Summer at the spa

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Friday, July 14, 2017

SUMMER AT THE SPA Your guide to the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Selected Yearlings Sale

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Friday, July 14, 2017 racingpost.com

Saratoga Selected Yearlings Sale Quality fare in most picturesque of settings

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F YOU haven’t been already, maybe it would be best not to go at all.

Because once you’ve sampled the elixir, August will never be the same again. Every time you cannot return to Saratoga, you will lose 40 days of summer to a winter of the soul.

Even if you had no interest in horses, the old spa town in upstate New York would bewitch your sensibilities.

Huddled among the lakes and forest spreading beneath the Adirondack Mountains, it revives an era you might otherwise presume to have existed only in the most sentimentally satisfying of old films. Stroll its residential precincts late on a summer evening, the sultry air humming with the electric din of cicadas, and you will catch murmured snatches of conversation and laughter and the pouring of drinks, drifting from verandas across fragrant gardens and lawns.

It is more blissful yet, however, for those who compound the basic, aesthetic addiction with a love of the Turf. For this is the East Coast equivalent of Deauville, not just a privileged sanctuary from sweltering Manhattan but also the venue for 40 days of racing with a higher median of quality than any other staging post on the American circuit.

The racetrack environment is consistent with the rest of the town: rotor fans in the wooden grandstands, flowers

hanging along the shedrows in the back stretch. True, they call it ‘the Graveyard of Champions’ – American Pharoah, in the Travers, being only the latest in a litany of giants brought down to earth here. For everyone else, however, it is a source of new life.

And that applies even to the hardboiled professionals of the bloodstock circuit, who convene on August 7 and 8 in the charming Fasig-Tipton sales complex for a boutique yearling sale. To these, however, the ambient joys of the sale represent only a downpayment on those that could well ensue over the next couple of summers, on the racetrack over the road.

For this is North America’s premier auction, in percentage terms, for the discovery of Grade 1 winners – or, indeed, of Graded stakes winners overall. Tapwrit this year became the fifth Saratoga graduate to win the Belmont Stakes in ten years. You even had the chance to buy a Triple Crown winner here in 2013, although American Pharoah was evidently nowhere near his reserve when led out at $300,000. Three of the outstanding female runners of recent seasons – Tepin, Stellar Wind and Songbird – exited the ring here for an aggregate of $580,000, a relative bargain.

For Fasig-Tipton, who have been selling here for

nearly a century, it’s a symbiotic exchange of atmosphere, heritage and quality. “I think we’re part of the fabric of Saratoga – and Saratoga is certainly a key part of the fabric of Fasig-Tipton,” says Boyd Browning, the company’s CEO. “It never gets old. Hell, I won’t be able to

sleep the night before I’ll be so excited. I think when people get to Saratoga, whether they’re trainers or owners or jockeys, or buying or selling, they find it reinvigorates the spirit and the soul.”

Sure enough, according to Mark Taylor, the core clients of Taylor Made invariably

want to be represented at this sale. “In each crop they always ask: ‘Do I have that one Saratoga horse?’” he says.

“Keeneland September may be the hub of their business plan – but Saratoga is just such a fun trip to take.”

Training at sunrise at Saratoga; (below) the thick of the action in the Fasig-Tipton sales ring; (inset) American Pharoah as a yearling

Chris McGrath, bloodstock editor

CONTENTS 3-5 Expatriate Irish horseman Gerry Dilger on the consecutive Kentucky Derby winners who graduated from his Bluegrass nursery 6-7, 12-13 Leading consignors highlight the best of their drafts for the Saratoga yearling sale 8-11 John Phillips, owner of the historic Darby Dan farm, on reconciling the legacy of Classic bloodlines with the demands of the modern commercial market 14 Fasig-Tipton supremo Boyd Browning looks forward to the company’s innovative Turf Showcase sale 15 Things to see and do in upstate New York’s historic summer retreat

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Racing Post Friday, July 14, 2017

Chris McGrath speaks to Gerry Dilger about luck, the herdsman’s instinct and the continuing success of Dromoland Farm

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HEN Gerry Dilger arrived in the Bluegrass, he found himself among only a handful of Irishmen. He recites the names. “There were maybe only five or six of us in the old times,” he says. “Gerry O’Meara. David Mullins, who passed away. Robbie Lyons.

Ger O’Brien. And Richard Barry, of course, at Ashford.”

Now you go into McCarthy’s bar in Lexington, on a music night, and see the latest tide of the diaspora, a circle of dancers opening and closing round the song: pale, open-faced youths, pointing their toes and hoisting their knees, shyly smiling in nostalgia for a childhood only short years ago.

To be fair, Dilger himself sounds as though he cannot have been here any longer than the youngest of them.

“People ask if I’m visiting,” he admits. “And I say no, I’m living here. Oh very good; and since when are you here? Since 38 years.”

Thirty-eight years, plus a Chicago wife and three Irish-American kids, since the day at Shannon airport when he felt like “taking two steps backward for every one forward down that runway”.

Certainly he had no intention of staying beyond six months.

Yet now he is pointed out to newcomers as the doyen of their calling, a pathfinder of the old school for Irish horsemen – his status consummated, in barely credible fashion, by the fact that the last two Kentucky Derby winners both graduated from his Dromoland Farm nursery.

From an annual crop of 20,000 thoroughbreds foaled in North America, first Nyquist and then Always Dreaming figured among the 40 or so who pass annually through his hands.

He disowns the obvious implication. “I’m no better than the man next door,” he says firmly. “I got lucky. Put it down to hard work, whatever, but I got lucky. I’m no better than any of my buddies in town here.”

Be that as it may, the one certainty is that over the years a latent genius of some kind has been drawn out from somewhere. Dilger had no immediate roots in stockmanship, beyond hanging round the cattle mart in Ennis as a boy. Yet he has a brother alongside on the farm, and a

An Irishman holding court in the bluegrass

Gerry Dilger’s 312-acre Dromoland Farm from where the last two Kentucky Derby winners, Nyquist (inset) and Always Dreaming, have graduated

cousin also working with horses in Mullingar. He speculates that a German forbear, a few generations back, must have exported a genetic knack for horsemanship. Otherwise there is just the lore he absorbed as a young man, after completing the Irish National Stud foundation in 1977; above all, when coming under the

beady-eyed guidance of Tony Butler at Brownstown.

“You can do all the courses and still you’re not a horseman,” Dilger says. “When I started out there were no [mobile] phones, no running to offices here and there. The old stud grooms went in every morning, took care of the horses all day long, made sure every horse had eaten up every

‘I’m no better than the man next door. I got lucky. Put it down to hard work, whatever, but I got lucky. I’m no better than any of my buddies in town’ A modest Gerry Dilger eschews praise

evening. They were just completely natural around the horses. They could see an animal getting sick before he got sick. That’s the way their eye was trained. They depended on getting the horse right themselves.

“There are very good young people today who handle horses well, and they’re more advanced in technology. Years ago we wouldn’t know scientific names. But you can’t get other things out of a book – the herdsman, as I call him, being well able to feed and care for them, to know when horses are going forward; or when this guy should maybe get a little more attention than the next.

“They knew how to feed.

Throwing it into a bucket, that’s not feeding. Today the

feed companies have it all mixed. The old timers, they’d be boiling that bran all day, the oats would be cooking. So it’s different times.”

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S SUCH, the one imprint he will acknowledge on his Derby winners is a collective, cultural one. For the regime at Dromoland, he protests, is no different from similar outfits operated by other exiles in the district: hands-on, day by day, never more than a couple of minutes from kitchen to paddock.

