horse auctions | Horse Racing Free Tips

City of Light Weanlings Clear The Path At Fasig-Tipton November Sale

The first major commercial test for North America's first-crop weanling sires is the Fasig-Tipton November sale, and City of Light has come out fast from the gate, responsible for two of the evening's top three-priced weanlings.

Larry Best's OXO Equine went to $600,000 to secure Hip 129, a City of Light colt who is the first foal out of the winning Into Mischief mare Breaking Beauty.

Bred in Kentucky by Camas Park Stud, the bay colt's second dam is the German Oaks winner Que Belle, whose runners include Grade/Group 3 winners Osidy and Quetsche. Looking further down the page, one will find European champion Bakharoff, among other international graded and group stakes winners.

Hunter Valley Farm consigned the colt, as agent.

The weanling-to-yearling pinhook contingent showed up at the top of market on Sunday as well, with the Brian Graves-led Blue Sky Stables landing a first-crop City of Light colt for $380,000.

The gray or roan colt, offered as Hip 82, is out of the unplaced Unbridled's Song mare Stormy Rhapsody, whose runners include the stakes-placed Arkaan. He was bred in Kentucky by Fred W. Hertrich III and John D. Fielding, and his extended family includes French Horse of the Year Allez France, Grade 1 winner Al Mamoon, La Gueriere, and Icon Project, as well as Grade 2 winners Master Command and Lasting Approval.

Taylor Made Sales Agency consigned the colt, as agent for Hertrich's Watercress Farm.

City of Light, by Quality Road, stands at Lane's End in Versailles, Ky. He has a busy couple weeks ahead of him at the fall mixed sales, with five weanlings cataloged in the Fasig-Tipton November sale and 15 in the book at Keeneland.

The first weanlings by Triple Crown winner Justify were expected to make an impact during their debut mixed sale season this fall, and those high-level returns have already started to roll in on Sunday at the Fasig-Tipton November Sale, led by a $400,000 filly.

Offered as Hip 30, the filly sold to Breeze Easy, and she is out of the placed Sky Mesa mare Lastofthsummerwine, whose five foals to race includes four winners, all of them black type earners. She is a half-sister to Grade 2 winner Conquest Panthera, Grade 3 winner Happy Like a Fool, stakes winner Hawaiian Noises, and Grade 2-placed Maniacal.

Bred in Kentucky by Magnolia Bloodstock and Lynch Bages LTD, the filly hails from the family of Grade 1 winners Nine Keys, French Colonial and Silver Voice, Grade 2 winner Clef d'Argent.

Four Star Sales consigned the filly, as agent.

Justify, a son of Scat Daddy who stands at Ashford Stud in Versailles, Ky., will also have an busy November sale season ahead of him. He had nine foals cataloged to the Fasig-Tipton November sale to lead all first-crop sires, and he has 16 entered in the Keeneland November Breeding Stock Sale, 11 of which are in the select Book 1.

To view the auction's full results, click here.

The post City of Light Weanlings Clear The Path At Fasig-Tipton November Sale appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

Source of original post

INQUIRY Presented By Iowa Thoroughbred Breeders And Owners Association: Back To School

Whether it's backed by a diploma or a lifetime of experience, just about anyone in the horse racing industry could profess themselves to be an expert in something.

In this edition of INQUIRY, we ask the folks on the sales grounds to choose how they'd share that expertise with the world by asking the question, “If you taught a college course about horse racing, what would it be called?”

Catherine Parke – Valkyre Stud

“'Training A Racehorse, And Its Care.”

Tommy Eastham – Legacy Bloodstock

“It would be called 'Nonverbal Communication,' or 'Being Sensitive.' Communicating with this beast (the horse) without being able to go up and talk to them. Probably the biggest thing I see people miss with their horse care is it's not a 'to do' list. It's more of an art. Before you make a plan, you need to take a look at that horse, figure out its emotional state, try to figure out what's bothering it. The best way is to communicate with it.”

Conrad Bandoroff – Denali Stud

“'Horse Racing Economics.' You could look at how the market for horses mirrors the stock market. You could do some analytical data into economic trends in the horse business, and just showcase how large of an industry it is, and the size and scope of it.”

Katelyn Jackson – Elite Sales

“'Save Ground: How To Pick Your Spot.”'

Alfred Nuckols, Jr. – Hurstland Farm

“'Risk and Reward.' The class would be about trying to evaluate pedigrees. I like proven horses, but the risk market and reward market seem to be with a lot of these early horses, so I guess what you need to do is teach about these nice horses with pedigrees coming off the racetrack that everyone wants to breed to the first year.”

