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Hip 163, Sexy Selfie, by Temple City. Photo by Bill Reightler.
by Frank Vespe
Fasig-Tipton Midlantic sales director Paget Bennett believes that the so-called short yearlings – otherwise known as, well, yearlings – cataloged for Sunday’s mixed sale in Timonium will be “the key to the sale.”
And Bill Reightler, with the largest consignment on the grounds, thinks the event “might be a good spot for regional sires.”
If so, it could be a productive Sunday for the veteran consignor. Reightler has nearly three dozen yearlings on offer Sunday, and many are by local sires: Cal Nation, Seville, Bandbox, Super Ninety Nine, Freedom Child, El Padrino and others.
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Reightler, who calls his group “a consistent consignment overall,” points to some of these as especially notable.
Hip 115, for example, is a “nice, big strong colt” by Seville out of a Black Tie Affair mare.
“It’s not a bad time to have a sire like Seville,” Reightler says. The son of Galileo was a Group 1 winner and earned over $1 million racing on the turf –an attractive resume in a region with an increasing amount of grass racing.
Another new regional sire seemingly popular with local breeders – he was bred to 72 mares in ’16 – is Super Ninety Nine. Reightler has a bevy of Super Ninety Nines in his group.
“He’s getting a pretty typey, fast-looking horse,” Reightler points out.
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Jump Start, the region’s top sire each of the last two years, also is represented in the Reightler consignment. Hip 179, by that sire, is out of the stake-winning St. Averil mare Jim’s Prospect. “A big, leggy, impressive-looking colt,” Reightler calls him.
Of course, in the grand scheme of things, it’s “sire power” – name-brand stallions with national recognition – that’s more likely to drive the top of the market.
Among the national sires represented in the Reightler consignment are Temple City, Revolutionary, and Dialed In.
Hip 163 – with the very modern name Sexy Selfie – is a Temple City filly Reightler describes as “very nice.” Temple City is the sire of Grade 1 winners Miss Temple City and Annals of Time, and this filly is out of the Tale of the Cat mare Donnatale, a winner of more than $125,000.
Revolutionary, a millionaire as a runner, counted the Grade 3 Pimlico Special among his trio of graded wins. His first offspring are yearlings this year, and among them is Hip 152, a filly out of the Lion Hearted mare Brief Encounter. Brief Encounter has three winners from three foals to race, and she hails from a quality family associated with the late Bill Backer’s Smitten Farm.
Reightler calls Hip 174, by Dialed In, an “attractive, fast-looking colt.” The Pennsylvania-bred is out of Her Lady Grace, by Lord Carson, and hails from the female family of multiple Grade 2 winner Halory Leigh. Dialed In, a Grade 1 winner, was the nation’s number one first crop sire in 2016.
Reightler also has a number of promising broodmares and broodmare prospects.
The one that Reightler believes “stands out” is Hip 48, the Not for Love mare Baby Love. The 14-year-old is already the dam of four horses to earn six figures, including promising three-year-old Bonus Points, most recently second in the Grade 3 Jerome at Aqueduct – his third consecutive stakes placing. Baby Love is being sold in foal to Super Ninety Nine.
Elegant Breeze (Hip 67), a seven-year-old Rock Hard Ten mare, is being sold as a racing/broodmare prospect. Though only a modest racehorse, Elegant Breeze is a half-sister to the Grade 3-placed War Plan and to the stakes-producing mare Distant Breeze.
And Hip 96, the Summer Bird mare Maryland Bird, likewise is a broodmare prospect with a modest race record. Yet what she lacks in racing accomplishment, she makes up for in pedigree: her dam, With Every Thought, by Grand Slam, is a half-sister to Oatsee, the dam of graded winners Shackleford (winner of the Preakness Stakes), Lady Joanne, Afleeting Lady, and Baghdaria, as well as the graded-placed stakes winner Stephanoatsee.
All in all, it’s a big group of horses that Reightler says is “consistent overall.”
“All across the board, I thought last year was encouraging,” he says. “I’m looking forward to Sunday.”
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