“I love summertime because we have only about 15 prepped between the July Sale and Saratoga and I’m out there with them all the time,” he says. “But it’s consistency. All

through the winter months, I go out there hail, rain or snow.

“I can’t see every horse, every day, myself – but I have great staff here, and they’re watching all the time, too. And if for some reason you don’t see one for two or three days you make sure your eye is that little sharper when you go back out.

Nyquist was here ten months.

Did I lunge the horse every day? No. Did I lunge him a lot of times? Yes I did. Was I watching him? Sure I was.”

It must be said that Nyquist did rather more for Dilger’s reputation than his pocket.

From the first crop of Uncle Mo, he was bought as a foal at Keeneland for $180,000 with Ted Campion and Pat Costello.

Dilger remembers coming into the back ring, a mutually Continues page 4

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Friday, July 14, 2017 racingpost.com

Saratoga Selected Yearlings Sale

‘They do way better in the cold weather.

Snow doesn’t bother them’

vvFrom page 3 appraising encounter with Campion. “Are you on this horse, Gerry?” “Yes; you?”

“Yeah. Will we split him?”

“We’d all had our homework done, had him vetted, knew he was clean, a good throat,” Dilger says. “He was a good-sized, rangy foal with medium to good bone.

But from the side he was very nice, very good angles, and you could see where he would grow into. Wasn’t 100 per cent perfect in front, but he was fine. Even as a yearling he wasn’t a big, robust horse.

Some of these Uncle Mos, they might have beautiful stretch, size, you know, but they’re not big, heavy horses.”

The following September, the colt was sold through the same ring to Mike Ryan for $230,000. Ryan was a good friend; in fact, he and Dilger shared a handful of mares in a minor-league breeding partnership they called Santa Rosa. “He’s a nice horse, Mike,” Dilger had told him.

“He’s not done a thing wrong, we’ve never had a bandage on him. So what you see there, Mike, that’s what you’re getting.”

It was a pretty marginal pinhook, when split three ways. But all involved – Dilger and his partners in the horse, and Ryan himself – at least reiterated the shared, shrewd knack of the men who put the green into the Bluegrass.

Ryan, together with Niall Brennan, would proceed to recycle Nyquist at the breeze-ups. As such, the horse never had a real break: straight from his sales prep to Brennan to be broken; then straight on to Doug O’Neill at Santa Anita. “So his mind had to be good to stand that,” Dilger notes.

The reserve had been set at $224,000. That’s how close they came to keeping him, pushing on towards the breeze-ups themselves. But you never know how these things will play out.

Fatefully, for instance, one more bid might have made all the difference when Dilger and Ryan had offered one of their Santa Rosa mares, Above Perfection, at Fasig-Tipton

November in 2009. They were trying to cash in after the foal she was carrying, when purchased for $450,000 at the same sale three years previously, went on to win the Grade 1 Spinaway as Hot Dixie Chick. In the event, they were left wondering whether they had been too greedy after buying Above Perfection back for $1.15 million.

“I’d say if there had been another bid she’d have been gone,” Dilger admits. “Yes, she was on the brink of her reserve. And we’d have been absolutely delighted, you know. Instead we took her home and it was: ‘Well, like, we’ll have to go on now with her.’ So we did. At that stage it was too late.”

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N 2013 it was decided to try Above Perfection with the freshman Bodemeister. Although the mare had been very fast – beaten only a neck by champion Xtra Heat for the Grade 1 Prioress over six furlongs, the pair gunning from the gate – not all her foals had been compact, sprinting specimens like Hot Dixie Chick. Dilger liked the complementary build in Bodemeister; and of course remembered how he had carried his own terrific dash to a heart-breaking margin when collared late in both the Kentucky Derby and Preakness.

The resulting foal, as a homebred, had longer exposure to the Dromoland system than its standard weanling pinhooks. By increments, by recycled profit, it had long become clear that this could only be to his advantage.

One of Dilger’s breakthrough sales had been Tomahawk, a $2.5m Seattle Slew yearling who became one of Aidan O’Brien’s earliest crack juveniles. From the same crop, moreover, Dilger also consigned Elusive City, who won the Prix Morny for his mentor’s son Gerard Butler; Tomahawk and Elusive City, in fact, filled the podium behind Oasis Dream in the Middle Park.

Others to come off the farm and score at the highest level

It is all in a day’s work at Dromoland Farm near Lexington, Kentucky

at two include Saoirse Abu, subsequently beaten only a length when third in the 1,000 Guineas; and Dublin, who was co-bred by Dilger and completed a Grade 1 double in the Hopeful the same weekend that Hot Dixie Chick won the Spinaway.

One way or another, Dilger has plainly mastered the nuances of bringing youngsters on, not least through the rigours of the Kentucky winter. “I think it’s very good for them, they do way better in the cold weather,” he insists. “Because they’ve good healthy coats, they’re out and around, they’re running together, they’re playing.

“Icy rain is a different ball game but snow doesn’t bother them. Feed them well in the mornings, throw them lots of hay, make sure they can drink

plenty of water, break their troughs. But they’re healthy, they’re happy. And you see them developing.

“People have their own ways, and there’s not a thing wrong with that. Weighing them every month or whatever. But as I said to the feed man: ‘I’m going to buy your feed – but if I need you to weigh them, to tell me if they’re putting on weight or growing . . . well, I shouldn’t be here.’ Simple as that. Keep it the old way. Just keep it as natural as you can. Those horses will do it on their own.

“Often you bring back foals off the January sales and they have hair like mice, so you can’t turn them out. I love a big healthy colt, out there 22, 23 hours a day. And in the springtime, when the grass is coming, you start backing off.

It’s like a man raising cattle, you’re putting flesh on them but making sure you don’t put too much on them in winter time.

‘It’s like a man raising cattle, you’re putting flesh on them but making sure you don’t put too much on them in winter time’ Gerry Dilger on bringing young horses on

“Because next thing they’ll be too fat, because this is the time they’re developing, the time you really want them out there, running around, getting strong.”

But it is not just with his own herd that Dilger has a finger on the pulse. His Bodemeister colt, sold to Steve Young for $350,000, made an overnight sensation of his sire as Always Dreaming; and Dilger had already caught both Tapit and Pioneerof The Nile on the way up with the same mare.

Unsurprisingly, Above Perfection’s latest assignation was with Nyquist.

“He’s been good to me so we’ll be good to him!” Dilger says. “She’s 19 now but she looks super, she looks 14.”

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GAIN, however, he is adamant that the Midas touch reflects only the company – and competition – he keeps. “It’s got very selective,” he observes of the pinhooking of weanlings. “More people are doing it, and when a real nice foal with a nice pedigree comes into the ring you won’t be lonely standing up there.

“You might be waiting all day long, see nobody, I don’t know where they’d be hiding – but by Jesus they come out of that woodwork. And they’re

probably saying the same about me.”

None of them have rules, or manuals; just intuition. As such, Dilger views his remarkable Derby double as a shared one; a credit to his whole circle of friends and rivals, and the way they do things.

“This whole thing is a puzzle,” he shrugs. “People now are doing horses’ hearts.

Well, that’s another piece of the puzzle. They’re doing their stride. Another piece. Genetics stuff. Piece of the puzzle. But you can have all this – and if they’re not sound, they can’t run.

“And it will surprise you.

Same way you’ll see a very good under-16 hurler, good at 18 still, but at the next level they don’t get stronger, they don’t grow. And they’re done.

And that weakly lad who can’t get into the under-16s, there he is now, hurling the life out of all of them. So it’s a never-ending process.

