Into Mischief Colt Tops Record-Setting Fasig Saratoga Fall Sale

Into Mischief | Joy Gilbert

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The Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Fall Sale, held for the sixth time Monday in upstate New York, produced across-the-board gains over its 2016 renewal with a colt by Into Mischief bringing a sales record top price of $170,000. In all, 144 horses sold for a total of $3,265,000. The average rose 33.8% to $22,674–highest in the young auction's history–and the median was up 41.2% to a sales record tying $12,000. Monday's buy-back rate was 39%. It was 37.2% in 2016.

Britt Wadsworth's Mahoney Eden Manor and Danzel Brendemuehl's Classic Bloodstock teamed to purchase the day's top-priced lot, a weanling colt by Into Mischief (hip 200) from the RFHF Bloodstock consignment, as agent for Hidden Lake Farm and Kingsport Farm. The bay colt is out of Darling Mambo (Broad Brush). Chris Bernhard of Hidden Lake Farm purchased the mare, with the Into Mischief colt in utero, for $75,000, at last year's Keeneland November Sale. She is already the dam of multiple stakes placed Darling Sky (Sky Mesa).

“Into Mischief was just such a popular horse at the time,” Bernhard said of the mare's appeal. “She is a little stakes producer and that horse is still running in stakes competition. So I felt like if we could jump in and get the mare anywhere near the stud fee or a couple of hits over, we would be in pretty good shape. We got that done. And the weanling was a pretty popular guy here.”

Bernhard's Hidden Lake Farm was also responsible for the day's second-highest priced weanling, selling a filly by Tiznow (hip 108) for $150,000 to Triple A Thoroughbreds. Bernhard purchased the weanling's dam Raesunbridledfaith (After Market) for $60,000 at last year's Keeneland November sale.

Monday's results continued a trend of sales successes for Hidden Lake Farm, which topped the Fasig-Tipton New York-bred Yearling sale in August when selling a colt by Cairo Prince for $500,000. The yearling had been purchased in utero for $37,000 at the 2016 Keeneland January sale.

“I have been doing this a long time with those kind of horses,” Bernhard said. “If I can go to Kentucky and try to avoid risk, I can do well. Tiznow is just a good, honest racehorse sire. And Into Mischief is such a good horse–he is just such a good popular sire line, I just figured having a New York-bred you'd have a little bit of an advantage. It's a niche market up here for me. When I've come up here with horses like that–horses who don't have a whole lot of risk–I've done well.”

More under the radar, but equally gratifying for Bernhard, RFHF Bloodstock sold a filly by Verrazano (hip 209) for $52,000 Monday. The weanling was purchased in utero for $5,000 at the 2016 Keeneland November sale.

“That was almost as fun [as the top two weanlings,” Bernhard admitted with a chuckle.

RFHF Bloodstock sold 30 horses for a total of $1,070,500 and an average of $35,683 during Monday's auction.

“It was up and down,” Bernhard said at the close of business Monday evening. “I dissolved a partnership and I bought a few horses out of the partnership that had a few vetting issues that I was comfortable with. We'll roll the dice with them and hope that we can bring them back next year.”

He continued, “[The market] was on par with what I thought was going to happen. The two horses brought significantly more than I thought they were going to bring, but obviously you just get a couple of people to lock horns and they push it along.”

The Fall sale follows on the heels of a red-hot renewal of Fasig-Tipton's New York-Bred Yearling sale and Bernhard confirmed activity at the sales grounds this past weekend was brisk.

“We came in on Friday and usually Saturday is pretty quiet,” he said. “But this go-around, we showed 50 times on Saturday, which was a lot, and we showed probably another 70 or 80 times Sunday. I would say our shows were up by 35-40%. And then there were a lot of people who just came this morning for the first time.”

Bernhard maintains a commercial broodmare band of 80 head. The dams of both of Monday's sale-topping weanlings were bred back to the New York-based Bellamy Road this year.

“When I buy these mares in Kentucky in foal to Kentucky sires, the drawback for me is that I have to breed back to New York stallions to qualify those foals,” he explained. “They stay with me, I foal the New York-sired horses out and the better mares, like Darling Mambo and Raesunbridled Faith, they'll both go to Kentucky this year to be bred and they will be permanent fixtures. Garden City (Carson City), the dam of the Cairo Prince, was open last year to Japan and I sent her to Kentucky and she is in foal to Carpe Diem for next year and then we're going to breed her probably to Frosted.”

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