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Iowa Oaks Winner Crypto Mo Supplemented To July Horses Of Racing Age Sale

Crypto Mo (Moyhamen), winner of Saturday's GIII Iowa Oaks, has been supplemented to Monday's Fasig-Tipton July Selected Horses of Racing Age Sale. She is catalogued as hip 645 with Taylor Made Sales Agency, agent.

The three-year-old filly led throughout in the 1 1/16-mile race to win by two lengths with a Beyer Speed Figure of 90. It was her second consecutive stakes win following a victory in the Panthers S. in early June. She has now won four of eight career starts for $210,870. It is her third win this year.

“Crypto Mo is a very exciting addition to the catalogue,” said Fasig-Tipton President Boyd Browning. “She is a ready-to-go graded stakes winning three-year-old filly with a lot of racing opportunities ahead of her. She has a similar profile to Stiletto Boy (Shackleford), who came into this sale off a win in the Iowa Derby a couple years back and is now a Grade I winner of $1.8 million.”

Crypto Mo will be available for inspection beginning Monday morning at Barn 12.

The July Selected Horses of Racing Age Sale will take place Monday, July 10, beginning at 2 pm in Lexington, Kentucky.

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The X-Ray Files: Liz Crow

The TDN sat down with bloodstock agent Liz Crow for this fourth offering in a series presented in cooperation with the Consignors and Breeders Association (CBA). Through conversations with buyers and sellers, the series looks to contribute to the discussion on radiograph findings and their impact on racetrack success.

Bloodstock agent Liz Crow, who has an ever-expanding list of accomplished sales purchases, as well as a burgeoning book of pinhook successes with partner Paul Sharp, admits there are subtle distinctions between buying to race versus buying for resale.

“There are several different findings for a horse that you can live with to race, but you can't buy to pinhook,” Crow said. “Some of those things, for example, are the moderate to severe sesamoiditis and juvenile tendonitis. Those horses will be perfectly fine and perfectly normal if you give them time, but you can't put them right into a 2-year-old sales cycle because you can't give them that time. They have to get ready and start breezing. Moderate to severe sesamoiditis requires 60 to 90 days before you break them. Obviously, you just don't have 60 to 90 days [for a pinhook prospect]. You've got to start breaking them when they get to your farm and they need to be breezing by January. And that just doesn't give you enough time. So it's all about timing.”

Whether it's searching for a racing prospect or a potential pinhook, Crow said the biggest part of her job may be determining what is consequential and what isn't on the vet report.

“I think your relationship with your vet is very important,” she said. “Not trusting just the vet report or what the vet reports say, but actually forming a relationship with the vet and having that line of communication where you can have a discussion. You as the agent, and with your client, you have to take that information and make that decision based on what you're given.”

Crow has been shopping the sales for over a decade and has learned to value just that type of relationship she has developed with Dr. Jeff Berk.

“I've been doing this for quite a while now and I've used the same vet my entire career,” Crow said. “I have listened to Dr. Berk read vet reports to me and talk to me about this for 12+ years at this point. We vet 400-500 horses in September alone. Oftentimes, Jeff will say to me in September–we are obviously all moving so fast–he will say, 'Call me on this one, let's talk about it.' And that means this is not a black-and-white thing. I honestly think it's a toss-up for what's more important for my job, whether it's picking out and finding a horse that has talent or is it really deciphering these vet reports.”

She continued, “Vet reports to me are very subjective. They are not black and white. If you get three different vets that give you three different opinions–and that happens more often than not–they are giving you their opinion. They cannot tell you if this horse can or cannot make the races. They are using their experience to tell you what they think based on what they found in the X-rays. But these are not facts. So the most important thing for me, as an agent, is to decipher what that means and if it fits for what my client is trying to do with that horse.”

Crow has built a career on finding horses on a budget who go on to do great things on the racetrack. She purchased future champion Monomoy Girl for $100,000 at the 2016 Keeneland September sale and was able to acquire subsequent Grade I winner Jack Christopher for $135,000 at the 2020 Fasig-Tipton October sale.

“Sometimes the best thing you can do for your client is find that horse that doesn't vet perfectly, but may be very athletic,” Crow said. “I've had a lot of success doing that and I think it's a great way to approach it, as long as your client is clear and understands the risk.”

