Gift Box | Horse Racing Free Tips

Hronis Racing’s Grade I-winning millionaire Gift Box (Twirling Candy–Special Me, by Unbridled’s Song) has been retired from racing and will take up stud duties in 2021 at Lane’s End Farm.

On the board in the GII Remsen S. as a juvenile and second in the Curlin S. at Saratoga as a sophomore, Gift Box joined the John Sadler barn in the second half of his 5-year-old season and immediately bested GI Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile hero Battle of Midway (Smart Strike) in the GII San Antonio S. in December of 2018. He then defeated MGISW McKinzie (Street Sense) in a hard-fought duel in last April’s GI Santa Anita H., and was a close second to eventual GI Breeders’ Cup Classic victor Vino Rosso (Curlin) in the GI Gold Cup at Santa Anita that May. He was last seen defending his San Antonio title at the end of December while earning a career-best 107 Beyer Speed Figure. The grey retires with a record of 18-6-6-2 and earnings of $1,127,060.

“Gift Box was an incredibly talented and consistent racehorse,” said Sadler. “We ran him back-to-back in graded stakes race after graded stakes race and he was only ever off the board once. These are attributes you do not often see in the modern racehorse. He had speed, toughness, sound enough to race on in the handicap division, everything a trainer wants in a two-turn dirt horse.”

Bred by Machmer Hall, Carrie and Craig Brogden, Gift Box is a half-brother to MGSW and GISP Stonetastic (Mizzen Mast) and last year’s GII Autumn S. winner Special Forces (Candy Ride {Arg}). His yearling half-sister by Into Mischief sold for $1,025,000 to agent Liz Crow at last month’s Keeneland September sale.

Gift Box is the highest-earning son of his leading sixth-crop sire, and will stand at Lane’s End alongside both Twirling Candy and grandsire Candy Ride (Arg).

“Gift Box represents so much of what we’re about at Lane’s End: a Grade I winner at a mile and a quarter on the dirt, speed, out of a tremendous mare from a sire line we believe in,” said Bill Farish. “That’s what we’ve been successful with and I’m appreciative of the opportunity Hronis Racing has given us.”

Kosta Hronis added, “Gift Box was always involved in races of the highest level and as owners we could not ask any more than that. John always had a tremendous amount of confidence in him, and time and time again Gift Box proved him right. We are going to stay involved in his next career as a stallion at Lane’s End, where they have a proven track record of nurturing a young stallion’s career.”

Gift Box joins a roster that includes fellow Hronis/Sadler standouts Accelerate (Lookin At Lucky) and Catalina Cruiser (Union Rags). He will be syndicated and available for inspection in the coming weeks at Lane’s End Farm and a stud fee will be determined.

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Agent Liz Crow went to $1.025 million late in Tuesday’s Book 1 session to secure an Into Mischief half-sister to GISW Gift Box (Twirling Candy), MGSW Stonetastic (Mizzen Mast) and MGSP Special Forces (Candy Ride {Arg}). Hip 405 was bred by Carrie and Craig Brogden and Dr. Sandra Fubini’s Machmer Hall and offered by their new Machmer Hall Sales.

“We just really like buying from Carrie; I think she and Craig do such a good job of raising really good racehorses,” Crow said. “Obviously, the mare has proven that she can do it time and time again, so we just hope that this is another one of the mare’s good horses.”

When asked to describe the Mar. 23 foal, Crow said, “I went to see her on the farm–I saw her at Carrie’s farm first. She had a great attitude; just the way she carried herself and presented herself with a lot of class. She did the same here. Every time I saw her, she was classier than the last time.”

While Crow has built her reputation as a sharp judge off of value buys like $100,000 superstar Monomoy Girl (Tapizar) and $40,000 champion 2-year-old filly British Idiom (Flashback), she and Bradley Weisbord’s BSW/Crow have signed for four horses this week for $2.84 million .

“[These are] for a different client, and we’ll go right back down to buying our $25,000 and $50,000 and $100,000 horses in Books 2, 3 and 4,” Crow said sheepishly. “We haven’t changed our mentality, but when you’re buying that kind of pedigree page, that’s what it costs.”

Brogden’s Special Mare Justifies Her Faith Yet Again

The love affair between Carrie Brogden and the Unbridled’s Song mare Special Me goes back quite a ways. She tried to claim her back in 2008, but her trainer talked her out of it when seeing the mare was only 14.2 hands. Six months later, Brogden saw the mare for herself in the back ring of the Keeneland January sale and found out her petite stature was due to being born six months premature (Click here for a TDN video feature on Special Me & her Into Mischief filly).

Brogden could not ignore her gut feeling on the mare and scooped her up for just $6,000, a price that would prove to be the bargain of a lifetime. Special Me has produced three graded winners, several six-figure yearlings and now her and Brogden’s first million-dollar horse with her Into Mischief filly (Hip 405) selling to Liz Crow for $1.025-million Monday.

“Honestly, it means so much because it’s from the beginning,” an overjoyed Brogden said. “We bought her out of the back ring as a broodmare prospect. This is the little mare that could. We bred her back Curlin.”

The horsewoman continued, “We were just hoping to break our personal farm record for a yearling which is $550,000. But the crazy thing is Craig and I personally own half of this baby. So she’s owned by Machmer Hall [Brogden’s mom, Dr. Sandra Fubini’s, farm]] and we own the other half of her. I’m blown away. It’s been the whole progression through seeing and raising every single foal. She’s a special mare.”

Special Me’s second foal was a fleet-footed filly named Stonetastic (Mizzen Mast), who won two graded stakes and was Grade I-placed with earnings over $856,000. Two years later came Gift Box, her first Grade I winner, and two years after that, she produced GSW Special Forces (Candy Ride {Arg}). Special Me’s now-2-year-old filly Meir Point (Medaglia d’Oro) was purchased by Larry best for $500,000 as a weanling at Fasig-Tipton November. The 14-year-old mare aborted her Quality Road this year, but is back in foal to Curlin.

“David [Hayden] from Dark Hollow [who bred and sold Special Me] came up and talked to me [Sunday] at the sale,” Brogden said. “We were talking about how this was not bad for a premie, nocardioforplacentitis mare that throws beautiful foals. She’s a great mom, easy to get in foal and she raises nothing but runners.”

It is no secret that Brogden loves both Into Mischief and Unbridled’s Song. This is a cross she breeds a lot of and has been good to her. In fact, Crow purchased another Into Mischief filly bred on that cross and raised at Machmer Hall for $425,000 at last week’s Fasig-Tipton sale.

“We bred [SW & MGISP] Shoplifted (Into Mischief) on that same cross and Intense Holiday (Harlan’s Holiday) on that same cross,” said Brogden. “Because Unbridled’s Songs offer him beauty and stretch. Into Mischief gives them the will, the heart, the bone and the bodies. It’s been an incredible match.”

This is the first yearling sales season for Carrie and Craig Brogden’s new Machmer Hall consignment. They sold four horses during Book 1 for a gross of $1.92-million and average of $480,000. They had two yearlings RNA during the opening session, but sold all three of their Monday entries.

“[Sunday] I had horses that had a lot of vetting,” Brogden said. We felt we were solid at ‘X’ level, but people wanted them to be at ‘Y’ level, so we adjusted our reserves. I think, like for this filly, her reserve was less than half of what she brought. It’s about trying to be realistic, adjust our expectations, and let people get involved and feel like they’re getting a fair market price for what is going on in the world right now.” —@CDeBernardisTDN

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