Gun Runner Filly Hits Early for $1.5M at Saratoga Sale

The second horse through the ring the second night of Fasig-Tipton's The Saratoga Sale Aug. 6 broke the seven-figure threshold, selling to Mandy Pope's Whisper Hill Farm for $1.5 million from the Gainesway consignment.

Hip 123 is a chestnut filly by Gun Runner  , out of the multiple grade 1-winning mare Pure Clan  (Pure Prize), who retired with earnings just shy of $2 million. Bred by Three Chimneys Farm, which stands Gun Runner for a private fee, Hip 123 is a half sister to the multiple graded stakes-placed Princesa Carolina  (Tapit  ), who was bred and raced by Three Chimneys.

"Obviously, her mare was a great race mare, and we're hoping she inherits those genes," said Pope, after backing away in mock terror when a phalanx of reporters surrounded her after the hammer dropped. "The family is a young one with some half sisters that will hopefully go on to produce. This filly is gorgeous, big, strong, and sensible from what we could see."

The owner of perhaps the most prodigious broodmare band in the country, Pope seldom hesitates to offer top dollar for fillies and mares to add to her Whisper Hill Farm, but even she has been daunted by the level of competition at the sale. 

"We paid exactly what we thought we'd have to pay," she said. "It's extremely difficult to buy here. We got outbid quite a bit yesterday, but you have to value them and stick to your guns."

Earlier this year, Whisper Hill Farm's Leslie's Rose  won the Ashland Stakes (G1) and ran in the Kentucky Oaks (G1), races that Pope has her eye on for this filly as well. She will wait to decide who will train the horse until the filly is a little older.

"She'll tell us when she's ready what kind of trainer suits her," she said. "We get the trainer to suit the horse, not the horse to suit the trainer."