‘We’ve Got A Queen Mary To Win’–US-Based Morley Hoping Bold Plan Pays Off

It was Mike Tyson who famously said, 'everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.' Racing is a sport where the metaphoric punches can be unrelenting. 

Therefore, when New York-based trainer Tom Morley dreamed up the idea of purchasing a filly with the idea of returning home to England to try and win the G2 Queen Mary S. at Royal Ascot, he knew the plan was a daring one. 

But credit to Cynane (Omaha Beach), bought for $250,000 through Oracle Bloodstock at the Keeneland September Yearling Sale, she delivered a suckerpunch of her own when winning impressively on debut at Belmont Park last week. 

That performance put Cynane firmly in the Queen Mary picture, and Morley ever closer to a dream first winner back home in Britain at the royal meeting. 

“You don't often get emotional when you train horses that win maidens, but for the people involved in her ownership, it means an awful lot,” Morley told TDN Europe.

“I have trained for Gregg and Cathy Palesky [VinLaur Racing Stables LLC] for a long time and they haven't had a huge amount of luck. They did claim an Into Mischief filly called Xantique and she won a stakes race for them but they have had some bad horses in the meantime. It is huge for them. 

“West Paces have been wonderful supporters of our yard–are made up by a group of guys from Atlanta who I would describe as great mates–and they go to Royal Ascot every year. To be able to go with a runner is huge for them as well.”

He added, “Rainbow's End are also great supporters, and only have horses in training with me, so it's a really cool group of owners. 

“And then you realise what the horse herself has managed to do. She has put herself in the thick of things for the Queen Mary by being an impeccable student.”

That Belmont Park victory, where Cynane pulled clear of the short-priced Wesley Ward-trained favourite Sam's Treasure (Munnings), was the culmination of the excellent homework the filly had been showing ever since she was broken by Raul Reyes. 

Cynane was identified, like a lot of Morley's stock, by the Oracle Bloodstock team, who signed for the Hinkle Farms-bred and -drafted half-sister to classy middle-distance performer Cat's Claw (Dynaformer). 

Cynane | Chelsea Durand

Recalling what he liked most about Cynane as a yearling, Morley said, “The first time I saw her, I wrote, 'what a walk' and gave her two ticks. I went back through my Keeneland Sale catalogue and she was one of four fillies that I gave two ticks to. I absolutely adored her.

“Conor Foley, Jim Hatchett and Scotty Everett at Oracle Bloodstock do a lot of my short-listing at the yearling and 2-year-old sales. This filly was on their list. 

“Conor and I put her ownership group together and, I was so high on her, I probably would have gone strong on her if I had to. I'm delighted we didn't have to. She's obviously got a very strong female family and looks to have given herself a real shot at competing on a huge stage.”

Morley added, “She was the only one who we bought last year with Ascot in mind. We wanted to give her every opportunity to do this if she could. I said to Raul Reyes when she went down to Florida, train her like a very, very precocious two-year-old until she tells you that she can't do it, and then we'll just build her back to what we normally do. 

“On March 2, he rang me and said, 'Tommy, that filly is leaving tomorrow,' and I said, 'Raul, well done.' That's how it went.”

“She has never missed a day of training and eats like a pig, so it's all credit to her. You can't miss a day if you are going to do this. Then you have to be enough to deal with Wesley [Ward] on debut. It's then, and only then, when you can start to think about trips like this.”

The seeds of this Royal Ascot plan were not set back in September when Morley first set eyes on Cynane but much further back than that. The son of a successful breeder and owner, he is also the nephew of multiple Group 1-winning trainer David Morley, whose Royal Ascot victory in the Gold Cup with Celeric (GB) (Mtoto {GB}) sticks out in the memory for the young handler. 

A graduate of the Godolphin Flying Start programme, Morley could have set up training anywhere in the world, but on the advice of his former boss in Newmarket Jeremy Noseda, took out his licence in America. Fast-forward 13 years and he is still there, building his stable bigger and better, season after season. 

“I started off with Eddie Kenneally in Palm Meadows and Brendan Walsh was an assistant there at the time. We then went to Keeneland, followed by Churchill, and by the time I got to Saratoga, I thought 'this is a wonderful life'. 

“Then I began to think about what it would take to get started up in England compared to America. You don't need an enormous amount of capital over here. I literally started training with one horse, one bridle, one saddle, two water buckets and a feed tub. That's it. 

