EMPIRE IN THE MAKING
Bidding started off slowly on hip 146, but interest on the
daughter of EMPIRE
MAKER picked up quickly as
Egyptian businessman Ahmed Zayat and representatives of Darley,
sitting just across the aisle from each other in the Humphrey S.
Finney Pavilion, engaged in a spirited bidding duel. Zayat wound up
the winner for the beautiful bay with a final bid of $1.6 million
at yesterday's final session of the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Selected
Yearlings.
Zayat, a relative newcomer to the sport, never hesitated during the
bidding and, asked if he was surprised by the price, said, "I went
for it, right?" Zayat said the yearling will be sent to Bill Mott,
who already has plenty of experience with the family after training
the yearling's stakeswinning dam Sluice (Seeking the Gold). Sluice
is a daughter of multiple Grade I winner Lakeway (Seattle Slew). "I
trained the mother--it's a great family; the second dam was a real
tough race horse," Mott said.
"Sometimes the daughters of those kind of mares are good
producers." The yearling herself also impressed Mott. "I thought
she was a lovely filly--obviously the best filly in the sale."
Asked to compare the youngster to her mother, Mott said, "She's
bigger and scopier at this point. I think she's actually an
improvement, physically, on her mother--I think she probably got a
little bit of scope from EMPIRE
MAKER."
EMPIRE MAKER--Sluice Filly
Tops FTSAUG continued.
A Consignor’s Dream... "It's always fun when it works," said Craig
Bandoroff after watching his Denali-consigned filly sell for $1.6
million. "She's a lovely filly," he said of the yearling. "We
brought her up here, kind of hoping that she'd be one of the queen
bees, and so the plan worked. In this business, plans don't always
work, so when it happens, it's special." The plan worked to
perfection for the yearling's breeder Diane Snowden, who with her
husband Guy, purchased Sluice for $1.5 million as a yearling at the
1999 Keeneland July sale. "Mrs. Snowden and I did the mating and
foaled her, and we're really excited to get a first foal to look
like that," Bandoroff said. Explaining the choice of
EMPIRE MAKER to cover
Sluice, Bandoroff added, "My theory was that until a mare shows you
what she's got, I didn't want to put a great big stud fee in her. I
like EMPIRE
MAKER, I love his pedigree. So we went to him. We
went to Mineshaft [this year] on the same theory. Now I'll step her
up and breed to a big stud fee."
Sluice has a weanling colt by Fusaichi Pegasus and is currently in
foal to Mineshaft. Diane Snowden was thrilled with the sale. "A
beautiful, beautiful animal; it's hard to part with her," Snowden
admitted. While the Snowdens do race many of the horses they breed,
she explained, "We sell horses that we feel are important enough to
make a statement."
This one actually made 1.6 million
statements.
Date:
09 August 2006