The Brock Talk

Monday, July 20, 2009

Birdstone Colt Sells For $400k

When a stallion sires the winners of two of the three Triple Crown races, it is expected that he will have a good year at the following yearling auctions. That appears to be the case with Birdstone who has 2009 Kentucky Derby winner Mine That Bird and Belmont Stakes winner Summer Bird among his first racing get. The result: his son topped the first day of the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky select yearling sale being conducted in Lexington, Kentucky.

A unnamed dark bay or brown colt by Birdstone sold Monday for $400,000 to John Ferguson, who acts as the buying agent for Sheik Mohammed al Mouktoum's Darley Stud, topping two other yearlings that each sold for $350,000 on a day that had 294 yearlings catalogued.

The colt has Triple Crown blood running thoroughout his pedigree as Birdstone won the Belmont Stakes and his sire Grindstone won the Kentucky Derby. The colt is also out of the mare Slew Smarts, who is by 1977 Triple Crown winner Seattle Slew. Both Mine That Bird and Summer Bird are part of Birdstone's first class to hit the racetrack, making him even more attractive to buyers and pinhookers who will be in the market for yearlings.

To illustrate the pinhooking concept we spoke of yesterday, Dapple Stud, who consigned the Birdstone son, paid $37,000 for him in January at a Keeneland Auction.

Slew Smarts did not make it to the track as a racehorse but as a broodmare she is experiencing more success. She has three foals that have raced with the best being Por Que, who won stakes races at Zia Park in New Mexico and Remington Park in Oklahoma.
Multiple grade 1 winner Bernardini, who is perhaps most infamous as the winner of the tragic 2006 Preakness in which Barbaro broke down, was the sire of a bay colt that sold for $350,000 Monday (photo). Bernardini, who is by Belmont winner A.P. Indy, also won the Traves Stakes, The Jockey Club Gold Cup and more than $3 million on the track. The bay yearling colt that sold Monday is out of the Lyphard mare Lyphard's Delta, who was a group 2 stakes winner in England and earned more than $150,000 during her racing career.

Rock Hard Ten, who was second in the 2004 Preakness, had the other $350,000 seller, a filly out of the Seattle Slew mare incredible story.

1 comment:

Maddy4361 said...

I loved Birdstone on the track and even had him in the Belmont stakes. Great to see him doing well as a sire. but i didn't think he would do this well.