After purchasing Monomoy Girl in 2016, the filly went on to win the 2018 GI Kentucky Oaks and twice won the GI Breeders' Cup Distaff. The two-time Eclipse champion provided Crow a case-in-point.

“Monomoy Girl had moderate sesamoiditis behind in both hind ankles and she had an OCD removed behind as well,” Crow said. “Dr. Berk and I had a discussion about it and I was completely comfortable with bidding on her based on what he had told me. And I think it did bother a few people, from my understanding. But that's the thing, when you get three or four different vets, they all have different opinions. I think that's part of the problem, all of the opinions.”

Over the years, Crow has developed an understanding of what are significant issues and what issues she can deal with.

“If your vet says the horse has this, this, this and this, I sort of go through it and immediately think, a P1 plantar fragment behind, a lucency in the upper joint, mild sharpening in the upper joint of the right knee, those things are all fine. I know those three findings. Like a sharpening in the knee, any finding in the upper joint of the knee, mild to moderate sesamoiditis that scans well, a fragment in the back of the ankle, these things don't mean anything really. They are just comments, a differentiation of normal. I think that there are a lot of findings that are just that, a differentiation of normal. And deciphering what is acceptable and what isn't is not as easy as just looking at the vet sheet. Monomoy Girl is a great example of a horse that, if you read her vet sheet without any sort of context or discussion, you could think she could have problem, but she didn't and none of those things bothered her throughout her entire race career.”

Advancements in veterinary scans provide potential buyers with a treasure trove of information to work through. That's not a bad thing, according to Crow.

“You can never go wrong with more information,” she said. “I am not going to say it's a bad thing that we have better information. I am just going to say that every horse has something and it's very rare that you vet a horse that is perfectly clean. You have to learn what you can live with. Most good horses have something. It would be great to continue to inform these buyers that horses don't have to be NSA [no significant abnormalities] to be able to be purchased.”

Click to read previous The X-Ray Files: with Tom McCrocklin, David Ingordo or Ciaran Dunne.

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Fasig-Tipton July Catalogues Come Up Rose Hill

When the Fasig-Tipton July Sale of Selected Yearlings catalogue came out, Tony Ocampo admitted it was exciting to see Grade I winner Chocolate Gelato (Practical Joke), a graduate of his Rose Hill Farm, on the cover. It was not until a few weeks later, when the Fasig-Tipton July Selected Horses of Race Age Sale catalogue came out with Stilleto Boy (Shackleford) on the cover, that Ocampo realized the operation had completed a rare double.

“I didn't know it was going to happen,” Ocampo said. “The yearling catalogue came out earlier and we saw Chocolate Gelato was on the cover. That was very exciting. But then the Horses of Racing Age came out and all of a sudden we were like, 'Wow, look, Stilleto Boy is on there.' It's very rewarding because we aren't a large farm with a huge budget, but I am surrounded by great clients and great staff. I've been at it for a long, long time and it's nice to see two of your graduates be on those catalogues.”

Chocolate Gelato was bred by longtime Rose Hill client Vincent Colbert. She sold for $165,000 at the 2021 Fasig-Tipton July sale and was acquired by Repole Stable for $475,000 at last year's Fasig-Tipton Gulfstream Sale before winning the GI Frizette S.

“She was always a very nice filly, very athletic and we loved the sire,” Ocampo said of the future Grade I winner. “We were happy with what she brought in July.”

At that same July sale, Rose Hill sold a filly by Mendelssohn, who the operation bred in partnership with John Trumbulovic, for $185,000. Named Opus Forty Two, she was second in the July 1 GIII Delaware Oaks.

“Those are the two fillies that we took to that sale,” Ocampo said. “So we are happy to see that, too.”

Stilleto Boy won the Iowa Derby for his breeders, the late John Kerber and his wife Iveta, and partners just days before selling for $420,000 at the 2021 Fasig-Tipton July Horses of Racing Age Sale. The chestnut gelding was second in the GI Awesome Again S. and third in the GI Malibu S., GI Pegasus World Cup Invitational and GI Santa Anita H. for the new connections before earning his first graded victory in the GII Californian S. He added a top-level victory this March with a win in the GI Santa Anita H.

The Kerbers added another graded winner from there breeding operation when Mr. Wireless (Dialed In) captured the 2021 GIII West Virginia Derby and GIII Indiana Derby.

