Sombeyay a Timely Winner for Stuart

When Sombeyay (Into Mischief) got to the wire first in the July 21 GIII Sanford S., it provided a timely update for the colt's half-sister who will sell during Tuesday's second session of the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Selected Yearlings Sale. By Street Boss, the filly (hip 129) is part of the Bluegrass Thoroughbred Services consignment of her co-breeder John Stuart.

Stuart purchased Sombeyay's dam Teroda (Limehouse) for $40,000 at the 2013 Keeneland January sale. Twice stakes placed in California, the 5-year-old mare had everything Stuart was looking for.

“I like young, fast mares and she was affordable,” Stuart recalled. “So I bought her.”

Stuart and David Mueller bred Teroda to Hat Trick (Jpn) in 2013, but decided to keep the mare in training to get that elusive stakes victory. The plan almost backfired on the partners.

“She hadn't won a stakes and I thought I could win a stakes with her,” Stuart said. “The stakes didn't come up, so I ran her twice, at Keeneland and at Churchill.”

Five days after Teroda was bred, she finished fourth while in for a $62,500 tag in an optional claimer at Keeneland. She was claimed from the race only to have the claim nullified.

“When you make an entry in an allowance or stakes race, you don't have to say anything [about the mare having been bred],” Stuart explained. “She was in for the tag in an optional allowance and so she was claimed, but she'd been bred so the stewards rescinded it. Thank God I got her back. I thought I'd made a mistake-I thought I could get away with it. I was making money, I didn't pay a lot of money for the mare, but I really wanted her. So I got her back. Thankfully. And now she has the fastest 2-year-old colt in the East with her second foal.”

Stuart sold Sombeyay for $125,000 as a weanling at the 2016 Keeneland November sale. Frank Brothers of Starlight Racing purchased him for $230,000 at the following year's Keeneland September sale.

A debut winner at Gulfstream in April, the colt was a troubled second in the June 8 Tremont S. before his victory in the Sanford S. (video).

“He was a really nice horse,” Stuart said of his early impressions of Sombeyay. “I wanted to get my money back for what I paid for the mare and the stud fee and everything else. So he paid for all that. He got pinhooked off me and they made plenty of money, so everybody has won with the horse.”

Teroda's second dam is Goldenley (Arg) (Farley {Arg}), who won the 1983 G1 Argentine Oaks. Stuart thinks that influence will give Sombeyay every opportunity to train on.

“I think Sombeyay is going to run much farther because what attracted me to the mare's pedigree was that, while she was really fast, her second dam won the G1 Argentine Oaks. You've got to be a stout, good racemare to do that. That's a 1 1/2-mile race and it's their most important race down there for fillies. I love the Argentinian race mares and this mare went back to a really good one.”

Stuart decided to breed Teroda back to Street Boss in 2016. The Darley stallion is sire of GI Kentucky Oaks winner Cathryn Sophia.

“I thought Street Boss was really good value for the money and he's proven,” Stuart said.

Of the resulting yearling, he added, “She is a lot like her mother. She's a very strong-bodied filly and she looks like she'll be a fast 2-year-old to me. She has a lot more body than her half-brother.”

Stuart was originally planning on keeping the filly, but Sombeyay's early success caused him to call an audible.

“I wasn't going to sell this filly,” he said. “I liked her enough that I was going to keep her. When Sombeyay ran, it changed everything. She became too valuable for me to race–I'm a working guy. I hadn't nominated her anywhere and then when Sombeyay happened, [Fasig-Tipton] accepted the entry.”

Teroda produced a filly by Kitten's Joy this spring and that weanling is expected to go through the sales ring this fall. The mare herself, currently not in foal, could follow next year.

“I did a foal share with the Ramseys with Kitten's Joy,” Stuart said. “We have a really nice filly who will go in the November sale because that is what the contract says we've got to do. I bred Teroda back to Constitution, but she didn't catch on a cover, so she is open. I will probably breed her early to a really good stallion and probably sell her the following November. That would be my guess.”

Stuart currently has 12 broodmares and Teroda is not his only graded stakes success with the formula of young, fast and affordable mares. He purchased I Bet Toni Knows (Sunriver), in foal to Scat Daddy, for $37,000 at the 2014 Keeneland November sale. That Scat Daddy filly sold to bloodstock agent Shawn Dugan for $110,000 at the 2016 Keeneland September sale. Now named Toinette, she won this year's GIII Edgewood S.

“I Bet Toni Knows was really fast, but because she did it in a New York-bred stakes, everybody ignored it,” Stuart said. “So I was able to buy her inexpensively. And what she was carrying brought $110,000, that was Toinette. So my young, fast mares are doing great.”

The Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Sale gets underway Monday evening at the Humphrey S. Finney Pavilion, with bidding scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m.