Active Families Put Three Hips in F

Aug 29, 2023

Noteworthy pedigrees are in abundance during The Saratoga Sale, Fasig-Tipton's select yearling auction Aug. 7-8 in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., but three yearlings in particular on Tuesday have bloodlines that especially leap out due to active, high-achieving siblings.

Hip 219 is a full brother to grade 2 winner Red Carpet Ready , and Hip 186 and Hip 227 are half sisters, respectively, to grade 2 winner Travel Column and multiple grade 1 winner Casa Creed , respectively. Additionally, all three are by commercially popular sires—with Hip 219 being by Oscar Performance , Hip 186 by Uncle Mo , and Hip 227 by Authentic .

The Mill Ridge Sales consigned Hip 219, a bay colt bred by Maggie Gieseke, is scheduled to become the third consecutive foal out of the unraced Street Sense mare Wild Silk (from five the dam has produced) to be a part of The Saratoga Sale, with all three being by Oscar Performance and sold by Mill Ridge. The first, Red Carpet Ready, was a $100,000 purchase by Bo Bromagen in 2021 and was followed last year by Bougie Not Basic, now a 2-year-old in training in Kentucky, whom Pure Vida acquired in 2022 for $65,000.

Watch: Greathouse Recalls Red Carpet Ready

"Now the third chapter is very similar," Mill Ridge general manager Price Bell said. "He's probably the strongest and the stoutest, but he's also the first colt. He's not very tall, but he's very well balanced, strong, and a lovely moving horse and forward."

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Further working in the colt's favor is that his sire's progeny have shown skill on multiple surfaces. Though Oscar Performance was a top-class turf horse, some of his runners have performed well in stakes on dirt. Eight Belles Stakes (G2) winner Red Carpet Ready and Amsterdam Stakes (G2) runner-up Deer District are two such examples.

"He throws a dirt physical," Bell said of the sire, who stood this year for an advertised fee of $20,000 at Mill Ridge. "You think of a turf physical with a sickle hock and kind of a big turf foot, and he doesn't necessarily throw that."

Good physicals are a trademark of the stakes-winning Victory Gallop mare Swingit , dam of Hip 186. In addition to producing 2021 Fair Grounds Oaks (G2) and 2020 Golden Rod Stakes (G2) winner Travel Column, an $850,000 yearling purchase from this sale in 2019 by Larry Best's OXO Equine, another of her foals, Neolithic , was a $460,000 purchase by Starlight Racing in 2014 before going on to become multiple grade 1-placed.

This year, Travel Column is unplaced in three starts, two coming in graded races.

Since the 2019 sale of Travel Column, yearlings out of Swingit have sold for $1.25 million for a now 4-year-old named Corton Charlemagne , and $725,000 for a current 3-year-old named Cusp . Both are placed maidens.

A dark bay or brown Uncle Mo filly, Hip 186—bred by Bayne and Christina Welker, who purchased the mare for $50,000 when in foal to Bodemeister at the 2016 November Breeding Stock Sale—is another with striking looks, according to Conrad Bandoroff, vice president of Denali Stud. The dam, he said, throws "hellacious physicals."

"We were looking at (Hip 186) just the other day before heading north and we all kind of agreed she may be one of Swingit's best ones, and that's a pretty high bar," Bandoroff said. "She's a mare that is proven time and time again that she not only throws you a high-quality individual but they have a high talent level."

His sire stood this year for an advertised fee of $150,000 at Ashford Stud.

Hip 227, a bay bred for Kristin Elser's 30 Year Farm in New York, out of the unraced Bellamy Road mare Achalaya, makes her second appearance at auction, having fallen short of her reserve when bidding stopped at $390,000 last year when she went into the ring as a weanling at the Fasig-Tipton November Sale in Lexington last year. By 2020 Horse of the Year Authentic, who stands for $60,000 at Spendthrift Farm and whose first foals are yearlings of 2023, she is related to stakes winner and grade 3 winner Chess's Dream in addition to Casa Creed.

"We loved this filly from the minute we laid eyes on her," Paramount Sales account manager Lesley Campion said. "We were proud of her in Fasig November with good reason. I think this yearling sale is going to be her day. She's matured a lot, grown a lot, and gotten a lot stronger. So we're going in there full of optimism.

"Buying any horse is sort of a gamble, but buying a filly with this sort of residual page from a mare that is a proven producer lessens that gamble for you."

Casa Creed, recent winner of the Kelso Stakes (G3T) at Saratoga Race Course, could further update Hip 227's pedigree shortly after the sale. The 7-year-old is pointed toward a return appearance in the Aug. 12 Fourstardave Handicap (G1T) after taking Saratoga's most prestigious mile grass race in 2022.