Derby Winner is Young's Latest Success

When agent Steve Young approaches a yearling or 2-year-olds in training sale in search of equine athletes, it's with one goal in mind.

"When we go to a sale we try to identify and buy Saturday afternoon horses," said Young, who, along with Joanne Wiegand-Daw, are responsible for their clients winning what is undeniably the most prestigious "Saturday afternoon" race in the U.S. and perhaps the world, the Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (G1) with Always Dreaming.

An attractive colt from the first crop of Bodemeister  , WinStar Farm's stallion who won the Arkansas Derby (G1) and finished second in the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes (G1), Always Dreaming was bought for $350,000 and won the May 6 Derby in emphatic fashion by 2 3/4 lengths. He is trained by Todd Pletcher for MeB Racing, Brooklyn Boyz, Teresa Viola, St. Elias, Siena Farm, and West Point Thoroughbreds.

Quiet and unassuming, Young has a reputation for hard work and doing his homework before he and Wiegand-Daw attack a sale.

"We have the greatest group of clients and we try to buy horses that run in stakes," Young said in an understatement. "We try to buy the best horses in the sale and that is what we've been lucky enough to do on some occasions."

Indeed. The Derby winner is the latest of nearly 100 stakes winners Young has purchased at auction or privately since he gave up his trainer's license in favor of buying and selling horses in 2005. The list includes Materiality, Jack Milton  , Trappe Shot  , Avenge, Wavell Avenue, Summer Front  , Malagacy, and Paulassilverlining, winner of the Humana Distaff Stakes (G1) on the Derby card, giving Young a grade 1 double on the day.

Consigned to the 2015 Keeneland September yearling sale by Dromoland, Always Dreaming attracted Young's attention because the colt was out of the In Excess mare Above Perfection, a hard-knocking product of the Johnston family's California-based Old English Rancho.

Although the best race won by Above Perfection was a grade 3 sprint, Young vividly recalled the mare's game effort in the 2001 Prioress Stakes (G1). The winner of her first three career starts for the Johnstons, Above Perfection was bought privately by David Milch early in her 3-year-old season. Sent to New York by trainer Darrel Vienna, the filly went toe-to-toe with the equally hard-knocking Xtra Heat in the Prioress, before a tough beat to the eventual champion 3-year-old filly that season.

"Every buyer does it differently, but before I go to a sale, I start with the pedigree," Young explained. "Certain horses you are not going to buy, no matter what they look like. If you have spent any time around California racing you have to have a deep regard for Old English Rancho and the horses the Johnston family has bred over the years.

"Above Perfection was really tough and lightning fast. When they brought her East for the Prioress, she and Xtra Heat really put on a show. Xtra Heat beat her by a neck, but she showed me she is the kind of mare with the ability to throw anything."

Young always paid attention to Above Perfection's offspring, which include grade 1 winner Hot Dixie Chick, leading him to conclude that Always Dreaming had potential to stretch out beyond the seven furlongs that his dam raced.

"What I loved about the horse is that of the babies out of her, I thought he had more leg and stood over ground like a horse that had a chance to run farther than his mother," Young said, adding that he did not foresee Always Dreaming would succeed at the Derby distance. "I'm not going to tell you I thought the horse was going to run a mile-and-a-quarter when I bought him. I did think he had enough leg underneath him that he would be a two-turn horse with pace."

It was also an asset to Young that Always Dreaming was sired by Bodemeister, a colt the agent admired when he was on the Triple Crown Trail.

"I liked him and had respect for him as a racehorse, and I bought three of his yearlings that year," Young said, noting that the Derby winner "brought plenty of money for yearlings by a first year sire."

Young said one of Always Dreaming's greatest attributes is the manner in which he runs.

"I try to buy pace horses that have quality not in running, but how they do it," he said. "He is a tremendous individual internally. His mechanics are what make him run farther than people think. He is a horse with beautiful action. He takes his breezes and races very well. When he breezes he gets his air back quickly after he returns to the barn, and he's taken his four races this year very well."

Asked about the significance of having a colt he and Wiegand-Daw selected out of a sale affirm their selection abilities by winning the Derby, Young said two days after the classic that "it's a terrific accomplishment, but I don't self-analyze it as much as other people. It has not totally soaked in."