“I groomed the horse every morning and my girlfriend at the time, who is now my wife [Maggie], rode him out and he won his second race for us. That was it, we were up and running at that point.”

He added, “I just felt that young people get afforded a little bit more of an opportunity out here. It's very hard to break into the upper echelons as a trainer anywhere in the world but we have been lucky this year in that I came back very strong about the bunch of yearlings we purchased and am very strong on our 2-year-olds for this year. You've got to feel good about the horses you are going to war with on a circuit like New York. For me, it's the toughest place in America to be competitive.”

Morley's confidence behind Cynane's ability to handle the demands of the royal meeting stems from his insight into the tried-and-trusted criteria that Noseda followed so successfully during a golden period in the early noughties. 

Tom and Maggie Morley | Walter Wlodarczyk

He explained, “Jeremy used to come to America to buy fillies just like Cynane and we would have runners and winners every year in the Queen Mary. This filly reminds me enormously, physically, of the fillies that Jeremy used to be so successful at buying in America and bringing back to Europe to have a crack at these races. 

“This is the model that Jeremy used to buy so I will have to credit my ex-boss for giving me the idea on what to look for physically on a Queen Mary type. I was very fortunate to be there for Laddies Poker Two (Ire) (Choisir {Aus}), Fleeting Spirit (Ire) (Invincible Spirit {Ire}), Sixties Icon (GB) (Galileo {Ire}), Strike The Deal (Van Nistlerooy), Simply Perfect (GB) (Danehill), the list goes on and on. They were wonderful, wonderful years and Jeremy was an unbelievably talented trainer. He was the reason I came to America. He told me to go for a year or two to get some experience and I never came back.”

Of course, you can't mention Noseda without bringing up Laddies Poker Two in detail. Morley is all too aware that he bore witness to one of the greatest Royal Ascot training performances of the modern era. Oh, and he also pocketed himself a few quid in the process!

He recalled, “Laddies broke her pelvis and then she got a tendon. She would have won the Wokingham as a 4-year-old but got a tendon getting ready for that race off the back of fracturing her pelvis the previous year. It was an extraordinary training feat to win the Wokingham after 610 days off the track. And it was like dealing with a priceless vase because we knew how good she was but we needed to keep her in one piece. 

“She did one piece of work with Fleeting Spirit who had been the European champion sprinter the year before. They did a piece of work in the spring and they worked very nicely together so we knew that, if you were going into the Wokingham off 8st 3lbs and had been working with the European champion sprinter, you knew you were going to have a decent shot to say the least. She was incredibly talented and has obviously gone on to be a very good broodmare being the dam of Winter (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}).”

And that famous gamble?

“I might have had a few quid on in the weeks leading up to the race,” comes the reply. “I certainly wasn't one of those people who got involved on the day–there was too much to do at that point. But it was rather remarkable watching a horse open up at 10-1 for the Wokingham, which is normally the starting price of the favourite in that race, and then get absolutely hammered in the betting before the race. It was great to be a part of that.”

As Morley acknowledges, rare is the day where a plan is executed to a nicety in this game. Rarer still when that plan just so happens to involve purchasing a yearling with the distinct aim of travelling halfway around the world to compete on one of the greatest stages on turf. 

Morley has avoided the many and obvious pitfalls that come with negotiating something so daring and, with the royal meeting inching ever closer, is starting to believe that this bold piece of planning could be about to come off. 

“We've got a Queen Mary to go and try to win,” he says. “It's very exciting and it will mean the world to me if we can do it. The day Celeric won the Gold Cup at Ascot sealed my faith in becoming a trainer. He was a horse who meant so much to me and my family. Ascot is a very special place.”

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Mendelssohn Colt Tops Opening Session Of Fasig-Tipton Midlantic Fall Yearlings Sale

The Fasig-Tipton Midlantic Fall Yearlings Sale kicked off Monday afternoon with significant increases in gross, average, and median over the first session of the last two editions of the sale (2019-2020) and the lowest RNA rate since 2016, compared to full sale results.

A colt from the first crop of Mendelssohn topped Monday's session, fetching a bid of $230,000 from buyer Oracle Bloodstock, agent (video).

The bay colt was offered as Hip 189 by Dreamtime Stables, agent. Out of the Malibu Moon mare Tasha's Moon, a half-sister to Grade 2 placed stakes winner Esmeraldina, the colt hails from the immediate family of Grade 1 winner Off the Tracks and Grade 2 winner and sire Concord Point. Hip 189 was bred in Kentucky by Classic Thoroughbred.

