$750,000 Curlin Filly Top Weanling at The November Sale

A striking daughter of leading sire Curlin  , purchased by Robert and Lawana Low for $750,000, topped the weanling portion of The November Sale, Fasig-Tipton's premier breeding stock sale Nov. 9 near Lexington. 

Close to 100 weanlings were featured at the beginning portion of the sale, but none shone as bright as the filly by the Hill 'n' Dale at Xalapa stallion.

"She's just a well-bred filly that is by a sire that needs no introduction, and we're just lucky to land her here," said bloodstock agent Jacob West, who signed the ticket Tuesday. "Horses were so hard to buy in September, so we figured we would come in here and if we found a nice filly that had the pedigree and physical and everything to match, we would make a big run at her." 

Bred in Kentucky by Lee Pokoik and consigned by Taylor Made Sales Agency as Hip 107, the bay filly is out of the Orb  mare Sippican Harbor , who proved her mettle on the racetrack when she won the Spinaway Stakes (G1) in 2018. Hip 107 is the second foal out of the mare, who had a Medaglia d'Oro   colt in 2020.

West said the price, while steep, was exactly what he had been expecting considering the strength of the market in 2021. 

"I've got some money to pinhook some horses here and I followed some in here earlier and they blew past what I thought they would bring," said West. "The momentum is carrying and there are nice horses here. Nice horses always sell well. (Hip 107) happened to be one of them, so let's hope we get lucky. 

"Obviously the market this year in September was crazy. Even in Saratoga as well, so (Hip 107) probably will bring more if she comes back as a yearling—maybe, I don't know. I'm just happy to have Mr. and Mrs. Low behind me wanting to buy a well-bred filly, but I think this is it for them. She was in my opinion the best filly here and over at Keeneland in Book 1, so when I pointed that out to them they set their sights on her." 

Best Begins to Recoup Initial Investment

Earlier in the evening one of the most dynamic players to arrive on the scene in recent years found himself in the spotlight again, when his homebred colt (Hip 75) by Spendthrift Farm supersire Into Mischief   sold for $570,000. 

A familiar face on the grounds of almost any sale, Larry Best of OXO Equine has developed a penchant for buying the best and breeding the best, a process that has helped him assemble one of the most enviable programs in memory. That being said, it came as little surprise that Best reaped the early rewards of the opening weanling section of the sale when pinhooker Archie St. George of Brookstone Farm won the bidding war for Hip 75. 

Consigned by Taylor Made Sales Agency, the colt brought Best full circle to his beginning days in the Thoroughbred industry. Bred in Kentucky out of the Medaglia d'Oro   mare Moi , Hip 75 is out of the first mare—indeed the first Thoroughbred—ever purchased by Best. 

"(Moi) was the first horse that I ever bought," said Best. "I bought her in 2016 at Keeneland. I loved her then and I still love the horse."

Purchased by Best from Taylor Made for $750,000 from the Keeneland September Yearling Sale, Moi is out of the graded stakes-placed stakes-winning mare Distorted Passion  (by Distorted Humor  ) and is a half sister to grade 2 winner Mrs McDougal . 

Hip 75 is the third foal sired by Into Mischief out of Moi for Best. The first is a 2-year-old filly named Ochre , and the second is a yearling colt yet to be named. While the other two will remain within his program, Best felt it was time to finally sell an individual out of his foundation mare. 

"We're very happy," said Katie Taylor of Taylor Made, with whom Best boards all of his horses. "He's always been a straightforward horse. Larry has a crop of the farm of five different Into Mischief colts, and he's always been one of the top ones. 

"This mare, we have two full siblings that looked really nice and very similar to this horse. He has the older sister and a brother that he'll put in his race program. We wanted to give this mare an auction history and show people how good these babies are. We're very excited that he went where he went. It's the best of both worlds—a good start and a good future." 

"(Hip 75) has a lot of scope and it's definitely a two-turn horse," said Best, who was more than pleased with the outcome of the sale. "You can see by the page. It's probably one of the best pages in the catalog this year. It's a beautiful horse and an Into Mischief colt—a beautiful specimen of an Into Mischief colt. I love Into Mischief colts, and I love Into Mischief fillies. He had 27 scopes, so he was very, very popular with the pinhooker crowd as well as with end users for racing. I couldn't be happier. I figured he'd go for between $500,000 and $650,000. It met my goal, so I'm thrilled." 

Molly Rollins contributed to this report.