Twist a Lime, a stakes-placed daughter of Copelan, landed a final bid of $225,000 to top the fifth annual Adena Springs broodmare sale on Thursday night at Fasig-Tipton Co.'s Newtown Paddocks in Lexington. Steve McDonald signed the ticket on the sale-topping mare, a nine-year-old out of Lively Maid, by Lord Rebeau, who was sold in foal to 1997 Belmont Stakes (G1) winner Touch Gold. Twist a Lime, who placed in two stakes during her three-year career and earned $103,083, is the dam of Summer Stakes (Can-G2) winner Speed Gun.

"She's a lovely mare, Copelan is a good broodmare sire, and the fact that she has already produced that graded horse made her more attractive," said McDonald, a resident of Vancouver, British Columbia, who previously owned the Lexington-based Cable Farm. "She's the only mare I've bought this trip. I tried to buy some over at Keeneland but couldn't."

Twist a Lime was one of four in-foal broodmares in the sale offered without reserves who sold for $100,000 or more, compared to nine last year. The sale, designed by Adena Springs owner Frank Stronach as a key promotional tool for the three-farm operation's stallions, was marked with other declines in gross and average.

Fasig-Tipton reported sales on 75 broodmares for a total of $3,070,500, a 15.9% decrease from last year's total of $3,649,000 for 64 sold. The sale's average also slipped 39.6% from $67,759 in 2000 to $40,940 this year.

Despite the declines Stronach's son, Andy, said he was pleased with the results.

"There were a lot of dynamic mares in here," Andy Stronach said. "There were a lot of good mares and a lot of variety in the stallions they were in foal to. I think you'll see a lot of stakes winners come out of here. Money is not everything, it's accomplishing what we want to do and we want to get good results out of these foals these mares are carrying."

Dell Ridge Farm secured the sale's second-highest priced broodmare late in the session when Des Ryan signed a $175,000 ticket for Fighting Jet, an 11-year-old multiple stakes-winning daughter of Copelan. Sold in foal to 1998 Breeders' Cup Classic (G1) and Canadian classic winner Awesome Again, Fighting Jet is out of the Private Thoughts mare Meditation.—Tom Law