Certainly I can’t get the whole picture from a foal.

“The luck just happened to run my way the last couple of years. It’s great for the farm, and the team. But my feet are still on the ground. I know how hard this is. I know how much you have to get lucky.”

He pauses, gives a wry laugh. “But everyone else has to get lucky too.”

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Racing Post Friday, July 14, 2017

‘This is a bit of a jewel, I think’

IT WAS at the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga sale in 2008 that Gerry Dilger and Mike Ryan enjoyed their first big dividend out of Above Perfection, the mare who later produced the 2017 Kentucky Derby winner Always Dreaming. Her Dixie Union filly made $340,000 and returned to the Spa the following summer to win her maiden by six lengths and then the Grade 1 Spinaway Stakes.

Hot Dixie Chick testified that Dromoland’s draft at Saratoga, while generally small, will invariably be perfectly formed – as they must be. If anything, as Dilger jokes, buyers have “too much time” to look at the lots.

But he is confident they will like what they see in his quartet this time. Hip 107, a Will Take Charge colt, is the first foal of an Any Given Saturday mare, herself out of a half-sister to the 2,000 Guineas and Derby-placed Star Of Gdansk.

“He’s a very nice colt, well balanced and good moving with very good angles on him,” Dilger says. “I like him a lot, he’ll suit there real well.”

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3x Group 1 Winner Full Brother to Frankel First Yearlings of 2017 Look for Hip 86 at the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Sale

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Hip 166 is an Uncle Mo filly out of a Dixie Union half-sister to the dam of recent Grade 1 winner Sailor’s Valentine. She is already dam of five winners; and so, too, is the unraced Deputy Minister mare who produced a filly by freshman Orb as hip 141.

“The Uncle Mo is outstanding in my opinion,” says Dilger.

“Very nice, good size, strength, scope – and a good-moving filly. And the Orb is strong with good bone, good hip, a good shoulder. I like her a lot as well.”

But Dromoland’s outstanding prospect could be hip 135, who has one of the best pedigrees in the catalogue as a War Front half-sister to Peeping Fawn and Thewayyouare.

Their dam Maryinsky is a half-sister to Broodmare of the Year Better Than Honour, who produced consecutive Belmont winners in Jazil and Rags To Riches. Better Than Honour and Maryinsky are out of the Kentucky Oaks winner Blush With Pride, herself a half-sister to both the dam of Xaar and the granddam of Chimes Of Freedom.

“This is a bit of a jewel, I think,” says Dilger. “She’s a very good mover and she’ll be a two-year-old. I’d say she’ll do very well in Europe, and there’s a good update too.”

That is a reference to Peeping Fawn’s unbeaten daughter by Deep Impact, September, so impressive in the Chesham at Royal Ascot last month.

Peeping Fawn (left) is a half-sister to hip 135, a War Front filly; (right) Peeping Fawn’s impressive daughter September

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Friday, July 14, 2017 racingpost.com

Saratoga Selected Yearlings Sale

AND NOW FOR THE NEXT Chris McGrath with the lowdown from leading vendors on the pick of their Saratoga Selected Yearlings Sale drafts

Denali Stud sold this year’s Belmont Stakes winner Tapwrit at Saratoga; (below) Denali’s Craig Bandoroff, who describes the Saratoga Sale as one of his favourite places

‘He’s the kind you want to take there – a great individual by a great sire’ Denali Stud

It is precisely the fact that the most expensive yearlings will not always prove to be the best racehorses that keeps everyone interested – and the game so interesting. On the other hand, enough of those pricey ones have to make some sense of market values to keep breeders and consignors in business. So for every rags-to-riches story, the industry needs a Tapwrit.

At $1.2 million, the colt consigned by Denali Stud on behalf of My Meadowview Farm was the third most expensive lot at the 2015 Saratoga Sale. He was purchased by Bridlewood Farm, Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners and Robert LaPenta to win a Classic – and that is precisely what he did when joining Tonalist, Union Rags and Da’ Tara as recent Saratoga graduates to win the Belmont Stakes. As Craig Bandoroff of Denali says: “They stepped up, they paid the money – and he delivered.”

Denali followed up last year by consigning a Medaglia d’Oro filly homebred by Josephine Abercrombie’s Pin Oak Stud, bought by Whisper Hill Farm for a sale-topping $1.45 million.

Little wonder, then, if Bandoroff is feeling positive about the nine-strong draft he is preparing this time round.

“The Saratoga Sale has been good to us,” he said. “But it’s always been one of my favourite places. There’s that great atmosphere, everybody’s relaxed, everybody’s in a good mood. We’ve been there a long time and we’re very careful what we take – and that’s been the secret of our success there.”

The Denali draft includes, as hip 124, the latest yearling out of Tapwrit’s dam, Successful Appeal’s Spinaway Stakes winner Appealing Zophie. This is a colt by Speightstown. “And he’s totally different from his half-brother,” Bandoroff said.

“He looks what you’d expect a Speightstown to look like, more like a sprinter-miler. But he’s a nice horse, they say he’s training unbelievable and really doing well. We debated whether we should go there or to Keeneland September and said: ‘Hey, it worked once…’

And hopefully we’re going to get some good press [from

Tapwrit] coming up to the Travers.”

Tapwrit’s dam, as a Grade 1 winner, actually carries a fairly quiet family tree for a couple of generations. But that does not necessarily hold down a horse in the Saratoga market. Sure enough, the page of hip 72 rather hastens through to the fourth dam – albeit, as a sister to Raise A Native, she is one you would want to highlight in any family tree.

“This Uncle Mo colt, his pedigree is very light,” admitted Bandoroff. “When the owner said he wanted to send him to Saratoga I hadn’t yet seen the horse. And I said: ‘We can’t take this horse to Saratoga! I mean, I’ll go look at him – but…’ And then I saw him. And he’s an oil painting.

So I called the owner and said: ‘You want to go to Saratoga?

We’ll take him!’ So it’s going to be fun, just because it’s atypical. But of course he’s by a serious stallion.”

In contrast, hip 82, a filly

by Broken Vow out of a Giant’s Causeway mare, belongs to the same Pin Oak family as last year’s sale-topper: they share the same third dam in Whisper Who Dares. “Broken Vow has turned into a good broodmare sire and this is a very strong individual,” said Bandoroff.

“And we saw last year that this family gets a lot of respect when it comes on to the market.”

Other Denali lots include hip 45, a son of Curlin out of Grade 1 winner River’s Prayer.

“A serious horse, very good-looking, we’re excited

about him,” Bandoroff said. “I haven’t had one for Stonestreet at Saratoga before, but they sure gave us a good one. He’s the kind you want to take there – a great individual by a great sire.”

Hip 208, a Shanghai Bobby colt, “looks very precocious, he’ll be an early two-year-old”; while hip 179, out of a half-sister to the dam of Preakness winner Exaggerator, Bandoroff reckons is “as good a More Than Ready as I’ve seen”.

But he is reluctant to pick between them. “I think a couple are superstars but there are no holes anywhere,” he said. “And that’s what you need up there. It’s long way to go.

Listen, you never know. We can all go to horse sales and think we have a horse to like.

But we’ve had a lot of practice and there are horses in there they’re going to like.”

‘That’s the magic of Saratoga – it’s a broad umbrella they put up’ Taylor Made

It is no small compliment to say that you can guarantee a Taylor Made consignment will match quantity with quality.

Of 227 yearlings catalogued for the Saratoga Sale this year, no fewer than 41 are being prepared by the nursery established by the sons of the great Joe Taylor.

