Kid Silver Carries Perrones’ Hopes at Fasig-Tipton

With skillful precision for eight consecutive years from 2007-14, Kid Silver produced a foal, with her offspring including 2016 grade 2 winner Lucy N Ethel and stakes winners Jake N Elwood and Hey Kiddo.

Now, after having a Two Step Salsa   colt last year, the daughter of Silver Ghost now in foal to Belmont Stakes (G1) and Metropolitan Handicap (G1) winner Palace Malice   is being offered for sale at the Fasig-Tipton winter mixed sale during the auction’s second and final session Feb. 7 in Lexington. Cataloged as Hip 448, the gray mare is consigned by Jim and Karen Perrone’s Perrone Sales, as agent.

While Kid Silver is 15, somewhat an advanced age to attract much action at a sale, the mare remains striking and does not look her age.

“I know 15 is getting late (in a mare’s lifespan), but if you look at this mare, she is classy and doesn’t look her age at all. She looks like a 7-year-old,” Jim Perrone said. “Those who have looked at her so far have liked her. And she is in foal to the right horse in Palace Malice. I think she ticks all the boxes, to use that phrase that everybody uses. She’s good-looking, she’s healthy, and every single one of her babies that has run has won.”

Perrone, whose five-horse consignment also includes two daughters of Tapit  , said he specifically targeted Kid Silver for the Fasig-Tipton auction after conferring with sales company representatives who felt it was good placement for the mare.

“This is the last mixed sale of the year and this sale has been growing, so we felt like this was the right spot,” said Perrone, adding that he believes the upcoming auction will mirror other recent sales, in which selectivity by buyers has led to polarization within the marketplace. “You have a group of buyers looking for the top horses and are willing to pay whatever it takes to get the right horses. They will still buy a middle-market horse, but they are wanting to pay lower and lower prices for middle-market horses. And that is hurting breeders.”

The consignor said breeders need to have realistic expectations when sending horses to auction, noting that any horses he and Karen Perrone own are sent through the ring to find a new home, not  to test the market.

“We practice at the sales,” he said. “When we bring our own horses they are here to sell. My clients always ask ‘What do you think my horse will bring?’ I say ‘Let me show it for two days and then I will give you an educated guess.’ It will be a guess, but at least it will be more informed.

“Whether it’s going to bring $50,000 or $100,000, that’s for the market to decide. I don’t care what an owner thinks a horse is worth. Once a horse has gone through that ring, the best appraisers in the world are telling you, ‘Right now—today—this is what your horse is worth.”

Perrone and his wife bring a unique perspective to the auction place for several reasons.

Formerly a police officer in New York City and Charlotte, N.C., Jim Perrone and a friend worked in the 1980s and 90s on a 100-acre Thoroughbred farm in North Carolina, breeding and raising the horses for the owner and then taking them to sales in Ocala, Fla.

Jim Perrone eventually turned his interests to horses on a full-time basis some 20 years ago, after selling an international company that he founded and became acquainted with Duncan Taylor while consigning horses under the name of his Sunset Farm.

To hone his salesmanship skills, Perrone signed on to work for Taylor Made Sales Agency, doing an assortment of sales functions—such as helping organize the sales and assisting with the sale show cards used by buyers—for four years before striking out on his own.

"I thought I knew something about selling horses until I watched them," Jim Perrone said. "It was like getting a PhD. No matter what you knew, they could teach you more, if you paid attention. They've gotten to where they are, because they worked hard."

Jim and Karen Perrone are also outliers within the traditional sales industry, since they reside on a 10-year tract near Charlotte, an area not especially known for horse breeding activity. The couple previously had their own mares that were boarded at farms in Kentucky or Florida, but sold them after tiring of the travel involved with maintaining them elsewhere.

Horses in their consignments are bred, raised, and prepped by their clients and then sent them to the couple to be auctioned.

“We get them in from all over—New York, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana—and keep them at other farms until they go to the sale,” said Jim Perrone, who estimated they sell 15-20 head each at some six auctions annually.