Supplemented Remedy tops Winter Mixed Sale at $570,000

The Fasig-Tipton Winter Mixed Sale picked up the pace throughout Tuesday's second and final session, with the Creative Cause mare Remedy bringing $570,000 in the supplemental catalogue to top the sale.

Remedy hails from the prolific family of broodmare of the year Leslie's Lady and was sent home to Twin Creeks Farm, who bought out partners Medallion Racing and Parkland Thoroughbreds.

"We owned half of her. We just bought the partners out," said Twin Creeks team manager Randy Gullat. "She's been a favourite filly of ours in our stable and just thought the world of her pedigree. We're planning on breeding her to Constitution and think she's going to be an incredible mare. I just did not want to see her go."

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The five-year-old Remedy was one of 14 supplemental entries consigned by Taylor Made Sales Agency to the two-day auction and was entered as a broodmare prospect. Medallion Racing is Taylor Made's racing partnership.

"I think that the sale definitely heated up towards the end. You kind of had a cluster of quality coming. When people see other horses selling well it gives them confidence in the market, and I think that's part of what you get here in November," said Taylor Made's Mark Taylor.

"Horse after horse is bringing a lot of money, and if you see a lot of horses selling really well, it just psychologically says, 'Hey, the market's pretty good.'

"If you have to watch 25 horses sell for under $50,000 before your six-figure horse comes up, you start thinking, 'Man, what is going on? Am I overpaying?'. I think it's good having those horses at the end, kind of a rising tide lifts all ships."

Fasig-Tipton reported 368 horses from 490 offered sold throughout Monday and Tuesday for gross receipts of $9,777,100, up from 2019's figure of $9,659,400 from 327 sold.

This year's average of $26,568 was down 12.6 per cent from $29,539, and the median dipped 43.3 per cent to $8,500 from $15,000. The RNA rate for the 2020 sale was 24.9 per cent, an increase from the 20.4 per cent buyback rate a year ago.

"We got some really nice horses that came in late. A horse like Remedy was a standout. She would have been a lovely mare in November, she was a lovely mare in February - she's going to be a lovely mare wherever she is," said Boyd Browning Jr, president and CEO of Fasig-Tipton.

"Several of the other horses that came in late were a matter of other circumstances, and you just had to have the flexibility to provide a legitimate marketplace for sellers and buyers alike. I think sellers have confidence that you can bring a quality horse here in February and be not only fairly treated but rewarded for a really good one."

Remedy was bred in Kentucky by Brereton C Jones and B Ned Jones. She is out of the Orientate mare Daisy Mason and is a half-sister to the stakes-winning, graded stakes-placed Harry's Holiday. Her second dam is Leslie's Lady, dam of champion Beholder, Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf winner and young stallion Mendelssohn, and 2019 leading general sire Into Mischief.

Twin Creeks first purchased Remedy for $200,000 from Airdrie Stud's consignment to the 2016 Keeneland September Yearling Sale. She was trained by Brad Cox and earned $217,344 from a 3-4-0 record in 13 starts, finishing second in the Grade 3 Comely Stakes and Remington Park Oaks.

"We've liked her since we bought her. We bought her as a yearling. She was just something I did not want to lose," Gullatt said. "The pedigree speaks for itself. I think having Constitution - we have a lot of shares in him - as something big-time to breed to something like that, I think she could produce any kind of horse. She was just something we could not lose."

"Remedy was really popular the whole time we were showing her," Taylor said. "Obviously she has the female family, she had the race record, and then she kind of had that intangible. She's very classy. So much brains about her.

"She'd come out there and just present herself great every time, and we had a lot of big people in there. I still think had she been here in November she would have brought more, because a lot of the principles had agents here, but the principles themselves weren't here."

Taylor Made also consigned top mares in Exuberance, who sold to Tolo Thoroughbreds and Mike Abraham for $245,000, and Kayce Lu, who went to Town & Country Farm and George Saufley for $170,000.

It also sent the second highest-priced short yearling through the sales ring. The Uncle Mo filly out of multiple stakes-winning Giant Gizmo mare Brooklynsway was bought for $180,000 by Walmac Farms and Gary Broad.

"She looked like a filly that was big, scopey, and was going to do nothing but get better with time," Taylor said. "She ended up having I think six scopes on her, so there was a lot of interest.

"Several of the pinhooker guys came by shaking their heads saying, 'Man, I went higher than I thought I was going to have to, and I still didn't get her.' That was a nice sale."

The short yearling that brought the highest price from its age group was a Street Sense filly out of the Rockport Harbor mare Froyo Star that sold for $265,000 from the Bluewater Sales consignment. Martin Keogh signed the ticked for Tami Bobo's First Finds. The yearling was the third highest-price of the entire sale.

There was a notable RNA in Evocative, who did not sell when hammered at $575,000. Consigned by Bedouin Bloodstock as a broodmare prospect, the 3-year-old Pioneerof the Nile filly is a half-sister to Justwhistledixie, the dam of Grade 1 winner and sire New Year's Day, multiple Grade 2 winner and sire Mohaymen, Grade 3 winner Kingly and recent Lecomte Stakes winner Enforceable.

"It's a continuation of the world that we live in. The quality horses walk in here and they're bidding all over the house for the perceived quality horses, and there's six, seven, eight bidders on lots of horses," Browning said.

"There's either multiple bidders on your horse or you hope to goodness you've got one bidder. That's the reality of the marketplace at any type of sale, whether it's mixed sale, yearling sale, two-year-old sale - and I suspect that we'll be having the same conversations throughout 2020."

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