As such, nobody is better placed to judge the breadth of the boutique spectrum than Mark Taylor, who runs the Taylor Made public sales division. “We’ve had good luck

there taking really strong physicals, including some who really looked like they didn’t belong on pedigree,” he said.

“And some, of course, who did have huge pedigrees and topped the sale. So it’s a combination. That’s the magic of Saratoga – it’s a very broad umbrella they put up.

“Anybody can fit under there. You got a really nice New York-bred who you don’t want to put into the preferred sale? It’s a great place to showcase one.”

To go through each individual would be an invidious task, but Taylor picked out “some of our more obvious big-ticket items”.

One he expects to appeal strongly to the transatlantic shopper is hip 23, a filly by the lamented Scat Daddy out of a Speightstown mare who has already produced Isomer to run Churchill to half a length in the Chesham Stakes last year.

“Anything by Scat Daddy is obviously a precious commodity – and there’s no more being made,” said Taylor.

“But I think this is really an international type of filly. She reminds me a lot of Acapulco, who we sold, in the fact that she’s big and scopey, she’s got a lot of substance to her, and is a really good mover.

Conventional wisdom might have said take this horse to September, where there might be more Europeans. But I’m really hoping this draws some interest from over there even if they have only an agent at the sale.”

Another Taylor is placing in the Royal Ascot shop window is hip 214, a daughter of More Than Ready. “This filly isn’t going to be the most expensive we have at Saratoga,” he said.

“But she’s going to be fun to sell – personally I just love her, I think she’s a star. She’s out of a nice Giant’s Causeway mare and just looks like a Queen Mary type: she looks early, she’s got an American body on her but she’s a beautiful mover.

“What’s fun about our job is trying to guess in advance who’s going to like certain horses – and as soon as I saw her I could just picture her appealing to certain people, maybe the ones who bought Con Te Partiro from us a couple of years ago.”

Among those of luminous appeal to the local market is hip 101, a colt by Tapit out of an Unbridled’s Song mare who scored at Grade 2 level.

“That’s a cross that has worked really well, and this is just a hunk of a horse,” Taylor said. “He’s hard to pick on, you bring him out of the stall and there’s nothing negative, you just say: ‘Beautiful, put him back’. And a big walk on

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Racing Post Friday, July 14, 2017

BATCH OF FUTURE STARS Mark Taylor (right) of Taylor Made is a big fan of Pioneerof The Nile, whose half-brother to Jim Dandy winner Laoban is hip 157

him, too, so we’re really excited about that horse.”

Taylor is a huge fan of Pioneerof The Nile and

applauds both his daughter (hip 38) and the half-brother to Jim Dandy winner Laoban, hip 157. “I think he’s really

special,” he enthused. “You look at American Pharoah [by Pioneerof The Nile] and Bodemeister [another Empire

Maker stallion] with Always Dreaming this year.

“And I think when they see this horse, people are going to

dream Derby dreams. That’s what he looks like: he’s just a beautiful horse, and while he looks like he’s going to have

speed – he’s out of a Speightstown mare – he looks like he’ll carry it a route of ground. Of all the yearlings I saw this year, he’s just that one I didn’t forget. I probably look at 2,000 yearlings every spring and there’s some you have a hard time remembering. But never this one.

“Pioneerof The Nile is just now in his career getting the mares underneath him to where you say maybe the sky’s the limit. He had to make his own way, he got decent mares but not great ones his first few years. And so he had to carve out his path. Now look at both these we’re taking up there, they have serious blood behind them.

“I just think Pioneerof The Nile could elevate himself into that Tapit kind of sphere. We followed him very closely, always loved the horse, we were sick we didn’t get to stand him – but at least we’re getting to sell some of his nice ones.” vvContinues page 12

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Friday, July 14, 2017 racingpost.com

Saratoga Selected Yearlings Sale Chris McGrath talks to John Phillips, the latest custodian of Kentucky’s iconic Darby Dan farm

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ohn PhilliPs is not your average horseman. Every now and then some stray beam of literature or scripture breaks open the luminosity underpinning this obviously decent, civilised man. As, for instance, this observation borrowed from Theodore Roosevelt: “Far better it is to try great things, than that grey twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.”

There is nothing decorative about such flourishes. he happens to be talking about the latest American triumphs at Royal Ascot. in lesser men, however apt, this kind of thing tends to be ostentatious, fragile. in Phillips, concerned by wisdom rather than cleverness, the aphorism slides past in the same measured, unpretentious cadence as the rest of his conversation. no, not your average horseman. Which is just as well, as his is no average responsibility: the custody – and that is how he sees it, rather than ownership – of Darby Dan, one of the most historic of all Bluegrass studs. in its days as idle hour Farm, Colonel ER Bradley raised four Kentucky Derby winners here; and John W Galbreath, who had started Darby Dan in ohio and bought the core estate on Bradley’s death, produced two more in the 1960s – Chateaugay and Proud Clarion – before becoming the first man also to win the Epsom original with Roberto in 1972.

Galbreath imported two great European champions to stand here, Ribot and sea-Bird; you can still see where Ribot would gnaw a wooden rim of his stall, dangling by his teeth.

Phillips is Galbreath’s grandson. The old man was still alive when, in 1986, Phillips took leave from his attorney partnership in Columbus, ohio, to sketch out a new business model for the farm. The family had recently sold its longstanding stake in the Pittsburgh Pirates – whose Roberto Clemente had been immortalised by a Derby winner, just months before his death in a plane crash – and the giddy boom in bloodstock values was plunging into its inevitable correction. When Galbreath died in 1988, Phillips quit law for good; and soon after the death of his uncle, seven years later, he took over the farm. sitting in his office at Darby Dan, trim and engaged at 65, he reviews his first career with characteristic deprecation. “if i could have remembered law like i could remember every horse, or every race, or every pedigree i’d ever seen . . .” he pauses, and laughs.

Most historic of bluegrass hands with this far from

“Well, i would have been on the supreme Court. As it was, i practised eight years, and it was fine. But it wasn’t something i was ever going to be really good at. And i felt that i had an opportunity here, something very special, a chance – in as small of a niche as it is – to touch greatness.”

Yet the whole process of apprenticeship and accession had been almost inadvertent. “so often that seed is planted without you ever knowing it,” he reflects. “if you’d said to me, going through college: ‘John, you’re going to end up keeping Darby Dan alive . . .’ i’d have said: ‘no way.’

“The reality is that things just pulled me there. it wasn’t

conscious, but i look back now and remember those moments: that time with my grandfather, in 1963, when i saw Graustark come into the paddock and thought him the most gorgeous creature ever seen, this shining liver chestnut. or hiding down behind my grandfather’s seat

in the car, because kids weren’t allowed on the racetrack in Florida. ‘Keep your head down, we’ll get in.’ And waved past security. i remember dozens of those little flicks of moments, seeds in my psyche that germinated unexpectedly – by no design at all, by fiat.”

‘When your big issue of the day is where to get food, where to get water, it’s quite a dramatic shift from what we’re used to.

It’s humbling’

John Phillips on his aid trips to Honduras

happily, the bloom of this latent obsession never stifled the breadth of perspective he could import from a wider world.

H

ERE is a man who spends a fortnight every year in the most remote and deprived backwaters of honduras, as humble factotum for a surgical clinic organised by his local pastor, in conjunction with the Red Cross; and a man, moreover, who has seen the merit of exposing all three of his children to the same experience. Cue another aphorism, this time from st luke: “To whom much is

given, much is also expected.” so a ‘tongue-tie’ to Phillips means something radically different from the tack notice on Racing Post racecards. “it’s where the tongue doesn’t liberate from the side of the mouth, giving the child a very difficult time eating or speaking,” he explains. “Yet it’s a very simple procedure to release it. That kind of thing can be life-changing, really special. But what we see out there runs the gamut: advanced cancers, arthritic conditions. What you can do then is very limited, and very frustrating.