Earlier in the session, a son of Belmont Stakes winner Union Rags sold for $220,000 to Mac Robertson, agent for Novogratz Racing Stables (video).

Dark Hollow, agent, offered the colt as Hip 113. Out of the winning Flatter mare Safe Journey, the colt is a half-brother to four winners, including O Dionysus (Bodemeister) and Joy (Pure Prize), both multiple stakes winners on the mid-Atlantic racing circuit. Hip 113 was bred in Maryland by Dark Hollow Farm.

Mendelssohn was also responsible for the session's top-priced filly, which sold for $160,000 to Donato Lanni, agent for Caroline & Greg Bentley (video).

Offered as Hip 159 by Northview Stallion Station (David Wade), agent, the filly is a half-sister to a pair of winners out of the winning Curlin mare Split It. Bred in Maryland by Sycamore Hall Thoroughbreds, Hip 159 is from the immediate family of champion filly Epitome and multimillionaire War Story.

Rounding out the top five were a pair of fillies with strong pedigrees:

  • Hip 76, a daughter of Tiznow out of a Not For Love half-sister to four-time Grade 1 winner and two-time Maryland Horse of the Year Knicks Go, which sold for $150,000 to SBM. The filly was bred in Maryland by GreenMount Farm & Tiznow Syndicate and consigned by GreenMount Farm, agent.
  • Hip 11, a filly from the first crop of Preakness Stakes winner Cloud Computing, who is a three-parts sister to course record-setting stakes winner Dirty (Maclean's Music), which sold for $145,000 to Newtown Anner Stud. The Maryland-bred filly was consigned by Blake-Albina Thoroughbred Services, agent.

Over the course of the session, 149 yearlings sold for a gross of $4,577,300. The average – $30,720 – marked 25.6 percent and 16.9 percent increases over 2020 and 2019's first sessions, respectively. The median rose 33.3 percent to $20,000 from the first-session median of $15,000 achieved in both 2020 and 2019. Eight horses sold for $100,000 during the session, compared to two sold at or above that price point in 2020 and five in 2019. The RNA rate was 16.3 percent.

Results are available online. The sale resumes Tuesday, Oct. 5 at 10 a.m.

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Mendelssohn On Top In Competitive Midlantic Opener

TIMONIUM, MD – Buyers had every right to expect competitive bidding during Monday's first session of the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic Fall Yearlings Sale–with normal Maryland shoppers joined by bidders shut out at previous sales–and the arena did not disappoint.

By the close of business Monday, 149 yearlings grossed $4,577,300. The average was $30,720 and the median was $20,000.

During the sale's first session in 2020, 122 yearlings sold for a total of $2,983,600. The session average was $24,456, the median was $15,000, and the buy-back rate was 24.7%.

“It was a great opening session,” Fasig-Tipton president Boyd Browning said Monday evening. “The gross is up 53%, the average is up 26%, median is up 33%, and the RNA rate is a very low 16.2% today.”

While the 2020 auction was held during the uncertainty of the pre-vaccination pandemic, its figures remained fairly steady with the 2019 opening session when 102 yearlings sold for $2,680,000, an average of $26,275 and a median of $15,000.

“[Monday's results] are really more impressive when you consider this was one of the sales that, when you compare 2020 to 2019, it really didn't have a COVID drop,” Browning said. “So '20 and '19 were very similiar in terms of statistical results for this sale. Some other sales have had a little bit of an anti-COVID bump throughout the United States this year in 2021 compared to 2020. Well, this is a pretty genuine increase in terms of statistical performance. Results in '19 and '20 were basically flat, so this increase in 2021 is even more impressive than it has been for some of the other sales.”

Eight yearlings sold for six figures Monday, up from just two a year ago.

A colt by Mendelssohn (hip 189) brought the day's top price when selling for $230,000 to Oracle Bloodstock. Also topping the $200,000 mark was a colt by Union Rags (hip 113) who sold for $220,000 to trainer Mac Robertson. Both were consigned by locally based sellers, with Dreamtime Stables offering hip 189 and consignor/breeder Dark Hollow offering hip 113.

