Celestine for $2.55 Million at Keeneland

Demand for grade I-winning fillies or mares continued midway through the first session of Keeneland’s November breeding stock sale when Moyglare Stud Farm went to $2.55 million for 4-year-old filly Celestine. The price was the second-highest price at the time during the Nov. 8 session.

The dark bay or brown filly, who showed her spunk by kick the auctioneer’s stand while in the ring, was consigned as Hip 144 by Taylor Made Sales Agency as a racing or broodmare prospect. The daughter of Scat Daddy   this year won the June 11 Longines Just a Game (gr. IT) at Belmont Park and April 2 Honey Fox Stakes (gr. IIT), and has six wins from 14 starts with earnings of $825,100. She finished third in the grade I First Lady Stakes (gr. IT) before finishing 12th in the Nov. 5 Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint (gr. IT).

Fiona Craig of Moyglare Stud signed the ticket and said the filly would head to Florida to go back into training with Christophe Clement. Celestine had been conditioned by Bill Mott.

"We've been trying to establish some fast mares," Craig said. "We have some great broodmares in Ireland, but world-record speed is something we're not famous for. We're famous for late maturing, and we're very good, so we just thought we'd add a bit of speed, and she's a lovely race mare. Obviously it's hard when someone's already won a group I to try and make that, but she'll be in good hands."

In addition to her own exploits, the filly is a half sister to multiple stakes winner Haunted Heroine.

Bred in Kentucky by Phoenix Rising Farms, Celestine was purchased by Phaedrus Flights for $100,000 from the Penn Sales offerings at the 2013 Keeneland September yearling sale and was bought back for $975,000 at the 2014 Ocala Breeders’ Sales 2-year-olds in training sale.

John Dowd, racing manager for Phaedrus Flights, said the plan was to bring Celestine to auction "win or lose" regarding her Breeders' Cup effort but conceeded it would have that much more challenging to let her go off a winning performance.

"We're just very excited and glad to see where she ended up," Dowd said. "They're great people (at Moyglare) and we know she'll have a great racing career slash broodmare life.

"It is (hard to part with her) because horses like her are hard to very, very hard to replace. We were planning on bringing her here regardless if she won or she didn't. But if she won it might have changed things. It would have been harder to sell her and let her go. She's such a sweet filly."

Alicia Wincze Hughes and Erin Shea contributed to this report