“But for what you can do, you’ll see what it means: a smile, or a mango, given

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Racing Post Friday, July 14, 2017

Darby’s fab four

Darby Dan farm: birthplace to a host of champions

studs is in the safest of average horseman because it’s all they have to offer. When your big issue of the day is where to get food, where to get water, it’s quite a dramatic shift from what we’re used to. It’s humbling, makes you acknowledge all the blessings we have.”

As such, of course, it also reinforces the moral challenge of bloodstock values. Phillips shakes his head as he tries to square these experiences with those of a sales ring. “You watch people throwing in $100,000” – a snap of the fingers – “and then up it goes by $100,000” – another snap – “and you just start to think what that could buy, in terms of education or healthcare . . .”

On the other hand, he knows

perfectly well that those headline figures have a context; one that can reduce even millions of dollars into narrow margins. And he finds himself able to reconcile the whole strange endeavour with the dignity he has learned in other walks of life.

“I have thought about this some,” he admits. “In the sense that we all of us, wherever we are, strive for a richness in life.

Even the poorest person can appreciate artwork: it may just be an ear-ring, or a piece of cloth they’ve manufactured.

We all inherently pursue that.

“And I look on this farm, and this sport, as living art. It has that richness and life. If it were purely pecuniary, it wouldn’t

be very satisfactory to me. I couldn’t pursue it with the same passion. As it is, it is so much more than just a business: it’s a pursuit that is beautiful, that allows for a life and a contact with the environment and others of God’s creatures. And that allows me to participate without feeling guilty.”

He describes the horses as works of art; and, by extension, those precious Darby Dan families might be schools of art. “You’re both curator and creator,” he says.

“There’s a landscape design, a biologic design, an ecologic design; as well as trying to balance the economics, so that it’s sustainable. I’m a steward

John Phillips: “I’m a steward of this ground, a steward of these pedigrees”

THE Darby Dan sales division is preparing a small but perfectly formed group of two fillies and two colts for the Saratoga Sale.

Hip 16 is a Curlin filly out of a seven-time winner

by Malibu Moon. The second dam is by an outstanding broodmare sire in Deputy Minister, from the family of Havre De Grace. “This is a pretty filly, very much what we’ve come to expect from a sire who continues to provide quality year after year,” says Carl McEntee, Darby Dan director of sales and bloodstock.

The second filly is hip 62, from the second crop of Bodemeister. Again there is a Deputy Minister angle, in her dam Social Savvy – a half-sister to Grade 1 Ashland Stakes winner Lilacs And Lace, and already responsible for a Graded stakes-placed son with six wins to his name.

“This is a beautiful physical individual with great size and scope,” McEntee says. “Very much a two-turn type, with great quality. And of course the sire won the Kentucky Derby from his first crop.”

Super Saver, who preceded Always Dreaming on the Kentucky Derby roll of honour in 2010, is the sire of hip 125 out of a juvenile winner by Sky Mesa. All six of this mare’s siblings to have raced are winners, including the dam of Grade 1 Just A Game winner Celestine.

“The mare was also Graded stakes-placed,” notes McEntee. “This is her first foal and he has great balance and an elegant step to him.”

Scat Daddy is guaranteed plenty of interest after another posthumous boost to his reputation at Royal Ascot. Hip 189 is out of an unraced Medaglia D’Oro half-sister to dual Graded stakes winner Stanford, and their granddam is a half-sister to Scat Daddy’s sire Johannesburg. “He’s a very strong physical with great presence,” McEntee enthuses. “He’s truly a very good offering.” of this ground, a steward of these pedigrees. As was my grandfather before me, and ER Bradley before him – and as someone else will be a century from now.

“This land will be here. In a cosmologic sense, we’re all just passing through. So I’m just trying to sustain the beauty, to see that it’s all respectfully done, for those who preceded me and those who come after.”

Yet if he sketches the big picture in terms of soul as much as intellect, he must be pragmatic in the detail.

Phillips often has to be fairly ruthless with vvContinues

page 10

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Friday, July 14, 2017 racingpost.com

Saratoga Selected Yearlings Sale

‘As the world began to change, our business model had to change’ vvFrom page 9

himself, to adapt the heritage of Darby Dan to the unsparingly commercial environment of today.

“I break everything down into silos: the sales division, stallions, boarding, racing,” he says. “I look at them separately, analyse the strength of what we’re doing in that particular division. But they all interact. If you’ve done really well on the racetrack, that can energise the acquisition of pedigrees you like – not so much the

acquisition of mares, as stallion seasons.

“That is a horrendously expensive part of the process; and that’s what fundamentally changed the industry in the 1980s, away from breeding-to-race to breeding-to-sell. Because when Northern Dancer was standing at a million dollars, or Danzig at a half-million, or Seattle Slew at $750,000, fellas like my grandfather just couldn’t hope to justify that on the racetrack.

“So if you look at Darby

The old Galbreath residence at Darby Dan Farm, which stands eight stallions, including champion freshman sire of 2016 Dialed In (right)

Dan’s history, while they were fortunate to have some useful stallions, the Graustark mares were all bred to Roberto; and the Roberto mares were all bred to Little Current. And you could see that beginning to compromise itself, because you

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weren’t really going after the best genetics.

“So as the world began to change, our business model had to change – or we’d be going the way of so many great old farms. We now have a much more balanced approach.”

T

o A degree that has meant renouncing the Classic blood that trademarked the farm in the era of his grandfather’s manager olin Gentry. The roster now comprises a series of punts on young, commercially viable stallions. None of the eight currently in residence stand for more than $15,000. And even that fee was earned by Dialed In – champion freshman of 2016 and, in the flesh, really a most beautiful animal – from an opening $7,500.

“To me, for him to come out and do that off a book of really modest mares was just remarkable,” Phillips says. “I think his future is exceedingly bright as he moves up, in terms of mare quality, because a) he throws an attractive horse and b) there’s precocity and speed, and yet also the ability to carry it two turns.

“I’m very happy for all the shareholders, and for all the guys who work so hard here – we have a great crew, and they’ve given these young stallions a great opportunity to prove themselves.

“We’ve been very fortunate.

You just stay in the game. It’s hard to blend sustainability with that passion. Going back to the 1970s and before, 90 per cent of the market was breed-to-race and the other ten per cent had some commercial purpose. That’s totally flip-flopped. So sometimes you don’t always get to do what you want.”

He points to a photo on the wall: La Cloche, a daughter of

one dual Grade 1 winner in Memories of Silver and a half-sister to another in Winter Memories. She stands on a dais with a digital display glowing behind her: $2,400,000.

“We sold her in foal to Tapit a couple of years ago,” Phillips says. “I was loathe to do it, but in order to allow the next generation to happen – to breed to the kind of sires I wanted to go to – we had to do it. And because of that I’ve got two gorgeous Tapit fillies who will one day be coming into the broodmare band.”

La Cloche was a Grade 3 winner, not as brilliant or glamorous as her half-sister – but desperately competitive.

“They were stabled together and Winter Memories was so strikingly beautiful, I swear La Cloche was jealous,” Phillips laughs. “Everyone would always go straight to look at Winter Memories, and that made La Cloche ornery.

So when I went into the stable every day I went to her first, and when I did that she was okay.”