“Stilleto was born, foaled and raised and then we also broke him, so that was pretty neat,” Ocampo said. “And that was special because John Kerber had been with me since the early '90s and he just recently passed away last year. It was bittersweet, but he put so much into this business and he was so passionate about it. Towards the end, he was very sick and lo and behold, he gets two of his yearlings that he kept become graded stakes winners. All of a sudden, he had two graded stakes winners out of his crops, so that was great.”

Rose Hill will be represented by three graduates at the July yearling sale next Tuesday. Bred by Colbert, hip 170 is a filly by Maclean's Music out of Salad Mood (Malibu Moon), a half-sister to multiple graded stakes winner Pacific Ocean (Ghostzapper) and to the dams of graded winners Blamed (Blame) and Litigate (Blame).

“She is a nice, big filly,” Ocampo said of the yearling, who sells with the Paramount Sales consignment.

Also consigned by Paramount Sales, hip 320 is a Rose Hill homebred colt from the first crop of Grade I winner Promises Fulfilled.

“We just got back his X-rays and they are clean and he's got a good throat, so we are very excited,” Ocampo said. “He is peaking at the right time. He is very athletic, good sized. He's by a sire who is a little bit of a question mark because he's by Shackleford. But I think he's going to be a useful horse. I think people will like him and I think he'll do well.”

Warrendale Sales consigns hip 322, a filly by Gift Box out of Flatter Me First (Flatter) who is bred by Beth Miller's ThoroughBred by Design.

“She is a really nice filly,” Ocampo said. “Also foaled and raised at Rose Hill for one of our good clients. [Miller] is a doctor at UK. We are excited about her, too.”

Miller is an allergy and immunology specialist and director of asthma, allergy and sinus clinics at University of Kentucky.

While Rose Hill will not be represented by any graduates in the July Horses of Racing Age Sale, the operation does have a connection through trainer John Ennis, who breaks the Rose Hill stock.

Ennis, who topped the 2020 auction with the $475,000 County Final (Oxbow), will offer five maiden-winning 2-year-olds at Monday's sale: Gewurztraminer (Collected) (hip 402); Intermittent Fast (Tapwrit) (hip 419); Laugh Now (Vino Rosso) (hip 431); Let's Go Mark (American Freedom) (hip 434); and Woodcourt (Ransom the Moon) (hip 528).

“We don't have any graduates in the racing age sale this year,” Ocampo said. “John Ennis has a few horses that he is selling, 2-year-olds, in that sale. The only connection is, he purchased them, but he broke them here at Rose Hill.”

The way Ocampo rattles off pedigrees and race records, it is clear graduates of Rose Hill never really leave the farm.

“We have them all on our stable mail and the owners are very involved–they tweet every time there is a work,” Ocampo said of keeping track of the farm's graduates. “So we are very involved. They are like your kids growing up. We do follow them and it's incredible when they start being so successful.”

Ocampo served as farm manager at Gleneagles Farm for nine years before he and his wife Lisa bought the operation and renamed it Rose Hill Farm in 1999. The main base of operations for the farm is 400 acres on Rice Road just behind Keeneland and it also includes 275 acres on Parkers Mill Road.

“This year, we foaled 45 mares and then we had about 20 maidens and barrens,” Ocampo said of the farm's resident broodmares. “So we have 70 or 75 total.”

While it's primary focus is on working for clients, Rose Hill does have a small number of its own broodmares.

“We probably have five or six mares that are owned by Rose Hill 100% and then we probably have another 10 mares that we have in different partnerships,” Ocampo said. “Our goal is to breed to sell. Every year we end up, for one reason or another, having to keep something. If it's a horse that we really like, but it has an issue and needs more time, or something that we didn't get what we wanted at the sale and we end up keeping. Usually those are horses that are out of a young mare and we want to help the mare, so maybe it will be a partnership with a trainer or between us we will keep it and race. But really our goal is to sell them all.”

The Fasig-Tipton July Selected Horses of Racing Age Sale will be held Monday at Newtown Paddocks with bidding beginning at 2 p.m. The Fasig-Tipton July Sale of Selected Yearlings will be held Tuesday beginning at 10 a.m.

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‘We Can’t Hide Anymore’: Success Builds C&S Thoroughbreds

People took notice when Carlos Estrada and wife Sarah Estrada-Brok built a steady drumbeat of pinhooking successes and the couple's C&S Thoroughbreds consignment, which began a few years ago as just one or two of their personal pinhooks prepared on rented farms in the Bluegrass, has turned into a barnful of 18 sales-bound yearlings prepped on their own farm in Georgetown. C&S Thoroughbreds makes its second appearance at the Fasig-Tipton July Selected Yearlings Sale next Tuesday with a five-horse consignment.