“One of the nice things we saw today was the support of the local breeders,” Browning said. “It was nice to see the sale topped by Dreamtime, which is Mike Palmer and his wife and their longtime association with Candyland Farm's Herb and Ellen Moelis, who have been long-time supporters of this sale and this region. And the second highest-priced horse was from David Hayden and his Dark Hollow Farm. They were both really legitimate pedigrees with Mendelssohn and Union Rags. It is really rewarding to see regional breeders who have quality product support this marketplace, which helps lure more buyers and more successful buyers to the sale this year and in future years as well.”

The day's top-priced filly was also a daughter of Mendelssohn with Donato Lanni bidding $160,000 to acquire hip 159.

Cary Frommer, traditionally an active buyer at the Midlantic Fall sale, signed for three yearlings Monday, including a Twirling Candy colt (hip 78) for $115,000. But Frommer agreed it was tough sledding.

“I feel like I am paying more than I thought I would have to,” she said. “For a nice horse, it's still very strong and I've been outbid on a bunch of very nice horses. I think the market is fair, but it's just that it's a trickle down effect from the other sale. People haven't been able to buy what they wanted. So it's strong here.”

Pinhookers, some of whom are not traditional bidders at the auction, were a dominant presence at the sale Monday.

“I knew they were coming,” Frommer said of the pinhooking buying bench. “I knew everybody was having trouble at the previous sale. So I knew they would be here and I was not happy about it.”

One of those pinhookers making an unusual appearance in Timonium was Susan Montayne, who purchased a filly by Tiznow (hip 76) for $150,000.

“We've never actually done this sale before,” Montayne, who is a regular presence as a consignor at the Midlantic May 2-Year-Olds in Training Sale, said. “I have never come up here to buy horses. We usually focus on the Kentucky sales and sales at home in Ocala, but here we are. It was very hard to buy at Keeneland. Luckily, we have clients that send us horses to go to the races, but with the pinhook side, it was a little tough.”

The Midlantic sale continues Tuesday with bidding at the Maryland State Fairgrounds beginning at 10 a.m.

Mendelssohn Colt to Handal

Conor Foley of Oracle Bloodstock struck late in Monday's first day of the Midlantic Fall Yearling Sale to secure a colt by Mendelssohn (hip 189) for a session-topping $230,000 on behalf of a partnership.

“He's going to go to [trainer] Ray Handal,” Foley said. “I bought him for a group of people.”

Of the yearling, Foley said, “He just looks a lot like Mendelssohn. He just looked like an athlete that should run next year; what surface he can run on, I don't know. I think horses like him were few and far between here and he really stood out.”

The colt was bred by Classic Thoroughbred XXIX and was consigned by Dreamtime Stables. He is out of Tasha's Moon (Malibu Moon) and is a half-brother to stakes-placed Juror Number Four (Into Mischief) and from the family of multiple graded winner Tasha's Miracle.

Hip 189 was one of two yearlings from the first crop of Grade I winner Mendelssohn to bring six figures Monday in Timonium. Earlier in the session, bloodstock agent Donato Lanni, bidding on behalf of Caroline and Greg Bentley, acquired the day's top-priced filly when going to $160,000 for a daughter of the Coolmore stallion (hip 159).

Union Rags Colt to Novogratz

Trainer Mac Robertson, bidding on behalf of owner Joe Novogratz, purchased a colt by Union Rags for $220,000 Monday in Timonium. The bay colt was bred and consigned by Dark Hollow Farm and is out of Safe Journey (Flatter), who is also the dam of multiple stakes winners O Dionysus (Bodemeister) and Joy (Pure Prize). The yearling's second dam is Safe at the Plate (Double Zeus), a half-sister to champion sprinter Safely Kept.

“Safe Journey is an awful good mare for this sale,” Robertson said after signing the ticket on hip 113. “She has four or five really good horses that can win where we want to go. And I thought, for a Union Rags, he has enough length to be a really good horse.”

Several times a leading owner at Canterbury Park, Novogratz was a linebacker for the Pitt Panthers and was drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers before being traded to the Minnesota Vikings. He is the founder of IDI Distributors Inc., an insulation distribution company.

Robertson trained the multiple stakes winner Amy's Challenge (Artie Schiller) for Novogratz. The mare, second in the GI Madison S. and third in the GI Humana Distaff S. in 2019, was purchased for $20,000 at the Fasig Midlantic Yearling sale in 2016.

“I thought he'd bring between $200,000 and $250,000 when he vetted well and scoped well,” Robertson said of the yearling's final price. “Until you get your guy to vet him, you don't really know.”

Also on behalf of Novogratz Monday, Robertson purchased a filly by Malibu Moon (hip 158) for $95,000.

