NEWS
Sale-topping mare Holiday Runner dies
Posted: Monday, March 01, 2010 10:09 PM
by Jeff Lowe
Holiday Runner, the Grade 1-producing mare who topped the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky selected fall mixed sale on November 10, died on February 6 from foaling complications.
Jane and Frank Lyon Jr.’s Summer Wind Farm purchased the ten-year-old Meadowlake mare for $2.15-million, which was the fourth-highest price for a broodmare at public auction in 2009.
The Lyons selected Holiday Runner, the dam of multiple Grade 1 winner Seventh Street, to replace their prized broodmare Onaga, who died in August, the same week her Storm Cat colt topped the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga sale of selected yearlings on a final bid of $2.8-million.
Holiday Runner died a day after delivering a healthy Tiznow colt.
“It truly is just a devastating blow,” said Karen Bailey, the Lyons’ daughter and broodmare manager at Summer Wind in Georgetown, Kentucky. “It’s so hard to assemble a good, quality broodmare band, mares of her caliber. After losing Onaga, we felt so blessed to add [Holiday Runner]. With horses, things just happen, and you’re never prepared.”
Holiday Runner defeated males, including eventual graded stakes winners Zavata and Posse, in the 2002 Three Chimneys Juvenile Stakes at Churchill Downs for owner Stephen Barberino Jr.’s S J B Stable and trainer D. Wayne Lukas. She also won the Fashion Stakes at Belmont Park and finished third in the Adirondack Stakes (G2) at Saratoga Race Course.
Barberino bred Seventh Street, by Street Cry (Ire). Vision Sales bought her for $100,000 at the 2006 Keeneland September yearling sale and sold her to John Ferguson, agent for Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, for $1-million at the ’07 Fasig-Tipton Calder sale of selected two-year-olds in training.
Seventh Street scored in the 2009 Apple Blossom (G1) and Go for Wand (G1) Handicaps and finished second in the Ogden Phipps (G1) and Ruffian (G1) Handicaps.
Sheikh Mohammed’s son, Sheikh Rashid bin Mohammed al Maktoum, bought Holiday Runner’s second foal, a Speightstown colt named Reynaldothewizard, for $775,000 at the 2008 Fasig-Tipton Calder sale.
Reynaldothewizard finished third in the 2008 Saratoga Special Stakes (G2).
Holiday Runner’s third foal is an unraced three-year-old Ghostzapper filly named American Story. Kaleem Shah bought her for $400,000 at the 2009 Fasig-Tipton Calder sale.
Baccari Bloodstock consigned Holiday Runner at the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky sale on behalf of Barberino and partner Mike Mollica.
Jeff Lowe is a Thoroughbred Times staff writer
