Thoroughbred Club. The Relaunch mare, who was foaled in 1986, went on to produce the 1995 El Encino Stakes (grade II) winner Klassy Kim and the 61-time starter Koolinger (Jpn), a multiple stakes winner and $4.2 million-earner in his native Japan. Three additional Cal-bred females are members of the seven-figure sales club, with purchase prices of $1 million each: Shywing, Moscow Burning and Leave Me Alone. The five-time stakes winner and grade I runner-up Shywing ran seventh for her new connections in the 1986 Breeders’ Cup Distaff (grade I), just one day after she sold as a four-year-old during a Hollywood Park auction which featured horses of racing age. Grade II winner and 2004 California Horse of the Year Moscow Burning, her home state’s leading money-winning distaffer with career earnings of $1,417,800, began her broodmare career in Japan after she was purchased as a six-year-old by Shadai Farm at the 2006 Keeneland November sale. California champion Leave Me Alone, the runaway winner of the 2005 Test Stakes (grade I) for three-year-old fillies at Saratoga Race Course, joined Frank and Jane Lyon’s Summer Wind Farm broodmare band after she was offered at the 2007 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky Selected Fall Mixed Sale while carrying her first foal, by A.P. Indy. Falling just short of the $1 million benchmark is Tizdubai, a full sister to 2000 Eclipse Horse of the Year Tiznow who raised the commercial ceiling for California-bred weanlings when she brought $950,000 at the 2001 Keeneland November sale. The Cee’s Tizzy filly won Del Mar’s grade II Sorrento Stakes for owner Darley Stable in 2003. The state’s top-priced weanling colt is Daiwa Falcon, a stakesplaced winner in Japan who sold at Keeneland in 1999 for $425,000. By General Meeting, he was bred by the Mabees. Bringing the review of best-selling Cal-breds full circle—and back to the Belmont Stakes—is the 1985 state champion Barberstown, a grade II winner by Gummo who ran third in the 1983 edition of the storied New York race, then sold in a Del Mar dispersal two months later to McDermott Ranch in Texas. The $850,000 purchase price for Barberstown, who eventually found a niche as a regional sire in the South, remains a record among three-year-old males who have been offered at public auction.
Industry Insight Cont’d. Selected Two-Year-Olds in Training who was bred by Shields Thoroughbreds Inc. and who also went to Darley. A full sister to the stakes-winning, $600,000 auction purchase Race for Glory, the Cape Town filly set a record as her home state’s top-selling juvenile of her gender, but was euthanized after she sustained a training injury at Hollywood Park while preparing for her first start. Realizing a much happier fate was the state champion distaffer Gourmet Girl, whose $2.25-million pricetag from the 2002 Keeneland November sale is the third-highest among all Cal-breds and second-best among broodmares. The 2001 Eclipse Champion Older Female, a multiple grade I-winning millionaire by Cee’s Tizzy, was bred by Carl and Olivia Cannata and is currently represented by the dual stakes-placed winner Luxury Class. Occupying two positions on the list of top-selling California-breds is the regally bred winner Servaline, another product of the Mabees’ Golden Eagle Farm, which dominated the state’s leading breeders list from 1988 through 2005. The 2000 Storm Cat half-sister to four-time grade I winner Excellent Meeting sold to Brushwood Stable for $2 million at the 2001 Keeneland July Select Yearling Sale, then elicited a $1.275-million bid from Courtlandt Farm as a Keeneland November broodmare five years later. Servaline’s only starter to date, the Gone West filly Westline, is a winner. The state’s highest-priced yearling colt is Shamgaan, by Nureyev. Also bred by the Mabees, he commanded $600,000 at the 1991 California Thoroughbred Sales (CTS) Del Mar Yearling Sale, but ultimately failed to win in seven starts overseas. Recent grade I winners River’s Prayer and Romance Is Diane are each noteworthy for eliciting seven-figure bids as Keeneland November racing or broodmare prospects. The former, a 2003 daughter of Devon Lane who was bred by Vessels Stallion Farm LLC, sold for $1.5 million in 2007. The latter, a 2004 daughter of In Excess (Ire) and dual California champion who was bred by Swan Equine Service Co., sold for $1.35 million in 2008. Two decades ago, the grade I-winning California champion Kool Arrival made headlines as a $1.25-million purchase during the 1989 CTS Fall Mixed Sale at the Del Mar
©Benoit
F E A T U R E
A Kiss For Luck
34 CALIFORNIA THOROUGHBRED • JULY 2010
Magical Allure
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