MacKenzie of Vinery Sales did find reasons to be optimistic about a potentially more competitive middle market at the October sale.

“I have been actually pleasantly surprised with the market this year,” MacKenzie said. “It’s better than I thought it would be. The depth of the domestic market was better than I thought it would ever be. Keeneland Books 5 and 6 were better than they’ve been in the last three or four years probably and Timonium was better than it had been, too.”

Buyers continue to be selective in their bidding, but sellers can be rewarded above expectations for yearlings who meet all the criteria.

“They have to do three things–and you’ve heard this a million times–they have to be by the right sire, they have to look great and they have to vet absolutely spotless,” MacKenzie said. “If you do hit those three things, you do great. And if you don’t have those three things, you’re in big trouble. You’re scratching and going racing or going to the 2-year-old sales or you’re just letting them go for what they bring.”

In all, 1,008 yearlings sold at the 2019 October sale for a total of $38,258,900. The average was $37,955 and the median was $13,000. A colt by Candy Ride (Arg) topped the auction when selling for $560,000. He was one of 13 yearlings to sell for $300,000 or over.

Last year’s renewal of the October sale has already produced Grade I-winning juveniles Gretzky the Great (Nyquist), who captured the GI Summer S., and Simply Ravishing (Laoban), victress of the GI Darley Alcibiades S.

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The Stage is Set for Phyllis Wyeth’s Dancing Rags

Dancing Rags, the 2016 GI Alcibiades S. heroine, will be offered at this year’s Fasig-Tipton November Sale on Nov. 8. and will represent the end of the line of an esteemed story in Thoroughbred racing and breeding as one of the last broodmares owned by the late Phyllis Wyeth. The daughter of Union Rags is in foal to top sire Curlin, and already has an Into Mischief yearling filly and a War Front weanling filly on the ground.

“I think Dancing Rags should appeal to a lot of people,” said consignor Braxton Lynch of Royal Oak Farm. “She is beautifully balanced. She has a lovely head and eye, and has plenty of power, length and athleticism. Both her yearling and weanling look very much like her.”

Raced by philanthropist and Thoroughbred breeder Phyllis Wyeth, who passed away in January of last year, Dancing Rags’s greatest appeal comes in the legacy she will carry on as a producer.

“She was an amazing person,” longtime associate Bill Farish said of Wyeth. “She was paralyzed in a car accident when she was in college, but never let that slow her down in life. She was a very big advocate for disabled Americans. I’ve been told that all the ramps on the sidewalks in New York City and other cities are really because of her and her efforts.”

“What a privilege it was to get to know Mrs. Wyeth,” said Fasig-Tipton’s Boyd Browning. “Many people that faced a disability and the challenges that she faced from a physical perspective would have felt sorry for themselves. But Mrs. Wyeth was a character. She brightened the sales grounds. I loved visiting with her and hearing her stories. She had a great wit about her and a great spirit of life.”

Wyeth grew up near her family’s farm in Virginia, where their racing and breeding operation was most noted for Devil’s Bag and Gone West. After marrying the acclaimed painter Jamie Wyeth in 1968, she and her husband resided at her family’s Point Lookout Farm on the Pennsylvania-Delaware border. Despite her physical disability, Wyeth’s love for horses never faltered and she was a carriage driver and active Thoroughbred breeder throughout her life.

Her biggest success in racing came when a homebred colt by Dixie Union went on to become 2012 Belmont S. winner Union Rags.

A fourth-generation homebred, Union Rags was initially sold as a yearling at the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Yearling Sale, but Wyeth bought the colt back one year later for $390,000.

“He sold for just above the reserve she had set, but she still wasn’t very happy with the sale,” Farish recalled. “She got reports that he was training really well as a 2-year-old. She had really high hopes for him, and he ended up living up to it.”

Wyeth’s instincts proved to be correct when Union Rags went undefeated in his first three starts as a juvenile, and later retired to Lane’s End Farm as a four-time MGSW with Grade I victories in the Champagne S. and Belmont S.

“She was very attached to her horses, and Union Rags was a great example of that,” Farish said. “She came and visited Union Rags as often as she could and really loved seeing him.”

A few years after Union Rags’s Belmont S. victory, Wyeth found a filly at the 2016 OBS March Sale from the first crop of Union Rags that she couldn’t leave without. She purchased Dancing Rags, who had worked a speedy :10 breeze, for $210,000.

Again, Wyeth’s horse sense turned out to be accurate when Dancing Rags broke her maiden at second asking and then sailed to Grade I stardom in the Alcibiades S. at Keeneland for Graham Motion.

“When Dancing Rags won the Alcibiades, it was an incredible day,” said Farish. “To see Phyllis not only race Union Rags, but then race a Grade I winner by him was a real thrill for her and a thrill for anyone that knew her.”

The now six-year-old mare is out of Grade III-placed Home Court (Storm Cat), a daughter of Eclipse Award-winning older mare and Breeders’ Cup champion Jewel Princess (Key to the Mint). Following her racing campaign, Home Court was purchased for $1.4 million in foal to Gone West at the 2005 Keeneland November Sale.