The competitive market was no surprise to Robertson.

“It's really strong,” he said with a rueful smile. “But I'm not surprised. I was at Keeneland–I've never seen an 80% clearance rate in my life. There are people who didn't get what they wanted at Keeneland, so of course they came here.

Tiznow Filly Likely for 2-Year-Old Sales

A filly by Tiznow (hip 76) is likely destined for a return to the sales ring next spring after selling for $150,000 to the bid of Ocala horsewoman Susan Montanye.

“She looks like a classy, two-turn filly,” Montanye, who signed for the pinhooking partnership in the name of her SBM Training and Sales, said of the yearling's appeal. “She is a little bit of a later foal, but she had all the right angles and parts. She vetted great for me. I watched her and I loved her walk, big overreach on her. What's not to like about her?”

Of the filly's final price, Montanye said, “Listen, if you want them right now, it looks like you're going to have to pay for them. She's a Tiznow filly and she's got some pedigree, so $150,000, I feel comfortable with that.”

The yearling was consigned by Sabrina Moore's GreenMount Farm and was bred by Moore in partnership with Tiznow Syndicate. She is out of Pinkprint (Not For Love), a half-sister to GI Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile winner and likely GI Breeders' Cup Classic favorite Knicks Go (Paynter).

Filly Adds Up for Newtownanner

Ron Blake liked a filly by Cloud Computing when he purchased her as a short yearling for $40,000 at the Keeneland January sale earlier this year and he still liked the bay yearling (hip 11) when he sent her through the sales ring in Timonium Monday. He  advised his clients, Samantha and Maurice Regan's Newtown Anner Stud, to purchase the bay for $145,000.

“We always loved her,” Blake said. “We bought her as a weanling and from the day we bought her I thought she was gorgeous. She's grown into a very pretty filly. She is a late foal and I think when you take that into account, you can see what she could become. She's by a first-year stallion and she was a late foal so she looked maybe a little small to some people. But because she is a May 20 foal, we thought she'd be a real beautiful filly. We advised our client to buy her.”

The yearling is out of Martini and is a three-quarter sister to stakes winner Dirty (Maclean's Music).

“I just think she has so much quality,” Blake said. “We think she'll be a good racehorse. She'll go back to the farm and be able to grow up a little bit. We will give her some time off before we break her and then go forward with her and see what she can do.”

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The Process: Conor Foley

With thousands of horses on offer from the top of the market and on down, Keeneland September is unlike any other yearling sale and requires serious hard work and focus to shop effectively. We've caught up with several prominent buyers to find out how they attack the auction from pre-sale preparations and into the two weeks of selling.

This installment features Conor Foley, whose Oracle Bloodstock is active in all segments of the yearling market acquiring horses for both domestic and foreign clients. At last year's September sale, Oracle was listed agent on 24 acquisitions totaling $3,673,500. Those purchases ranged from a $1.1-million Medaglia d'Oro filly now named Hodl to a $1,500 daughter of Mizzen Mast purchased in Book 6.

This year's sale will be held from Sept. 13 to Sept. 24. Visit theworldsyearlingsale.com for more information.

TDN: How much pedigree work do you do before the sale?

CF: I don't really look at all through the catalog beforehand. The only part that matters to me as a bloodstock agent is the physical part. I think your brain can play tricks on you. It's very hard to buy good racehorses, so I just try to protect myself from making any assumptions or things like that by looking too closely at the pedigree first. So, I go backwards and look at their pedigrees last after they've passed [physical inspection]. I don't want anything in their pedigree to trigger something in my mind that makes me want to like the horse more than I should.

For a lot of mares, they only ever have one good foal, so to me, if you throw out a pedigree because the mare's never produced anything, you may end up never looking at her best horse.

TDN: Do you do many pre-sale farm visits?

CF: Rarely. I'll do that if I'm out checking on another horse that we manage and the farm would like to show us their yearlings. The horses change so much over the last 60-90 days before the sale. What do you do if you liked a horse on the farm but not so much on the sales grounds? That's tough.

Our team makes sure we look at every horse at the sale, and because we're able to do that, we can work backwards.

TDN: Talk a bit more about your buying team.

CF: I work with Jim Hatchett and [more recently] Scotty Everett. Scotty's worked on the track his whole life–the first horse he ever hotwalked was Danzig. He's a really great guy and everybody who sees him has a smile on their face. He's a super person and a very good horseman who worked for a lot of great trainers. He's retired from the track in the last couple years and he's a super addition to Oracle for the sales. Megan Jones also joined our team this year. She's fantastic and helps with a number of things.