These fillies trace to one of the farm’s great matriarchs: the presciently named Golden Trail. And such dynasties are

the family silver, held in trust as a priceless counterweight to the short perspectives of commercialism.

“I think it’s much easier to breed a good racehorse than to buy one,” Phillips says.

“Agents, remember, are dealing with the limited amount of information available to them: what’s on the catalogue page, and what they see. And those, honestly, are very superficial bits of information. It’s hard to detect other qualities, such as the mind; the immune system; soundness.

“And if your antennae are up, you’re also picking up what grooms say, what exercise riders say, about things like temperament or feet or movement. About their aggressiveness, or timidity, their pecking order. Things you pick up about the mare, and her reaction to the foal, and the foal’s interaction with the other weanlings as they develop.

“And in the final analysis, when you’ve pulled in all those tiny bits of information, there’s that synapse in your brain. You can’t articulate it, it’s gut feel, it’s intuition. It’s the kind of

La Cloche sells for $2.4 million at Fasig-Tipton in 2014

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Racing Post Friday, July 14, 2017

‘I look on this farm, and this sport, as living art. It has that richness and life. If it were purely pecuniary, it wouldn’t be very satisfactory to me’ John Phillips on the moral challenge

think: ‘Now where did that come from?’” he says.

“Sometimes it’s not good, either, maybe a winded horse.

And you search back and then you might find, okay, there’s that Swaps influence, gotta watch that, and then that might translate with Storm Cat or whatever, and you put things together. It can protect you as much as advance you, because you can avoid things.”

conversation that’s fun to have with Arthur Hancock: is being a good horseman more science or art?

“You see people come into the business saying: ‘I’m going to develop this algorithm, I’m going to use biomechanics, I’m

going to use a heart score.’ And all those things are valuable, I don’t mean to dismiss any of it.

But there is no one silver bullet.

“There are too many straws you’re putting on the scale to pull out any single one and

say: ‘Well, this is why: this is why that’s a great horse’. I often say my job is only to enhance the probability.

Because I can do everything wrong and still be lucky – and I can do everything right and things still won’t happen.”

By the same token, even an intimacy with particular families does not permit breeders to be prescriptive.

Phillips notes how different branches suddenly thrive even as others fade away.

“Things jump up and you

H

e CoNTINueS: “A farmer plants in the spring and harvests in the fall. We’re on a much longer cycle. When you look at the matings, you ask yourself: ‘If I get a female, would she be a good broodmare? What sire-line would I breed her to? What genetic components am I looking for?

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“That takes me maybe six or seven years down the road. So in your mind you’re not just going backwards four or five generations, you’re also going forward two or three. “olin Gentry was really good at that. That’s why I now think it takes a person to be old to be a really good horseman. You can see that timespan, the breadth of your data is so much greater. It allows you to balance.

“I can remember sitting here listening to him talking about pedigrees, going back to the fourth and fifth and sixth dam. And all I could think was: ‘My God this man is – old!

He’s talking about all this stuff, it can’t make any difference.’ And now the staff at Darby Dan laugh at me because I do the exact same thing. So life is funny. It’s all good; as a matter of fact, it’s great.”

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Friday, July 14, 2017 racingpost.com

Saratoga Selected Yearlings Sale

FUTURE STARS NEXT OFF

vvFrom page 7

‘I don’t want to take anything that can’t be shortlisted by most’

Carrie Brogden

The first draft ever consigned to Saratoga by Carrie Brogden of Machmer Hall comprised three yearlings. One, by Bernardini, proceeded to become a graded stakes winner; another, by Pioneerof The Nile, unfortunately never made the track after chipping a knee, but her daughter by Violence was the second top filly at the Fasig-Tipton July Sale last year; and the other was a filly by Bernstein out of a Stravinsky mare Brogden had picked up for $4,500.

“Life Happened was a beautiful mare, but you know how it is – she was barren, and people don’t want to take their time with those,” Brogden recalled. “I don’t blame them.

Her foal behind her sold for a lot more. He became a Graded stakes horse too, we were underbidder on him.”

As that admired foal was by Bernstein, Brogden tried to repeat the mating. “But we couldn’t get her into Bernstein,” she said. “He had three mares on that day. So we decided, about two hours before she was covered, to breed her to Into Mischief instead. And that produced Vyjack.”

While Vyjack proceeded to dual Grade 2 success, his dam had next time been able to return to Bernstein. The resulting filly was the third Saratoga yearling – who turned out to be none other than the mighty Tepin, a bargain at $140,000.

“She had some sesamoiditis on her ankle that bothered some people,” Brogden recalled. “It’s so annoying but you see it all the time, people jumping off the bandwagon over minor vetting crap. So it made her affordable. Although in all fairness Bernstein was not the hottest thing going.

Posthumously he’s had a helluva run.”

While her experiences with Life Happened testify to the caprices of her calling, Brogden remains adamant that all her best graduates have invariably belonged in the top third of her crop on physique.

And that is very much her priority for this sale in particular – in consigning both as Machmer Hall and in her partnership with Select Sales.

“We’re really trying to bring the goods to Saratoga,” she stressed. “People there are prepared. As a group, overall, I don’t want to take anything that can’t be shortlisted by most. We don’t have any small horses. They’re all big, strapping horses with good

Parade of future stars at Fasig-Tipton and (clockwise, from top right) Paramount’s Pat Costello, Joe Seitz of Brookdale, Bluewater’s Meg Levy and Carrie Brogden, who sold Tepin (inset) here as a yearling

minds. They don’t go crazy in the stall. They eat.”

Among her favourites is hip 91, a colt from the first crop of Cairo Prince out of an Unbridled’s Song mare. “He’s one of the best physicals we’ve ever had,” she said. “To me he looks so much like [Cairo Prince’s sire] Pioneerof The Nile. And we have a Shanghai Bobby filly coming up from Florida, she’s absolutely beautiful.”

That is hip 167, out of a half-sister to the dam of Miss Temple City. Another fine specimen, according to Brogden, is hip 66, an Animal Kingdom colt. He is the first foal of a once-raced daughter of Street Cry, herself out of Poule d’Essai des Pouliches winner Musical Chimes – who was a half-sister to five-time Grade 1 scorer Music Note.

“Then there’s this Munnings colt [hip 213],” Brogden added. “He was actually nominated to the July Sale but is such an exceptional physical that the inspectors said why

not go up there and be one of two by Munnings, instead of one among 15?”

There are some businesslike pinhooks in the draft: hip 121, for instance, a $185,000 Into Mischief filly; and hip 130, a $170,000 colt by the rookie son of Giant’s Causeway in Fed Biz. “We just try to target this sale for the real goods,” Brogden said. “We’re trying to bring big, strapping, beautiful horses who the more you look at them, the more you like them. First time, you like them; second time, you like them more; same the third, fourth, fifth time, until ultimately you love them.”

‘We’ve been very lucky and try to take our very best there’ Bluewater

Meg Levy will always treasure Saratoga. It was here, just a year after setting up Bluewater Sales, that she sold a son of A.P. Indy to John Ferguson for

$1.3 million. And while she knows that every box needs to be ticked for this boutique sale, she also knows that the physique will sometimes be ahead of a pedigree – the only available signpost. The following year, for instance, a modest page meant that she sold a filly at Fasig-Tipton’s July Sale instead.

“At that stage she was a Dehere with not much family,” Levy recalled. “There was Lear Fan, yes, there were a couple of good sires on the page – but not much under the first couple of dams. Yet she was such a stunning filly. And she became Take Charge Lady, who went on to win $2m herself and is now a stallion powerhouse as dam of Will Take Charge and Take Charge Indy.”