As Browning reflects on the purchase, he said the buyer of the mare makes Dancing Rags’s story even more special to him.

“Our long-time friend and associate Bill Graves bought Home Court for Gordon Stollery’s ASG Thoroughbreds,” he said. “So it’s got the personal connection for us, with both Mrs. Wyeth and Bill Graves, in terms of the pedigree influences.”

Home Court was sold again at the Keeneland November Sale in 2012. Soon after, she produced her first blacktype winner in dual MGSW and sire Coup de Grace (Tapit), followed by Dancing Rags herself.

Lynch says that Wyeth’s family plans to gradually trim down the horsewoman’s broodmare band, and that they found this year’s ‘Night of Stars’ sale to be a perfect fit for the unique offering.

Dancing Rags will be sold as Hip 261 with Lynch’s Royal Oak Farm consignment.

“She’s almost like the complete package for a breeder that’s looking for either success as a commercial operation or a racing operation,” Browning said. “Not only was she the product of many years of really astute horsemen and women’s matings, she demonstrated her quality on the racetrack. Now the family has set the stage by breeding her to two of the most preeminent stallions that have offspring, and she’s in foal to Curlin-arguably one of the world’s greatest stallions.”

“Dancing Rags represents one of the last opportunities to buy anything from [Wyeth’s] program,” Farish said. “She has Phyllis written all over her. She’s got a great pedigree, and I think she’s going to be a great broodmare.”

Browning added of the women the mare represents and her inspirational life’s tale, “It’s a story filled with tradition. It’s a story filled with hope. You look at what she was able to accomplish and it should inspire all of us to get up and make a little extra effort today because we know that she had to make a little extra effort every day.”

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Pine Ridge Hopes to End Yearling Sales Season on High Note at October Sale

When the global pandemic propelled the world into chaos and uncertainty earlier this year, perhaps no industry group was impacted more by cancellations than New York breeders, who saw all three Saratoga-based auctions cancelled and who were forced to find other outlets for their stock. The up-and-down yearling sales season concludes with next week’s Fasig-Tipton Kentucky October Yearlings Sale which features over 100 New York-breds, including four well-bred youngsters from Marty Zaretsky’s Pine Ridge Stables.

“I would say, not as I would have liked,” Zaretsky admitted when asked to assess results from the yearling sales. “High-quality horses sold really well–I had one of my horses sell at Keeneland, a Ghostzapper, for $400,000. So I shouldn’t say I’m disappointed, but I’m not excited about the sales. We didn’t have the Europeans or the Asian buyers, so it was bad because of that. It’s COVID and COVID has messed a lot of things up.”

Zaretsky will look to end the sales year on a positive note with his October sale quartet. All consigned by Paramount Sales, the group includes a filly by Street Sense (hip 325), a colt by Quality Road (hip 539), a colt by Gun Runner (hip 692), and a colt by Curlin (hip 1031).

“I have done fairly well in the past at the October sale,” Zaretsky said. “You want your horse to stand out and I’m hoping that’s what will happen with the four of them in October.”

Zaretsky has a commercial broodmare band of 15 head at his upstate New York farm and, like his October yearlings indicate, focuses on sire power when making his mating plans.

“I think it’s a bonus in New York-breds,” Zaretsky said of the sire power represented in his operation. “The stallion population in New York is mediocre. As a breeder, if you want to bring up the quality of horses to be in graded races, high-end stallions are the way to go with New York-breds. And there are a lot of opportunities at the track when they are New York-breds. Look, a New York-bred [Authentic {Into Mischief}] just won the Derby.”

Parlaying sire power into the sales ring, Zaretsky explained, “The hope is that you can sell for three times the cost of the stallion when you get into those realms. If you look at the averages for Into Mischief, [the stud fee is] $100,000 and their [yearling] average is over $400,000. So a three-time factor is a decent amount because to feed and take care of them is the same for a $5,000 mare or a $100,000 mare.”

He continued, “But you need the quality of the mare to hold it. You need a lot of black-type in its bloodlines. Whether it’s a runner or a producer or a daughter of a producer. Our Curlin that is in the October sale is a 3/4-brother to Connect. We bought the dam with a Candy Ride (Arg) in her belly absolutely with the thought of breeding her to Curlin after she foaled because of the bloodlines and the nicks to Connect.”

Hip 1031 is out of Whisper Wisdom (Rockport Harbor), a half-sister to GI Cigar Mile H. and GII Pennsylvania Derby winner Connect (Curlin). Zaretsky purchased the mare for $275,000 at the 2017 Keeneland November sale.

The Curlin yearling will be making his second trip through the sales ring next week after RNA’ing for $255,000 at the Fasig-Tipton Selected Yearlings Showcase in September. The youngster was offered during the auction’s opening section of New York-breds, which was in the unenviable position of leading off the entire yearling sales season.

“I would have not gone in the New York portion of that sale if I could do it again,” Zaretsky said. “I would have gone in the second portion of the sale. People who opted out of the New York portion to go in the second portion of the sale, they did better because they were mixed in with the higher-quality horses.”