Bob Feld – Bobfeld Bloodstock

“It would be 'Handicapping 101.' For anyone in this business, it's the gambling and action that really drives the whole machinery.”

The post INQUIRY Presented By Iowa Thoroughbred Breeders And Owners Association: Back To School appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

Source of original post

What To Look For In A Weanling-To-Yearling Pinhook, With BTE Stables’ Erin O’Keefe

On the surface, the goal of pinhooking is quite simple, to make money. Beyond that, I think everyone would agree that it's to make as much money as possible.

Each year prior to purchasing, I look at the pinhooking statistics from the previous year to see what the market trends are for the most profitable purchase point – by percentage, as well as dollars of profit.

It's great to double your money, but if you bought a horse for $5,000 and sold it for $10,000, it's unlikely you even covered your carry costs. On the opposite end of the spectrum, you'd love to make $60,000, but if you spent $400,000 and sold for $460,000 most of your “profit” is spent on commissions.

I seek to purchase in the sweet spot that's most likely to maximize actual profit. While a home run is a home run from any price point, it's key to mitigate risk as much as possible. Nobody anticipated the events of 2020, but a pragmatic approach allowed for profitable pinhooking.

To achieve these goals, certain compromises are sometimes required. If I'm looking to acquire a more physically precocious weanling, that likely means compromising on sire power. This formula can be successful, particularly when staying strict within a budget. Likewise, if I'm rounding out the group with a more commercial pedigree, that may mean compromising on something like size or vetting.

When narrowing from over 1,000 weanlings, the veterinarian you work with is key. A clear understanding of what can be helped, and what won't improve, allows for quick decisions and confident purchases.

Beyond the compromises that sometimes must be made, the main thing I look for is what I can improve.

In order to sell profitably, you must have done something to improve the “product” you're presenting. It's always a goal to have a pedigree update that improves the value, but those aspects are outside of your control as soon as the hammer falls and the horse is yours.

The physical improvement of the weanling to its yearling sale is a multifaceted process that can be influenced in many ways. At BTE Stables, we're fortunate to have resources to cater to the individual horse throughout the year it's with us prior to the yearling sale.

From a TheraPlate to a full spectrum of turnout sizes to individually-crafted feed protocols, we're able to craft care to allow for maximum improvement. From the time the weanlings set foot on the farm to the time they head to the sale, they are treated as individuals and assessed continually. The same horse will have a different outcome based on where it was raised and prepped, and that's something crucial to keep in mind during the selection process.

Erin O'Keefe is a partner in BTE Stables, in charge of farm management and bloodstock services. Originally from the suburbs of Detroit, Mich., she moved to Lexington, Ky. to attend the University of Kentucky's Equine Science and Management program. A lifelong fan of Thoroughbred racing, she immersed herself in the industry, working for many prestigious farms in the Bluegrass prior to launching BTE Stables in 2019 with partner Daniel Schmidt. Learn more about BTE Stables here.

The post What To Look For In A Weanling-To-Yearling Pinhook, With BTE Stables’ Erin O’Keefe appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

Source of original post

Respite Farm, Breeder Of Uncle Mo, Sends Athletic Weanlings To Keeneland November Sale

If you've been following the North American bloodstock world in 2020, you're probably familiar with the handiwork of Dr. Michael Cavey and Dr. Nancy Temple's Respite Farm.

The Paris, Ky., operation bred champion Uncle Mo, whose quick-starting reputation as a sire of runners has been matched by his quick-starting reputation as a sire of sires. One of those young stallions making noise with his first crop is Grade 2 winner Laoban, whose freshman season was so brilliant, he earned a call-up from New York to WinStar Farm for 2021. Like his sire, Laoban was also a Respite Farm product.

Outside of that family tree, Respite Farm bred and sold Champagne Room, the champion 2-year-old filly and Breeders' Cup Juvenile winner of 2016.

Echoes of that success reverberate through the slate of weanlings Respite Farm has to offer at this year's Keeneland November Breeding Stock Sale, through the Denali Stud consignment.

Though Cavey is a commercial breeder, and he sells his entire crop at auction as weanlings, the breeder said he does not breed or raise his young horses through the typical means for a commercial prospect. Instead, he brings them up as though he planned to race them himself. The horses have to end up in the right hands, of course, but the high-level results of the Respite program prove it works.

“I had an agent who was selling horses for us who came to our farm, looked at our young horses, and told us we were making a mistake because we were raising and prepping them like racehorses, not sale horses, and he thought we should change our program,” Cavey said. “We didn't change our program. We still try to raise racehorses.

