Anatomy of the Purchase

It was really pretty interesting even if you're someone other than me. We have an aging stable on our farm, racers ages 6, 11 and 11. New blood is needed and as the summer progressed this was a subject for cogitation and checking my bank account. Figured I could scrape up $10,000, and the question became whether to claim or buy a yearling.

By Keenland September, I was deep into training for our upcoming Woodland's meet, but, the thoughts began to crystalize. Decided claiming was for those with money to burn, and watching most of Keenland's eleven day sale via computer video a firm idea of yearling values entered the herefore fuzzy consciousness. I realized I could spend the ten grand and get a dam good horse, or, could save money and spend a thousand and still have something raceable. I was good to go either way--burn the whole account or go very cheap.

Next sale was October Fasig Tipton Fall Yearling Sale, Oct. 23-25. Perusing the on-line catalog of the 1000+ hips, I made an affirmative decision to avoid (this time) out of the way unpopular sires--e.g. my previous purchase of Pancho Villas with the Secretariat connection, and go with the herd. The reasoning is simple: observation will tell you those progeny of Mr. Prospector (through Gone West), Storm Cat and A.P. Indy are all quick. For a little guy like me, this seems safe, and so I developed a determination to find buy a grandson of Storm Cat. For the grossly uninformed Storm Cat stands at Overbrook Farm for $500,000 live foal. He is by Storm Bird out of a sprinting daughter of Secretaria named Terlingua, and has been Kentucky's leading sire for the last how many years.

The Storm Cat son that stood out was Sea of Secrets--Storm Cat-x-Mr. Prospector, formerly of Walmac International, but now exiled to California where he stands for $3,500.00. My affinity for Sea of Secrets developed as I saw this damned near perfect looking animal on the Blood Horse Stallion Register beating Artax by 10 lenghts with ease. Again, for the uninformed Artax won the Breeder's Cup Sprint and was voted year end champion sprinter of his year. And, here was Sea of Secrets going by Artax like he was tied to a post (See the Stallion Register Video).

Sea of Secrets had 4 colts in the sale. I would miss Hip #12 by Broadbrush on Oct. 23 because the timing coincided with a ten case 9:00 a.m. Federal Court docket that day. But, after Court, I was heading for the 10 hr. trip to Lexington to bid on the other three, or was I. I went back to office to watch a bit of the sale before taking off. It occured to me that i had just about everything in my office that I needed to make the purchase IF only FT allowed telephone bidding. They do!

I wired my $9,000.00 available to their account, and by 9:00 a.m. Oct. 24 I was in business.
My FT bidding agent was "Max" who graciously put up with me calling him umpteen times as a horse walked into the ring only to announce to Max that I passed (after glancing at the horse).
The second Sea of Secrets with a dam sire by a horse no one has ever heard of named Double Negative, but of a dam who won $135,000, was spectacular. They quickly bid him up to $25,000.00. The third Sea of Secrets was a cribber. No way on a cribber. This horse consigned by Doug Arnold's Buck Pond Farm RNA's for $7000.00. He was ok but nothing special.

There was one Sea of Secrets remaining--Hip 1049 near the end of the sale. This buyer better consider something else just in case. So, i searched for Storm Cat grandsons, and noted under Vision and Verse (Hip 654) my own pre-sale notes. Vision and Verse was a plodder, a come from behind horse, but the notes said he was all the way a Grade I animal. He won the Illinois Derby and finished second in the Belmont Stakes by a short margin. He won over one million dollars. Vision and Verse probably has a Phipps connection because he is out of a Private Account mare with a Hoist the Flag damsire, which would explain his come from behind style.

Hip 654 was coming up rapidly, no pun intended, and i kept passing on several others. I quickly noted that the damsire of #654 to be Deposit Ticket by Northern Baby who had done a lot of significant winning for D. Wayne Lukas as a two year old. The mare, Nipsit, won $24,000.00 at Detroit racecourse, and her only other foal at age 3 already has won $15,000.00. And, here was the kicker--the other male ancestors on the dam side were Track Barron, a millionaire of the early 80s who i loved as a race horse, Nijinsky II, and Sir Gaylord. Every damside male anscestor of #654 was a Grade I race horse and most of them were millionaires, which was the same as on the sire side. There is always one dud in every pedigree, except here. The RR interest is arroused.

I called Max and said I was bidding on 654. There is a 30 second delay between real time and the computer sales video. So, when 654 entered the ring on my screen the bidding had already begun. First glance he looked OK--acceptable to my practiced eye. I told Max to bid and was so intent on finding any fault on my screen with the legs that when I bid $3,500.00 Max said I just bought the horse for $2,600.00. Oh, Oh. Something drastically wrong with that price for this horse. With the 30 second delay the bidding lasted for meemaybe 60 seconds. As 654 walked off I glanced for the first time from the legs to the whole horse, and noticed wow, this guy is small. I'll add as an addendum that in the flow off the sale there are dead spots, and I had noticed a dead spot developing about 10-15 hips before 654. 654 as the results show came off right in the middle off a long dead spot in the sale.

654 is the cheapest to date of any Vision and Verse at auction. I next laid eyes on the horse when he walked off the truck. That description is in post #1. As for the final Sea of Secrets out of an unraced Woodman dam, he was ok, I still had $6400.00 in the bank account and I was going to bid. But, this one looked nothing like his sire, so i passed, and it eventually RNA's for $14,00.00.