Adam Secures City of Light Colt for $1 Million

Donald Adam of Courtlandt Farms landed a seven-figure yearling on the first day of the Keeneland September Yearling Sale when he went to $1 million for Hip 73, a City of Light   colt.

Consigned by Betz Thoroughbreds, the colt was bred in Kentucky by Betz, B&K Canetti, J. Betz, CoCo Equine, and D.J. Stables.

The colt is out of the multiple stakes-winning Pulpit  mare Tea Time  whose second dam is Aurora, dam of United Arab Emirates Horse of the Year Festival of Light , grade 1 winner Acoma, and grade 1 winner and sire Arch.

Adam purchased the colt's half sibling, a Union Rags   filly named Soul Play, at last year's Keeneland September Yearling Sale for $200,000 from Betz Thoroughbreds. 

"We bought the half sister last year—the Union Rags filly that we really like; we've just had to be patient with her. This colt is just quality, everybody knows, that's why we had to pay what we paid for him," farm manager Ernie Retamoza said. "We like the sister a lot and that prompted us to move on him a little bit and the individual he is made it easy for us to go for him, but again we had to pay.

"(We liked) everything about him, his balance—he's strong. He's got a great walk to him and a great mind. We looked at him three or four times and each day he held up mentally, physically; never backed up. We didn't really want to spend that but it's tough in there."

Retamoza said there was still a couple more yearlings he would like to add to the stable.

"We got beat up a little so far and one scratched. We'll see how we finish up today. There's another three or four for us. We're trying to get good horses to race at the highest level. We had a couple of nice colts win closing weekend at (Saratoga Race Course)—looks like they're both going to have some futures. We've got some good horses for last year, 2-year-olds now that we had to be patient with that will coming around in the fall.

"We feel like we've got a good stable right now, and we're just going to keep building in that direction. We go through them all and it's what Mr. Adam's comfort level is on numbers and he decides as we go."

Adam also purchased an Into Mischief   filly consigned as Hip 150 for $825,000 from the Stonehaven Steadings consignment, and Hip 166, a Nyquist   filly from the Burleson Farms consignment for $475,000.