The Estradas ran their first consignment in 2017 under the established consignment of Estrada-Brok's mother, Becky Merkel, before establishing their own brand. In its first year selling under their 2-year-old sales banner, Sterling Thoroughbreds, the couple sold a Brody's Cause colt–purchased as a yearling for $6,000–for $290,000 at the 2021 Fasig-Tipton Midlantic May Sale. At that fall's Fasig-Tipton October Yearling Sale, they sold a colt by Ghostzapper–purchased as a weanling for $7,000–for $140,000, as well as an Always Dreaming colt–purchased for $15,000–for $125,000.

“We started out just pinhooking two or three horses and we did well,” Estrada-Brok said. “So we got six horses and then we did even better and then we got 12 horses. Now we have a barn of 18 going to the sales. It started out just us and then people started to come to us. We tried to stay small with ourselves, but it didn't work out like that.”

She added with a laugh, “We can't hide anymore.”

The Estradas spent a year based in Pennsylvania helping with her parents' Diamond B Farm, but as that operation began winding down, they returned to Kentucky. And her parents, Glenn and Becky, soon followed.

“We were renting at a couple of different places and eventually we did well enough in the sales that we could buy our own farm,” Estrada-Brok said. “We are just here in Georgetown. It's really close to everything. The Horse Park and Hagyard are about two miles away, Fasig is six, but it's a great farm and we filled it up. Carlos built a round pen and he put a walker in. My parents bought the farm right next door, and they have an aqua tread, so we go and use that.”

Of the couple's move to Kentucky, followed by her parents, Estrada-Brok laughed and said, “My husband jokes that he brought the whole Brok family from Pennsylvania because my sister moved down here, too.”

C & S Thoroughbreds sold four horses at last year's Fasig-Tipton July sale, led by a colt by Classic Empire who sold for $140,000. The consignment also sold a filly by Distorted Humor last July for $110,000. That filly returned to sell for $485,000 at this year's OBS April sale.

“Last year was a great group and it's another strong group this year,” Estrada-Brok said. “I think our clients upped the price range a little bit when they bought them. It's a good, solid group of fast early horses. I am really happy with what we are taking over there.”

C & S Thoroughbreds' five-horse July consignment includes yearlings being sold on behalf of clients, as well as a pair in pinhooking partnerships. The group are all colts and all but one are the first or second foals out of their dams.

“This year when we went to the sales to buy, we bought more colts than fillies,” Estrada-Brok said. “And we did that on purpose. Everybody always has the Derby dream. So we tend to stick more to colts.”

She continued, “Typically when Carlos and I buy, we do look for the first or second foal. That's typically what we try to go for. Buying a horse with pedigree is expensive, we can't always afford those, so we need to look for angles.”

The couple's July consignment includes a pair of yearlings by Bolt d'Oro: Hip 161 was purchased by Gary Contessa for $33,000 at last year's Keeneland November and Contessa signed for hip 357 for $80,000 at the same sale.

“I have two really nice Bolt d'Oros for a client,” Estrada-Brok said. “And he is just as hot as anybody.”

As part of a pinhooking partnership, the Estradas purchased a colt by Munnings (hip 164) for $100,000 at this year's Keeneland January sale.

“He is a big, strong forward horse,” Estrada-Brok said of the colt. “He's a Saturday horse, that is what he is.”

Also part of a pinhooking partnership is a son of Complexity (hip 341) who was purchased for $27,000 at Keeneland November.

The C&S Thoroughbreds consignment is rounded out by a homage to the operation's roots in Pennsylvania. A homebred for Whiskey Run Stables, the colt (hip 204) is by Rowayton, a stallion who began his career at the Broks' Diamond B Farm.

In addition to the July sale, C&S Thoroughbreds will be offering yearlings at the Fasig-Tipton New York-bred Yearlings sale and the Fasig-Tipton October sale.

Fasig-Tipton will host its July Selected Horses of Racing Age Sale at its Newtown Paddocks facility Monday, with bidding beginning at 2 p.m. The company's July Selected Yearlings Sale will be held Tuesday beginning at 10 a.m.

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