Influence of Phipps Mare Blitey Strong at Saratoga Sale

A powerful testament to the influence of Ogden Phipps' blue hen mare Blitey came out of The Saratoga Sale this week, when four yearlings out of dams tracing back to the foundation mare sold for a collective $4.05 million at Fasig-Tipton's select yearling sale.

One of the Blitey family yearlings was Hip 153, a Curlin  colt out of the Chilean champion Wapi, who was a co-sale-topper at $1.5 million. A second yearling, a Tapit  colt out of Feathered named Flightline and consigned as Hip 80, sold for $1 million.

The purchases for these four yearlings represented a robust 7.3% of The Saratoga Sale's gross of $55,547,000.

Such strong continued commercial success speaks volumes about the depth of talent this family has produced since Phipps acquired Blitey's dam, Lady Pitt, in 1970 from Thomas Eazor.

Lady Pitt, a daughter of Sword Dancer, was bred in Kentucky by John Greathouse and raced by Eazor. The filly won or placed in 19 stakes, which included wins in the Mother Goose and Coaching Club American Oaks in 1966.

Phipps acquired Lady Pitt after Eazor had bred two foals out of her. The first Phipps-bred foal out of Lady Pitt was the winning Bold Lad son Queen's Minister. Four foals later, Phipps would get Blitey, a daughter of Riva Ridge who became a grade 2 stakes winner and was three times grade 1-placed. Lady Pitt produced one other graded stakes winner—grade 1 winner The Liberal Member.

Without any inbreeding in the first five generations, Blitey joined the Phipps broodmare band at an opportune time as an outcross for both the Northern Dancer and Mr. Prospector sires lines that were on the rise, noted racing historian Ed Bowen in his Legacies of the Turf (Vol. 2).

Blitey produced four graded stakes winners and eight other winners out of 12 foals to race. Her graded stakes winners included grade 1 winners Dancing Spree (Nijinsky II), Fantastic Find (Mr. Prospector), and Furlough (Easy Goer).

The $1 million Tapit colt, now named Flightline, is out of the Indian Charlie graded stakes winner Feathered, who is a great-granddaughter of Fantastic Find. Kentucky breeder Jane Lyon, the owner of Summer Wind Farm, bought Feathered for $2.35 million out of the Hill 'n' Dale Sales Agency consignment at the 2016 Keeneland November Breeding Stock Sale. Flightline was consigned to The Saratoga Sale by Lane's End and bought by West Point Thoroughbreds and several partners.

A $950,000 Tapit filly that sold as Hip 82 in Gainesway's consignment is out of the Seeking the Gold mare and Phipps homebred Pension, a winning daughter of Furlough. Gainesway bought Pension for $160,000 at the 2008 Keeneland November sale out of Lane's End's consignment. The mare is already a multiple stakes producer for Gainesway, with her top foals including grade 2 winner Annual Report (Harlan's Holiday) and listed stakes winner Giant Payday (Giant's Causeway). 

Saratoga Hips 153 and 91, a colt by Into Mischief , trace to Blitey through mares that were not as accomplished as racehorses but have made their contributions to the family as broodmares. 

Wapi is a great-great granddaughter of Blitey through Home Leave, a winning daughter of Alydar that earned stakes-place status back in 1987 when finishing fourth in a stakes was recognized as placed. Home Leave was fourth at 4 in the Ladies Handicap (G1) at Aqueduct Racetrack. 

Home Leave's first foal was Weekend Leave, a daughter of Polish Navy whom Glencrest Farm bought for $5,000 when she was 2 and offered through the 1993 Keeneland January Horse of All Ages Sale by Claiborne Farm. Weekend Leave managed one win and three placed finishes out of nine starts and wound up in the broodmare band of Haras Paso Nevado in Chile.

The mare found great success in the Southern Hemisphere, where she produced 14 winners out of as many to race. Her foals included group 1 winner and champion We Can Seek, group 2 winner and champion Weekend Trip, group 1-placed stakes winner We Can Leave, and two additional stakes-placed winners. 

We Can Leave is the dam of Wapi, who was also bred by Haras Paso Nevado. Wapi won four group stakes, including the El Ensayo MEGA and Las Oaks (both G1) and was named champion 3-year-old filly of 2016.

Her sale-topping Curlin colt, her first foal, was bred by Don Alberto and Three Chimneys Farm, who bought the mare for $1.05 million at the 2017 Keeneland November sale out of the Hill 'n' Dale Sales Agency consignment. Consigned by Denali Stud, the Curlin colt was bought by Aquis Farm, Let's Go Stable, and Crawford Farm Racing. Wapi had a colt this year by Three Chimney's Gun Runner . The mare tragically died of colic 2 1/2 weeks ago.

Loping Along, by Easy Goer, was another modest Phipps homebred runner out of Blitey, who didn't attract much attention as broodmare. Her daughters, however, would more than carry the family flame. Seven of Loping Along's 12 foals made it to the races and four became winners.

One of the mare's daughters who never started was a Silver Deputy daughter named Dead Aim, whom Claiborne sold as a broodmare prospect for $25,000 to Elisabeth Alexander at the 2005 Keeneland January sale. She was sold again the next year at the same sale to James Jones for $42,000 in foal to Stephen Got Even. Jones bred Dead Aim to Quiet American and got a handsome filly he sold for $90,000 to Mark Stanley through the 2008 Keeneland September Yearling Sale out of the Eaton Sales consignment.

That filly was Quiet Temper, who won the Fair Ground Oaks (G2) and the Boyd Gaming's Delta Princess Stakes Powered by Youbet.com (G3) and banked $633,643 in purses.

Quiet Temper ended up in the hands of owner/breeder Benjamin Leon Jr., who breeds and races as Besilu Stables. Besilu and Three Chimneys joined forces in 2014, so the mare's yearling (Hip 91) by Into Mischief was bred in the name of Three Chimneys Farm. The yearling colt lit up The Saratoga Sale bid board with a final price of $600,000 from agent Mike Ryan. Denali Stud also consigned the colt.

Blitey's outcross breeding did indeed cross effectively with different sire lines. Her progeny—Breeders' Cup Sprint (G1) winner Dancing Spree and grade 2 winner Dancing All Night, the granddam of grade 1 winner and course record holder Bigger Picture—were both by Northern Dancer's son Nijinsky II.

It was her daughters by Raise a Native sons and a grandson, though, that were represented in this year's Saratoga yearlings—Raise a Native's sons Mr. Prospector and Alydar, and two daughters by Easy Goer, a Phipps-bred son of Alydar.

If there is a constant in the Thoroughbred business, it is that proven families continue to produce good racehorses. With Blitey and her daughters, granddaughters and great-granddaughters already responsible for producing 29 stakes winners and 49 stakes horses, we are likely to see their names on the catalog pages at future select sales for years to come.