“Our philosophy is to hopefully sell sound weanlings,” he continued. “If a pinhooker buys them, hopefully they'll make money with them, then come back and buy another one. Uncle Mo and Champagne Room are both really good examples. People bought them reasonably as weanlings, they sold them again as yearlings, and then those people sold them as 2-year-olds, and everybody made money. I'm happy about that.”

Champagne Room

The process of raising a racehorse for the sale ring begins with a carefully planned mating.

Cavey takes a great influence from the methods of John Nerud's Tartan Farms program, going so far as to buy broodmares from Nerud's dispersal that serve as the pivot points of today's Respite Farm broodmare band.

From Nerud and others, Cavey said, he learned it's okay for the two components of the mating to have flaws, as long as the partner's strengths complement them.

“[Nerud] said he looks at their hip, their hind leg, the strength of their back, the layback to their shoulder, and the quality of their head,” Cavey said. “That's pretty much the way I look at it. The motor is the hip. The strength is carried through the hip and back. They have to have a nice length of neck to provide balance, and that's what we look for.”

When it came to breeding Uncle Mo, Cavey said the outcross potential he presented was carefully crafted, and advanced through the Indian Charlie/In Excess sire line. This, in turn, has helped his appeal as a stallion in a marketplace increasingly saturated by a smaller group of bloodlines.

“We bred five generations of his family, and we avoided most of Mr. Prospector, Storm Cat, most of the more popular horses, attempting to improve his pedigree with what we call in the cattle business, hybrid vigor,” Cavey said. “His success now, I think, is based on the fact that he can be crossed back to any of those families, and he's bringing something to those families that they don't have.”

Laoban (Uncle Mo) and jockey Jose Ortiz win the Jim Dandy

Nobody knew Uncle Mo or his pedigree like Cavey did when the champion retired to Ashford Stud, so when it came time to plan the mating that would produce Laoban, the breeder knew what he needed to see in a stallion to mesh with the Speightstown mare Chattertown.

“She was very attractive, well-muscled, not overly large,” he said. “She had a good, solid female family. We knew he would put some daylight under her, because he's a big horse, but not heavy-bodied. He's a big, athletic horse. We felt Speightstown would cross well with the female family, and it worked. It doesn't always work, but here, it did.”

Using the philosophy he has developed over decades of cultivation, Cavey shared the thought process behind the matings for two of his standout Keeneland November weanlings, and how the end product matched his expectations.

Hip 943
Dk b. or br. f., Nyquist x Cayman Sunrise, by Petionville
Barn 36 & 37 – Sells Wednesday, Nov. 11
Catalog Page

“We crossed Nyquist to a family we've been working with for a few years. It produced a big, good-looking filly with a good way of going, well-balanced. We just like everything about her, and the Nyquists are obviously running.

“Cayman Sunrise was a late-developing mare herself. She was a spectacular-looking animal and had lightning speed, but unfortunately, she got hurt. Her foals that we've produced prior to this one, they needed some strength and daylight, and Nyquist brought the strength that we were looking for and put a little more leg under them. Her Bodemeister colt (Empire Power) was a stakes-placed winner at two, and he's still racing.

“We're hoping that breeding her to a precocious 2-year-old in Nyquist, who brings some strength and precocity to the pedigree, will produce a precocious 2-year-old filly that then will run on. We were just looking for something to improve the slowness of the maturity, and have her mature a little faster, and get a little more speed into her.

“This filly is very different from the other foals the mare has produced. She's just stronger. She has a little bit more size, more hip, and more strength to her back.”

Hip 1572
Gr. or ro. f., Liam's Map x Rooms, by Giant's Causeway
Barn 5 – Sells Friday, Nov. 13
Catalog Page

“This is Rooms' first foal, a really well-balanced, big, strong filly. She's really impressive.

“The mare is by Giant's Causeway, who is a leading broodmare sire. You just can't go wrong with a Giant's Causeway. The mare herself ran fourth by a neck to Champagne Room in a graded stakes race at two. She showed a great deal of ability. She was then trained by Peter Eurton, who trained Champagne Room. There's really nothing about her I don't like. She's just a good quality mare who has a good female family.

“Liam's Map is a big, stretchy, athletic horse who could really run, and the Giant's Causeways can be a little compact and small. So, I was looking for something that could put a little more size on her, and her first foal is surprisingly good-sized for a first foal.”

The post Respite Farm, Breeder Of Uncle Mo, Sends Athletic Weanlings To Keeneland November Sale appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

Source of original post