Auction Trail of Weekend's Grade I Winners

Both of the weekend's grade I winners at Santa Anita Park—Constellation and Mind Your Biscuits—passed through a Keeneland auction as yearlings and were offered through an Ocala Breeders' Sales Co. 2-year-olds in training sale.

Constellation, winner of the La Brea Stakes (gr. I), was bred in Kentucky by WinStar Farm, which is currently the leading North American breeder by earnings for 2016. The chestnut daughter of Bellamy Road  —For Royalty, by Not For Love, first passed through the 2014 Keeneland September sale where Denali Stud as agent sold her for $155,000 to Northwest Stud. 

Northwest Stud then pinhooked Constellation through the 2015 Ocala Breeders' Sales March sale, where the bloodstock team of Jason Litt and Alex Solis II bought her for $800,000 on behalf of LNJ Foxwoods. The filly was the co-fifth-highest price at the sale and is now the second graded/group stakes winner among the top 10 highest-priced horses at this sale. The other is Acapulco, a filly by Scat Daddy—Global Finance, by End Sweep), who M.V. Magnier bought for $750,000. Acapulco won the Queen Mary Stakes (Eng-II) and finished second in the Coolmore Nunthrope Stakes (Eng-I) last year.

At 2, Constellation became a black-type stakes winner and finished second in the Matron Stakes (gr. II) and third in the Spinaway Stakes (gr. I). This year she has finished off the board only once in four starts, and finally broke through at the graded stakes level in the La Brea Dec. 26. She has five wins and two placings out of eight lifetime starts and earnings of $479,464.

Constellation is For Royalty's first stakes winner and her second black-type stakes runner out of three foals of racing age. For Royalty is a half sister to grade I winner El Viento (El Corredor) and grade II winner Kiss to Remember (Big Brown  ).

Mind Your Biscuits, winner of the grade I Malibu Stakes Dec. 26, sold for $47,000 during the 2014 Keeneland January winter mixed sale to Machmer Hall out of the Allied Bloodstock consignment. Bred in New York by Jumping Jack Racing, the son of Posse—Jazzmane, by Toccet, was pinhooked by Select Sales through the Fasig-Tipton New York Saratoga Preferred New York-bred yearling sale, where he was bought back for $47,000. Mind Your Biscuits was offered again through the 2015 OBS April 2-year-olds in training sale by SBM Training & Sales and, again, was bought back for $47,000. 

Trainer Robert Falcone Jr. got Mind Your Biscuits through agent Chad Summers, who is the racing manager for J Stables. The Malibu was Mind Your Biscuits' second graded stakes win of the year, having taken the Amsterdam Stakes (gr. II) at Saratoga Race Course July 30. He also finished third in the TwinSpires Breeders' Cup Sprint (gr. I), though he has since been moved up to second due to the disqualification of Masochistic following a positive test result for anabolic steroids. Mind Your Biscuits now has a 4-5-2 record out of 13 starts and earnings of $795,366, accounting for the DQ.

Mind Your Biscuits is Jazzmane's first black-type stakes winner. The unraced mare has two other winners among her four foals of racing age.