Levy has a natural affection, then, for the “beautiful” daughter of Will Take Charge she includes in her Saratoga draft this year. Hip 183 is the first foal of a daughter of a half-sister to the dam of Beholder and Into Mischief

– typical of the way Levy has matched flesh and paper in this draft. “We’re bringing two out of Grade 1 winners,” she noted. “And two who are halves to Grade 1 winners.”

Into the first category falls hip 222, a Tapit filly whose first two dams scored at the highest level; and hip 8, a Candy Ride filly out of champion sprinter Maryfield – whose A.P. Indy colt, also consigned by Bluewater, was the only seven-figure lot of the 2010 Saratoga Sale.

“The Tapit is a wonderful filly, very long-striding, just an absolute Classic filly,” Levy said. “And the Candy Ride is also gorgeous, very tall for the sire and very leggy, a really fluid mover, just a stunning horse.”

The second pair of elite pedigrees comprise hip 200, a Can The Man half-sister to Catch A Glimpse; and hip 86, a Noble Mission half-brother to another Breeders’ Cup winner in She Be Wild. “I know they’re by new sires but they both

have a huge page,” Levy said.

“She’s a beautiful filly and he’s stunning. I haven’t seen that many Noble Missions but he’s very tall and leggy.”

Yearlings who may suit European shoppers are hip 57, a “big and scopey, really stunning” colt by Declaration Of War out of an Empire Maker mare; a “super-nice” More Than Ready colt, hip 54, the first foal of a Sea The Stars mare out of Grade 1 winner Santa Teresita; and a Scat Daddy filly, hip 217, another first foal out of an Unbridled’s Song mare whose dam was a champion in Argentina.

“Oh my goodness, after his Ascot, obviously Scat Daddy is going to be missed more than ever,” Levy said. “And this is a leggy, tall, correct filly with a beautiful frame, a long neck, huge walk. Hopefully Wesley Ward will have to have a look at her! We’ve been very lucky at Saratoga, and really try to take our very best there – the best physicals and the best pedigrees. So I’m excited.”

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Racing Post Friday, July 14, 2017

THE PRODUCTION LINE

‘You can individualise a horse up there, they can really shine’ Paramount

It shouldn’t be hard to find Pat Costello’s barn at Saratoga.

You’ll see the Paramount Sales banners draped over the stalls, recalling that he sold two Belmont Stakes winners here: Union Rags, whose $145,000 tag – before a breeze-up pinhook – now looks a rare bargain for an emerging sire who also won at Grade 1 level at two; and Da’ Tara, at $175,000. Costello, moreover, also had a session-topper in the 2015 sale: a Street Cry colt sold to John Ferguson for $1.4m “It’s been good to us and it’s always a quality sale,” Costello reflected. “Fasig do a really good job picking them. You don’t want to be having any issues whatsoever, otherwise they’ll be penalised. But if you’ve got a clean horse who vets good, and has good physical, it’s a good spot to go

– you can individualise a horse up there, they can really shine.”

Sure enough, he is effusive across the board for his draft of ten yearlings – not least the females. “The Arch filly [hip 195] is from quite a European family – Rule Of Law is in there – out of a young Giant’s Causeway mare,” Costello said.

“She’s a lovely individual, a big, scopey two-turn filly. She should do well. And the Scat Daddy [hip 64], sure everybody knows about the sire, and she’s lovely: not huge, but fast-looking. I also have a War Front filly out of a Galileo mare [hip 65], she’s beautiful too, awful well balanced. And the Malibu Moon [hip 172] is an absolute stunner, all quality. And you know how these Malibu Moon fillies are sought after.”

Unsurprisingly, the man who presented Nyquist as a foal nominates one by his sire among the pick of his colts.

“The Uncle Mo colt [hip 18] is a beauty,” he said. “And of

course by a top sire! All in all we’ve a really strong draft and I’m really happy with them all.”

‘Overall we have a very good, solid group of individuals’ Warrendale

Although Warrendale has not yet come up with a Classic Empire in its Saratoga draft, it did sell a Grade 2 Peter Pan Stakes winner here a few years ago in Freedom Child. Hunter Simms, director of bloodstock services, confirmed that the Warrendale draft will again be carefully tailored to fit the sale.

“We typically take a smaller group there and focus on quality,” he said. “Because at that sale they can really get picked apart, over three or four days. You want to bring a really nice individual. And that’s what we’re doing.

“We have a very nice Orb filly [hip 136] who’s a three-quarters sister to

Diamondsandpearls, the Congrats filly who made $1.7m at the breeze-ups. She just broke her maiden the other day for Bob Baffert, really impressively, and they’re pointing her towards the Sorrento. So it would be great to get that update, just before the sale!

“We also have a nice Tiznow filly who goes back to a big, deep Live Oak family [hip 60] and two very nice horses on behalf of Ivan Dallas. Overall we have a very good, solid group of individuals, well-minded horses who pass on X-rays. We look to bring good horses who maybe would get lost in the shuffle in Books 1 and 2 at Keeneland, with the big numbers they have. We can take them up there and showcase them.”

‘You have to take the right type and we’re taking three special ones’ Brookdale

It is a similar story for

Brookdale, famous for consigning both I’ll Have Another and Bodemeister – the Kentucky Derby and Preakness 1-2 – as yearlings to the same Keeneland sale but confined to a small but select draft at Saratoga. And it, too, is hoping for a big update from Baffert’s barn.

“You have to take the right type of horses there and we think we’re taking three special ones,” said Joe Seitz, director of sales.

“The Eskendereya colt [hip 207] is a full-brother to Mor Spirit, who won the Met Mile on Belmont Stakes day – and did it in commanding style, pulling away. I’ve heard talk from Bob Baffert that he’s pointing him towards the Whitney Stakes just a couple of days before this fella sells. So that would be huge.

“Obviously, coming from California, a lot has to fall in line for that to happen – but it could be incredible timing.

He’s a very attractive individual.”

Brookdale’s other pair both have some glamour in their family trees. One of the last lots through the ring is a Flatter colt, hip 225, who could certainly prove worth the wait: his fourth dam is none other than the blue hen Best In Show. The Scat Daddy filly, meanwhile, traces to the family of Touch Gold and With Approval as hip 140.

“Scat Daddy’s obviously been flavour of the summer, particularly in Europe,” Seitz said. “Unfortunately he’s gone, of course. And this filly is very athletic, very attractive, so we’re hoping there will be some European presence at Saratoga – because I think they’ll take a shine to her.

“Flatter is also having a very good year. He’s a solid, proven sire, one of those everybody likes – so our colt by him should fall into everybody’s wheelhouse.

He’s very attractive, very correct, and I think he’ll be popular.”

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Friday, July 14, 2017 racingpost.com

Saratoga Selected Yearlings Sale Chris McGrath talks to Fasig-Tipton president and CEO Boyd Browning jnr about the sales company’s newest venture

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hey say the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. In American racing, however, that has never been true of the turf side of the rails. In the minds of most trainers, owners and breeders, the grass has only ever been greener on the dirt track.

One elite consignor is candid about this historic prejudice.

“Most racing on grass has been by default,” he says. “Very few start out wanting a grass horse – you end up having one because it couldn’t run on dirt.

There are exceptions, of course. But I know a lot of people who say: ‘My horse is with this big trainer and he’s like, he’s not going to show him the turf until he has to – but he thinks he’s going to have to pretty soon . . .’” yet this same witness is unmistakably enthused by the inauguration of a new sale oriented to turf prospects at Fasig-Tipton’s Lexington base in September. “I’m excited by the concept, and we’re preparing a draft right now,” he said. “Some of the things Fasig have been highlighting, in promoting the sale, I must admit I didn’t really realise – about the way turf racing is going here. It’s all very interesting, and we just hope there’ll be some europeans in town early.”

