Spectrum Grand-Daughter Up Sells For $2.2 Million At Keeneland
| Spectrum Grand-Daughter Up Sells For $2.2 Million At Keeneland |
The Irish-bred broodmare Up, a grand-daughter of Yellow Star Stud’s resident sire Spectrum, gave a big lift to Keeneland’s January horses of all ages sale 13 January, selling for a sale-leading $2.2 million at the auction’s second session on a day that saw average price rise as median dropped.
Consigned by Four Star Sales agency, Up was the only Galileo mare, and the only mare in foal to Claiborne Farm’s popular sire War Front, to go through the auction ring at the January sale. After an intense bidding war involving multiple parties, the winning bidders were Bob Naify and Jan Vandebos of RanJan Stable, who secured the purchase on a single bid through their agent, Frank Taylor.
“We just love the pedigree” Taylor said of the 6-year-old mare. “The family’s active, there’s a good stallion in the pedigree, and so it was something we wanted. They’ve been wanting a Galileo mare for a long time, and she was the one.”
The stallion Taylor mentioned is Dutch Art (sire of new Darley stallion acquisition, dual Gr1 winner Slade Power), Up’s Medicean Gr1-winning half brother, now at stud at England’s Cheveley Park Stud. Up is a dual group winner and has her own Gr1 credit, having finished second in the 2012 French One Thousand Guineas. She is out of the Spectrum mare Halland Park Lass and she was a relative bargain.
Taylor said Naify and Vandebos had not yet decided whether to keep or sell Up’s 2015 foal.
Bloodstock agents Jason Litt and Alex Solis were among the unsuccessful bidders for Up, but they came back to buy the mare’s yearling $800,000 War Front filly, who sold immediately after her dam and had the session’s highest yearling price and second-highest price overall.
“Breeding stock sales vary from year to year, and what people are aiming for from year to year changes,” Keeneland sales director Geoffrey Russell said after the session. “It’s just a factor of the market, and we’d like it to be less.”
Up and her War Front yearling easily outpaced the 12 January opening-day session-topper, the $400,000 mare Premier Steps, and they were among six horses who brought $300,000 or more during the second session.
“We were very pleased to have a mare of her quality in the sale, and her yearling, and we were delighted to be able to get everything done, with especially good action over the $2 million mark and three major players all trying to get in there all at the same time,” Russell said.
The Keeneland January sale continues through 15 January, at the Keeneland sale pavilion in Lexington.
– bloodhorse.com
