Cheekaboo fetches $300,000 to top day one of the Winter Mixed Sale

Accomplished stakes horses offered as racing or broodmare prospects and yearlings were in demand during the opening session of the Fasig-Tipton Winter Mixed Sale on Monday, driving a solid market for the final public auction before the start of the breeding season.

Fetching the day's top price of $300,000 was Grade 2 winner Cheekaboo, bought by K R Japan from consignor Small Batch Sales. The winning bid was made via phone, with Fasig-Tipton's Terence Collier taking the bids from K R Japan.

Collier said K R Japan is a breeding entity based on the island of Hokkaido that conducts a lot of business with the Yoshida family's Northern Farm. He said the farm's representatives work with US-based equine veterinarians to do pre-sale evaluations and contact Fasig-Tipton for the actual purchases. Collier filmed the filly's walk on his mobile device and sent it electronically to K R Japan. He was then in touch with Naohiro Hosoda, who handled the bidding in Japan on behalf of the farm's agent, who does not speak English.

A chestnut daughter of the late top California sire Unusual Heat, Cheekaboo was trained by Peter Eurton for Ciaglia Racing, Burns Racing, and Sharon Alesia. She won or placed in 13 of 24 starts including two stakes as a three-year-old – the Honeymoon Stakes and Campanile Stakes. Overall, the mare placed in stakes on five occasions and earned $371,995.

"It's exciting," said Small Batch Sales' Fletcher Mauk. "We actually had the reserve set for a bit less than that so it was exciting to see. We're super excited for the owners. They did a great job exercising patience with this filly, putting her in the right places, and they've been rewarded for it.

"The action was typical of what you would expect for a Grade 2 winner in the last sale before the breeding shed opens," Mauk continued. "Most of the larger farms were interested in her. They respect her race record. I think for the sire, she was a bit of an anomaly because she was a bigger-bodied horse than what people would expect from Unusual Heat. So to have that long shoulder, high withers, powerful hip, I think it really carried her more than it could have had she been a typical offspring of Unusual Heat."

Bred in California by Madeline Auerbach, Richard Rosenberg, and Barry Abrams, Cheekaboo was purchased by Ciaglia for $55,000 from the Harris Farms consignment to the 2014 Barretts October Yearling Sale in 2014. In addition to being a Grade 2 winner, Cheekaboo descends from a quality female family that includes Grade 1 winners Miss Josh and Royal Mountain Inn among other black-type winners.

The day's second-highest price and top price for a short yearling of $200,000 was paid by Irish Meadows Stable for an Into Mischief yearling filly consigned by Blake-Albina Thoroughbred Services as agent. The filly (Hip 191) descends from the Mizzen Mast mare Kashami, a half-sister to millionaire Grade 2 winner Wilcox Inn. The filly's female family also includes Grade 1 winners Cetewayo and Dynaforce and Grade 2 winner Bowman Mill.

Silverton Hill went to $175,000 to acquire Five Star Momma (Hip 123) from James B. Keogh's Grovendale, agent. The ten-year-old Five Star Day mare is a multiple stakes winner who placed in Graded company three times during a career in which she earned $425,913 gleaned from five wins and ten placings. The mare has produced foals each of the last three years and was sold not pregnant.

Fasig-Tipton reported 146 horses sold for an aggregate of $4,677,200, compared with the $4,134,200 gross paid for 181 horses during last year's opener. The average and median prices were $32,036 and $18,000, up from the $22,841 and $10,000 figures from Day 1 in 2018. This year's RNA rate was 29.5 per cent, compared with the 26.4 per cent buy-back rate in 2018.

There were 13 lots sold for six figures, compared with nine such individuals during day one a year ago. Within the $50,000-$99,000 price point, there were 15 horses sold this year; last year 12 sold in this range.

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Fasig-Tipton president Boyd Browning Jr said the results met sale company expectations.

"The market was very good, very solid today," Browning said. "It's the same old story – the quality offerings were very much in demand with lots of bidding and activity on those horses. Unfortunately not every offering at this time of the year is going to be perceived as a real quality offering. There was, for the most part, a marketplace for every horse that walked in there, so all in all it was a successful day.

"There is no question the market continues to demand quality and is willing to pay for quality," he continued. "The good ones may have brought a tick or two more than you thought they would and those not as commercially viable brought less than you hoped they would."

Browning said it is a reality that it is a stratified market and there is no reason to believe that will change in 2019.

"I think we will continue to see stratification in the marketplace in the two-year-old sales, in the yearling sales, and the mixed sales throughout 2019," he said.

Browning said there was a diverse group of buyers involved in the buying Monday – Japanese interests acquired the session-topper, and Australian and South American buyers were also represented.

The sale concludes on Tuesday.

The lots to look out for as Goffs gets set to host its first sale of the year