TDN: You usually have a flock of trainers in tow at the sales, including Danny Gargan, Tom Morley, Dan Blacker, Ray Handal and Jordan Blair. What's the dynamic like there?

CF: Among others, I've also helped Rob Falcone and sometimes Doug Watson–we'll buy some of his clients a yearling with the plan of it going to Dubai as a 2-year-old.

I love it. You have all these great horsemen that I'm getting to spend time with looking at horses. We're able to accomplish other things while we're together as far as talking about horses currently in training and stuff like that.

Everybody gets along. This is pro sports, and I treat it like that. There's a level of professionalism.

As far as who ends up on which horses, things tend to work themselves out given what surface we think they'll excel on; what type of horse we think they'll be in terms of when they'll mature; what part of the country or the world we think they might fit in best. So those things whittle it down along with budgets, and I've never really had an issue [with multiple trainers wanting to go for the same horse].

It's also like a workshop for them, because they end up talking about the struggles and the things that are going well or not well in their barns. Plus we just have a lot of fun.

TDN: What's the first thing you look for when inspecting a horse?

CF: Definitely the way it moves. The walk is so important. The conformation is so critical, and our horses, for the most part, make a lot of starts. So I'm kind of looking at a horse and asking myself, “Could you ride this horse from here to Los Angeles?” Because that's how many miles it's going to take to get him fit for a race. What problems are we going to run into based on how the horse is physically made? If the horse grows or changes in this way, what impact will that have given how it's made here or there? I try to ask myself about 100 questions once a horse comes out, and when you start coming up with negative answers, you start moving on to the next horse.

TDN: Any there any mistakes you think other buyers make or things they focus on that you don't find as important?

CF: I've seen a lot of people try to embrace new technologies, and I don't think any of them really work. Somebody would've figured it out by now. This is a sport that many people have been passionate about for hundreds of years.

TDN: How do you stay organized and focused when trying to get through so many horses and make decisions about them?

CF: Luckily, in the first couple books you can pretty much see every horse on your own. As the sale gets into the later books, we have to take the team approach where I'm looking at the horses who made the cut the day before. This is the sale where you get to look at a horse the fewest times [before they sell].

The other thing about Keeneland is that the grounds are physically demanding–it's not flat. It demands the most out of you, and you just have to stick to your good decision making. I try to stay conscious of it and just keep a level mind. If you get tired, it affects the way your brain makes decisions. The September sale tests that.

TDN: You bought horses from $1.1 million to $1500 at last year's September sale. Is it tough to adjust your eyes, so to speak, when going from the top end to the lower end?

CF: I think towards the end, the good ones stand out much easier. If you're buying a horse to go to Saudi Arabia or Russia, you're probably buying a different type of horse than if you're buying a cheaper horse to stay in America. For me, you're just trying to buy the best possible athlete every day. Nothing really changes in the process–it's just as hard to buy a horse for $5,000 as it is $500,000.

TDN: Anything among your purchases last year at September that you're particularly excited about?

CF: Probably the Medaglia d'Oro filly who cost all the money. She was always going to be a 3-year-old type, and we weren't really going to tighten the screws too early on an expensive filly with that kind of pedigree, but she's coming along nicely at her own pace with Dan Blacker and doing well.

TDN: Any past KEESEP successes you're especially proud of?

CF: One horse who puts a big smile on my face is a horse called Tuz (Oxbow). We bought him for $7,000 [on the second-to-last day of the 2018 sale]. He went to Russia and won his first three starts [by a combined 64 lengths]. Then he ran in Dubai and nearly won the prep for the UAE Derby last year [when second in the Al Bastakiya]… He finished third in this year's G3 Burj Nahaar. He provided a lot of excitement for $7,000.

TDN: Any trends you're looking for or market expectations heading into September?

CF: I think this sale will be very sale–they have been for the most part all year. It's always a shock to the system at first when there are horses you think you can buy for $200,000 or $250,000–which is an enormous amount of money–and they go for $700,000, $800,000, $1 million. So, you get outbid a lot, but you have to not get upset about it. It's tough when you barely lose, but you just have to move on to the next thing until it's over. Last year was not a great year, and all the breeders deserve to get rewarded. Things haven't been easy for anybody.

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