The timing of the sale, just before the marathon staged up the road by rivals Keeneland, is just one of several calculated risks in play. But Boyd Browning jnr, Fasig-Tipton president and CeO, feels confident that the ‘Turf Showcase’ can evolve its own niche, wherever the market finds its sweetest spots. If european prospectors are in Lexington for September 10, great. But if the sale sooner proves to be driven by a surge in domestic demand, so be it.

The market is not short of local stimulus, after all: the recent success of American raiders at Royal Ascot has captured the imagination of many, while a growing US turf programme seemingly caters – in part, at least – to perceived benefits in terms of racing longevity. Little wonder if the sale has secured an unusual branding partnership with Woodbine, already celebrated as a hub of the discipline in North America and now constructing a second grass circuit.

“Really there were a number of little bells ringing, a number of flags waving at us,” Browning said. “When I sit here and think about the really intelligent people in the North American thoroughbred game, I see John Sikura standing Flintshire; I see Ashford with Magician, Declaration Of War

Fasig-Tipton will host a new sale in September, the ‘Turf Showcase’, and overall reaction has been positive says the company’s Boyd Browning jnr (below)

‘We have lofty goals but you’ve got to dream big’ profile in operations having racing programmes in both continents.”

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and so on, across the board; I see Karakontie at Gainesway, Noble Mission at Lane’s end. At virtually every major farm, all the smart people are investing in stallions with ‘turf’ appeal.

“Then you start doing a little research. And I’m almost embarrassed to admit that I was blown away by the statistic that 40 per cent of the Graded stakes in North America are run on turf. I’d

have guessed it was maybe half that.

“And then there’s something that’s happening in virtually all commerce: the world is shrinking. We see Americans participating strongly in the Australian marketplace, and in Japan. And while there’s been a lot of back-and-forth commerce between here and europe over the last 75 years, you’ve seen an increasing

he emphasis in nearly every other culture, of course, is on turf. And the Americans, belying a reputation for insularity, are showing ever greater adventure. In wry acknowledgement of an unpredictable reception among certain clients, Browning says that Fasig-Tipton had “already jumped the cliff” – with an April announcement – by the time Wesley Ward took American momentum at Royal Ascot to a new level. But his success certainly did not diminish the appeal of the type of horses being selected, whether on pedigree or conformation, for the catalogue.

“I hate to say that the turf has had a negative connotation, but it’s probably been viewed that way,” Browning said. “Now, with the ratio of turf racing growing so much, here’s this national pool that nobody’s really capitalising on. So we asked how we going to market these horses to the world; and frankly, to American trainers and owners? It’s a two-pronged thing. There’s a bit of education to be done on both sides.”

As such, Fasig-Tipton did not even survey its core customers – feeling bleakly certain that for every ten green lights, there would be ten red. They believed in the project. And there was little point sampling the opinion of clients when you

Woodbine tie-in

THE spirit of adventure animating the Turf Showcase has already paid commercial dividends in a sponsorship deal with Woodbine.

“Both organisations recognize the growing popularity of turf racing in North America,” says Jonathan Zammit, Woodbine’s vice-president of thoroughbred racing.

“And Fasig-Tipton’s innovative sale concept fits well with Woodbine’s exciting investment in our grass racing program, as we add a second turf course in 2019 to go along with our world-renowned EP Taylor course.”

were guaranteed to proceed against the advice of at least some.

“We’re supposed to be known for innovation,” Browning said. “We’re supposed to be more agile, willing to take a little bit of risk – I don’t mean unnecessary risk, but evaluated risk; carefully planned risk-and-reward. And the overwhelming reaction has been positive. Any time you start something new, there’s gonna be a few folks who wait and see.

“Before they commit they want to see can these crazy folks pull this off? But I think we’ve educated folks, if nothing else we’ve demonstrated that we really do want this business and that it’s important to us.”

With so many of the eligible

stallions too young to have stock ready for market, moreover, any kind of foundation can be built upon.

Browning also accepts that his own team will be on a learning curve, not least in seeing how their own physical assessments play out in the viewing barns.

“Ultimately the marketplace is always right,” he said. “We’re firmly confident in our ability to evaluate and adapt. you might ask me how to measure the success of the sale and the answer is that I don’t know.

“There’s no ‘metrics’. I’m a CPA [accountant] in a former life, so I’m used to having everything in numbers, our goal being this or that. But it’ll be a feel. It’s a process, an education, and we’re committed to making it work.”

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e CONTINUeS: “We have lofty goals but you’ve got to dream big.

There’s got to be some outside-the-box thinking in every walk of life. In every business there’s risk and reward. And I think this was extraordinarily low risk, and the reward could be pretty significant – not just for Fasig-Tipton but for all of us.

“I’m not going to sit here saying we’re going to revolutionise the auction process around the world. But maybe we can build a few bridges along the way. And in a world where people, in many walks of life, seem more interested in tearing them down . . . well, maybe one bridge might turn into two – and you never know where that might lead.”

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Racing Post Friday, July 14, 2017

Spouse not into racing? Fear not. You could have a fabulous vacation in Saratoga Springs without getting near the racetrack or the sales ring . . .

Mind you, you could throw a horseshoe from the track to Siro’s (1), the traditional resort of the racing crowd during the meet on 168 Lincoln Avenue.

Both in its ownership and clientele, Siro’s has long been a Turf institution. in fact, it’s only open for when the racing circus moves into town: this year, July 20-September 4. http://sirosny.com/ nor do you have to be an aficionado to gain a due sense of history from the national Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame (2), 191 Union Avenue.

Open daily 9am to 5pm during the meet; $7 adults, $5 students, senior citizens and children to age five free – racingmuseum. org. The 2017 Hall of Fame induction Ceremony is on August 4 at the Fasig-Tipton Sales Pavilion – followed, over the next two days, by the Fasig-Tipton Festival of Racing over at the track.

For a change of scene, however, there’s Grade 1 culture at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center (3), summer home to the new York City Ballet and, in August, the Philadelphia Orchestra. Unfortunately you’ll have missed both the ballet season and Opera Saratoga’s politically charged revival of Blitzstein’s 1937 work, The Cradle Will Rock – but there is a full schedule of music from classical to rock to jazz, as well as a series of pre-performance talks – www.spac.org.

Speaking of revivals . . . places to stay include the iconic Adelphi Hotel (4) at 365 Broadway – theadelphihotel. com. The 1877 building has been closed for an extensive renovation programme but is soon to reopen its doors, with top chefs hired for its Blue Hen restaurant. in the meantime, gourmets can be sustained next door by the sister restaurant, Salt & Char, at 353 Broadway – saltandchar.com.

Another chic new hotel is the Pavilion Grand (5), 30 Lake Avenue – paviliongrandhotel. com. There are glowing reports of its restaurant, Fish At 30 Lake – fishat30lake.com.

And the trifecta of standout downtown bases is completed by the Saratoga Hilton (6) at 534 Broadway – bit.ly/1qp42wz. it has a stay-and-play partnership with the Saratoga national Golf Course at 458 Union Avenue, which itself has sumptuous dining opportunities at Prime (7) – primeatsaratoganational.com.

Hotel restaurants apart, perhaps the no 1 dining pick is 15 Church (8) – 15church restaurant.com. Full eating and accommodation options can be found at discoversaratoga.org.

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Friday, July 14, 2017 racingpost.com