More success for Cairo Prince

Cairo Prince’s whirlwind season with his first yearling crop continued Tuesday when Shadwell bought a $900,000 colt by him at the Keeneland September yearling sale.

Earlier this year, the son of Pioneerof the Nile accounted for the highest-priced first-crop offering of the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky July yearling sale, a $260,000 colt. He was represented by a $420,000 colt sold at the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga selected sale, then followed up with the most expensive horse in the history of the Fasig-Tipton New York-bred yearling sale, a $500,000 colt.

The latest highlight is a colt out of the stakes-placed Include mare Kittery Point, whose six foals to race are all winners, including Grade 1 winner Sam’s Sister.

The colt was a third-generation product of the breeding program of Brereton Jones, who stands Cairo Prince at his Airdrie Stud, in association with Darley. Airdrie also consigned the colt.

“This is one that’s been a star from the start, and those are the ones that get you excited,” Bret Jones of Airdrie said. “Several months ago, we were hoping we could just wake up and it be the September sale, because you want to take care of ones like that.”

Furthering the ties in the transaction is trainer Kiaran McLaughlin, a primary trainer for Shadwell who also conditioned Cairo Prince for an ownership group that includes Sheikh Mohammed al-Maktoum.

“That was a big reason we set out to partner with Darley,” Jones said. “They have been the greatest partners in the world to let us come in and really get behind him with our mares and partner up the way that we have.”

Mine That Bird half-brother

Winchell Thoroughbreds and trainer Steve Asmussen have found great success together, with runners such as champion Untapable and, in partnership with Three Chimneys, multiple Grade 1 winner Gun Runner. But neither Winchell Thoroughbreds nor Asmussen has yet achieved the dream of a Kentucky Derby victory.

As they continue to chase that goal, the Winchells went to $625,000 at Keeneland September to acquire a Medaglia d’Oro-Mining My Own colt who is, appropriately, a half-brother to a Kentucky Derby winner. He will eventually join Asmussen’s barn.

“Obviously, he comes from a nice mare with a nice family, and his physical is good,” Ron Winchell said after signing the ticket. “The classics, obviously, will be hoped for, and that’s one reason we’re looking here.”

The first foal for Mining My Own, an unraced daughter of Smart Strike, was Mine That Bird, a Canadian champion juvenile who went on to upset the Derby, finish second in the Preakness to champion Rachel Alexandra, and run third in the Belmont. Three years later, the mare produced Dullahan, a Grade 1 winner at 2 who went on to win the Blue Grass Stakes the following spring before defeating older horses in the Pacific Classic, both races on synthetic tracks. He was also third in the Derby.

Mining My Own’s two Grade 1 winners both are from the Unbridled line.

Deep Impact filly a buyback

American breeders showed little interest in dual classic winner and champion Sunday Silence at the conclusion of his racing career – and so, in a move that would eventually prove fortuitous for the son of Halo, he was sold to Japanese interests. Sunday Silence became a breedshaping sire for the rising Japanese breeding industry, a perennial leading sire, sire of sires, and broodmare sire who has had an influence even 15 years after his death.

Few stallions have carried the banner for Sunday Silence as ably as two-time Japanese Horse of the Year Deep Impact. After sweeping the 2005 Japanese Triple Crown and winning the 2006 Japan Cup, he became a leading sire in his own right. However, much as his sire was treated with skepticism by the American market, his first yearling ever offered in the U.S. got an underwhelming reception at the Keeneland September sale, failing to meet her reserve with a high bid of $285,000.

“We don’t get Deep Impacts in this country, ever,” said Reiley McDonald of Eaton Sales, which consigned the filly. “I think it’s a good thing for Americans to see a really good example of Japan’s top stallion.”

The Kentucky-born filly was bred by Coolmore-associated Orpendale/Chelston, among a handful of international entities that has been able to get mares into Deep Impact’s Japanese-dominated book.

Smart Strike colt to Gary Broad

Regardless of whether the final yearling by leading sire Smart Strike offered at the Keeneland September yearling sale is successful on the track or as a stallion, one thing that does appear assured is his future home.

Smart Strike covered just five mares prior to his death in March 2015, resulting in four foals. One of those was offered in Keeneland’s elite Book 1 on Monday, with California-based owner Gary Broad needing to go to just $90,000 to acquire the colt.

Broad purchased his Oakmont Ranch in Murrieta, Calif, for $7.7 million at public auction in 2007, and uses the farm as the base for his operations, with Scott Hansen as his trainer.

He also keeps breeding stock and retired runners on the property – including his graded stakes winners Buzzards Bay and Mr Gruff. Oakmont has developed its own retraining program for retired horses that are sound enough and mentally appropriate to be geared toward second careers as hunter/jumpers or in dressage. Broad told Daily Racing Form that dropping horses into claiming races instead of retiring and rehoming them is “part of the game I don’t like,” and that, “the owner is responsible for the horse.”

Broad’s purchase is out of the stakes-winning A.P. Indy mare Cascading, a half-sister to Grade 1 winner Streaming and several other stakes horses, from the family of blue hen Better Than Honour.

Ithinkisawapudycat pays off

The Lyster family’s Ashview Farm bought Ithinkisawapudycat, a stakes-placed broodmare prospect by Bluegrass Cat, for $240,000 at the 2012 Keeneland November breeding stock sale. She has since paid for herself many times over.

Ithinkisawapudycat was bred to Tapit for her first mating, and the ensuing foal was Sweet Loretta, who sold as a weanling for $750,000 and became a Grade 1 winner.

Her second foal, the Tapit colt Airtouch, earned the secondhighest price of the 2016 FasigTipton Kentucky July yearling sale, bringing $450,000. Later that year, Ashview sold the mare in foal to Constitution for $2.2 million at the Keeneland November breeding stock sale.

The run of commercial success continued on Tuesday at the Keeneland September yearling sale when Bridlewood Farm bought the mare’s final Ashview-bred yearling, a Street Sense filly, for $750,000. The transaction brought to a close a run at auction for Ithinkisawapudycat that cleared $4.15 million between herself and her first three foals.