For the second time in as many yearling sales this year, a Gainesway-offered yearling topped the leaderboard when a Gun Runner colt out of Heavenly Love sold for $2.3 million at the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Sale. It was also the second straight year a Gainesway offering has topped this sale and third time they’ve topped the sale in the last five editions.
Purchased by White Birch Farm and M.V. Magnier, the $2.3 million colt is the second out of the Grade 1 winner Heavenly Love, who joined the colt’s third dam Roamin Rachel and her son Zenno Rob Roy as Grade 1 winners on the page. Heavenly Love is also a half-sister to Grade 2 winner Forever Darling and to the dam of Charles Do Bronx, who won a Group 3 after the catalog was released.
It was an extended bidding war for the Debby Oxley-bred colt, who was full of class throughout his time in the ring.
“I’ve been selling horses for the Oxleys for 20 years,” Brian Graves told Blood-Horse. “Jack (John) and Debby gave me one of my first horses to sell when I first started consigning horses and wanting to consign horses for other people… It feels like family and it’s just a real special night.”
The colt took the spotlight in the Gainesway consignment but he was joined by two other seven-figure yearlings offered by the farm. All three horses were offered during the second session.
An Into Mischief filly out of the Grade 1-winning Paola Queen made a big impression on bidders and was the most expensive of any offering by her sire when Kohki Maeda bought her for $1.2 million. Bred by Don Alberto Corp, she is the second seven-figure yearling Gainesway has sold out of the mare in Saratoga after her full brother topped the sale at $2.6 million when sold to M.V. Magnier last year.
The page has gotten a few updates since 2021, the most notable being that Paola Queen’s first foal, a colt named Pass And Stow won on debut after the catalog was released. Paola Queen is one of nine stakes performers named on the page with the mare’s dam and granddam both winning stakes as well.
Paola Queen’s granddam is the multiple stakes winning Raw Gold, who is a half-sister to Grade 1 winner Point Ashley and the dam of Grade 3 winner Ravi. Raw Gold herself produced stakes winner Our Channel, Paola Queen’s stakes winning dam Kadira and another stakes winner who also became a stakes producer.
Paola Queen visited TAPIT last year after this filly was born and foaled a colt in 2022.
The Gainesway consignment was also responsible for the second-highest priced Into Mischief offering, a filly purchased by Live Oak Plantation.
The filly is the second out of the multiple graded stakes winner Curlin’s Approval and bred by Bridlewood Farm and Happy Alter. Curlin’s Approval is also a half-sister to the multiple graded stakes placed Apologynotaccepted with stakes winner Respect For Mom also on the page.
“She has it all, Curlin and Into Mischief,” Mark Casse, who signed the ticket for Live Oak, told Thoroughbred Daily News. https://www.thoroughbreddailynews.com/2-3-million-gun-runner-colt-tops-record-crashing-saratoga-sale/ “We’ve had pretty good luck with both. It didn’t hurt that there was a little With Approval in the family. That is all Live Oak.”
With three millionaires and two others breeding over $500,000, Gainesway’s 10 sold brought a gross of $7,325,000. That number put them second by gross behind only a consignor who sold 15 more horses. Gainesway also led all sellers with more than one sold by average at $732,500.
Gainesway has six on offer at next week’s Fasig-Tipton New York-Bred Yearlings Sale before heading to the Keeneland September Sale next month. You can see the pages of their New York-bred offerings here.