Zaretsky’s highest-priced yearling this year was a filly by Ghostzapper (hip 242) who sold for $400,000 to Mike Pegram, Paul Weitman, and Karl Watson. The yearling is out of multiple stakes placed Lady of the Nile (Pioneerof the Nile), a mare Zaretsky purchased for $100,000 at the 2015 Keeneland November sale. Her first foal, the 3-year-old Chocolate Cookie (Declaration of War), is now two-for-three following a Belmont allowance win at the beginning of the month.

Zaretsky offered a filly by Into Mischief out of Indian Rush (Indian Charlie) at the Keeneland sale, but bought her back at $140,000. He re-routed the filly to last week’s Ocala Breeders’ Sales Company’s October Sale where she brought the auction’s second-highest price of $200,000.

“I sent her to that sale to stand out,” Zaretsky said. “There were a lot of Into Mischiefs in Kentucky in the October sale and I think she was the only Into Mischief in Florida. Florida has a tendency to like New York-breds also. So I sent her with Stuart Morris and it was a good result.”

Zaretsky purchased Indian Rush for $80,000 at the 2012 Keeneland January sale and sold an Into Mischief colt out of the mare for $750,000 to Shadwell Estate Co. at the 2017 Keeneland September sale. She is also the dam of stakes winners Harlan’s Honor (Harlan’s Holiday)-whose first foal is already stakes-placed–and March X Press (Shanghai Bobby).

Of his success with the family, Zaretsky said, “It’s fabulous. You dream to take a horse that has potential and to have the horse deliver black-type. It’s very exciting. Indian Rush has an Into Mischief by her side. He’s beautiful, looks exactly like the one I sold for $750,000. So I’m pretty excited about next year with him.”

Zaretsky’s plan is to sell all his foals, but he is content to pick and choose the best time to offer his stock.

“I’m not going to let horses go for nothing,” he said. “You’ve got to believe in what you’re doing. I am in the business of breeding and selling and if I don’t feel I’m getting adequate money, I’ll go to the 2-year-old sales.”

The Brooklyn native also has a pair of 2-year-olds set to go racing with trainer Linda Rice.

“I have an Honor Code out of Indian Rush (hip 1179) with Linda Rice,” Zaretsky said. “He did great in the 2-year-old sale, he worked in :9 4/5 at the OBS Spring sale, but he had a chip, so I took him home and fixed everything. He’s doing really well and I think he’ll run this year. And I have an Uncle Mo [out of Lady of the Nile] who will go to Linda probably next month. He hurt himself in the March sale (hip 176, :10 2/5)-he is a very big horse, he’s every bit of 17 hands, so it’s hard to push those types.”

Zaretsky began breeding horses in partnership with Dr. Jerry Bilinski of Waldorf Farm decades ago before eventually deciding to take over sole ownership of his breeding operation.

“I was big into horseback riding,” he explained of his first foray into the breeding industry. “I used to go in the foxhunts. I was going to retire one of my horses and breed her, but my friend Dr. Bilinski said, ‘Why would you go and breed a horse just to have a baby because you love the horse. If you want to breed horses, go buy yourself a mare in foal or a mare you could breed and at least get some economic reward. So I went out and I bought a mare in foal. I think it was $5,000 at the time-this was over 20 years ago-and I sold that yearling out of her for $22,000. Then I partnered with Jerry for at least 10 years. We had a lot of horses together and we did well. Eventually I said, ‘I think I’d like to do it on my own.’ I wanted to make my own decisions, my own economics at my own farm. He’s still my friend, but I do everything alone.”

Zaretsky, whose primary business is in consumer packaging for cosmetics and pharmaceuticals, generally splits his time between New York city and his upstate farm. But he has been harboring upstate since the outbreak of the pandemic in the spring.

“I still live in the city, but I have the farm upstate,” he said. “I used to spend half a week in the city and half a week upstate, but I’ve been upstate since Mar. 12. It’s fun seeing the horses every day. It is really a pleasure.”

He continued, “I have 13 weanlings at my farm now in New York-two Empire Makers, an Uncle Mo, I have a Pioneerof the Nile and two Into Mischiefs.”

Despite the ups and downs of 2020, Zaretsky is planning to continue to pursue sire power in his 2021 matings.

“Some of the horses that are perhaps not producing, I’ll breed down because of the virus,” Zaretsky said. “I do have a contract for Into Mischief for one of my horses already and I think I’ll go to American Pharoah with another mare. We’ll see how we go. The good news is a lot of farms are lowering their fees to make up for the way the industry is going. It takes a lot of the pressure off for spending all of our money with the results not being what we hoped. The virus is not gone, the tracks are not open yet, per se, so you have to be somewhat cautious and they still need numbers. If you can breed to a stallion for $50,000 who was $75,000 last year, it gives you a lot more flexibility in overhead.”

The Fasig-Tipton October sale will be held next Monday through Thursday at the company’s Newtown Paddocks in Lexington. Bidding begins each day at 10 a.m.

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