Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
Bloodstock agent Hubbard finding success on a budget
A frugal buyer rarely makes headlines at Thoroughbred auctions, but bloodstock agent and racing manager Brooke Hubbard was the name on the lips of owners Steve Young and Greg Hall when their horse Blended Citizen won the Grade 3 Jeff Ruby Steaks on Saturday at Turfway Park.
Hubbard secured the Proud Citizen colt for $85,000 at last year’s Ocala Breeders’ Sales Co. March 2-year-olds in training sale, on behalf of Young’s Sayjay Racing. Hall bought in soon after the drop of the hammer.
“Physically, he had a lot to offer,” Hubbard said of Blended Citizen. “You could tell he was really immature, but I figured why not take a shot? He was the right price. My budget is under $100,000, so I don’t have much to work with.”
Hubbard, 28, entered racing in 2014 after getting her base in the equine industry as a hunterjumper and dressage rider in Southern California. She honed her eye for horseflesh as a show judge, and has zeroed in on Thoroughbreds through the mentorship of Dennis O’Neill, brother of Blended Citizen’s trainer, Doug O’Neill.
Blended Citizen is the latest success in the partnership between Hubbard and Young, which also includes stakes winner Ms. Bad Behavior, bought for $75,000, and multiple allowance winner Mistress of the night, who was secured for $60,000. In addition to buying racing prospects, Hubbard and Young also purchase yearlings to pinhook.
“I generally like longerbacked, longer-legged horses,” Hubbard said. “I somehow always tend to pick grass horses over dirt. It’s just what my eye attracts.”
While Blended Citizen hammered within the budget at the OBS March sale making any bid on the horse was a significant leap of faith. He covered a quarter-mile in 22 1/5 seconds during the pre-sale undertack show, more than two full seconds slower than the sale’s fastest workers at the distance, and among the six horses with the slowest times.
Working in the colt’s favor was his page. Bred in Kentucky by Ray Hanson, Blended Citizen is a half-brother to Lookin At Lee, who was a Grade 1-placed stakes winner at the time of the sale, and finished second in the Kentucky Derby two months later. Grade 1-placed stakes winner Battlefield Angel is a full sister to Blended Citizen.
“It definitely was not the best time,” Hubbard said. “Most people buy the fast-breezing horses. He went 22 and 1/5, which is pretty slow, but his breeze looked good and he had good movement. When you saw him, it was the whole deal.
“I thought for sure he was a two-turn horse. You’re not going to go sprint with him.”
Hubbard made two purchases on behalf of Sayjay Racing at this year’s OBS March sale, buying a Morning Line colt for $75,000, and stretching to $120,000 for a Tizway filly.
Go Noni Go paying off
Go Noni Go is among racing’s newest graded stakes winners, taking last Saturday’s Grade 3 DRF Bets Bourbonette Oaks on Turfway’s Polytrack in decisive fashion. She has come a long way from when she was cataloged for last summer’s Fasig-Tipton Kentucky summer horses of racing age sale. Then only sporting two unplaced efforts in maiden special weights on the dirt, she made few shortlists.
But the day before the sale, Go Noni Go set a competitive hoof on turf for the first time, as owner Kathy Wallace and trainer Michael Sullivan sent the Get Stormy filly out for a maiden special weight at Ellis Park. The result was a 4 1/2-length victory, which caught the eye of Kirk Wycoff, who manages his family’s Three Diamonds Farm. He went to $100,000 to purchase the filly from the Foundations Farm consignment.
Three Diamonds sent Go Noni Go to Mike Maker, who also trains Grade 1 United Nations winner Bigger Picture for the operation.
Maker admits that though the new addition trained well, the diminutive filly didn’t immediately strike him as a standout when she joined his string in Saratoga last summer.
“Training-wise, she made a great impression; physically, she didn’t make that much of an impression,” Maker said. “She’s a slight filly, she struggles with her weight, but she’s very easy to train and has good energy.”
Go Noni Go began to repay Three Diamonds’s investment by finishing on the board on 3 of her 4 remaining starts as a juvenile, with a win in an allowance-optional claiming event at Gulfstream and a third-place effort in the Kentucky Downs Juvenile Fillies. She finished fifth in the Grade 3 Sweetest Chant Stakes in her 3-year-old debut before proving she could handle Polytrack, too.