Laddies Poker, Gilded top Barretts summer sale
Laddies Poker and Gilded (Ire), both consigned by Havens Bloodstock Agency, agent, for the complete dispersal of Meadow Creek Farm, brought record prices at the Barretts Equine Ltd. summer sale of two-year-olds in training and horses of racing age on Tuesday at Hinds Pavilion Fairplex in Pomona, California.
The two record-setting purchases helped boost Barretts total receipts to a sale record $1,680,200, a 48.1% increase compared with $1,134,400 during last year’s one-day sale. Average price rose to a sale record $18,879, a 99.7% increase compared with last year while median declined 21.7% to $4,700 as 89 horses sold from 124 offered.
Laddies Poker, a three-year-old Stravinsky colt out of multiple stakes-placed winner Lady in Waiting, by Woodman, was purchased by Dennis O’Neill for $525,000. The winning bid was the highest price ever paid for a colt at the Barretts summer sale.
A winner of one of four career starts, Laddies Poker is a half brother to Grade 3 winner Kid Grindstone, and his grandam is 1984 champion older mare Princess Rooney.
After unplaced finishes in each of his first three starts in Europe, the gray or roan colt secured his first win in a maiden special weight race at Santa Anita Park on April 8 in his North American debut for trainer Vladimir Cerin.
Gilded, winner of the 2006 Queen Mary Stakes (Eng-G2), set a new benchmark for the highest price paid for a filly at the Barretts summer sale when Southern California-based trainer Paddy Gallagher purchased the three-year-old Redback filly for $420,000.
Out of the winning Aragon mare Tumbleweed Pearl, Gilded has five wins in eight career starts, all in England.
Trainer Dan Hendricks, agent for Frank Scardino, purchased the top-priced two-year-old at the Barretts summer sale when he went to $120,000 for a chestnut filly from the first crop of champion sprinter Aldebaran. Consigned by B.C.3 Thoroughbreds, agent, the filly breezed three furlong in :34.40 during Monday’s under-tack show. She is out of Group 2-placed stakes winner Almost Skint (Ire), by Last Tycoon (Ire).
Jaime H. Gomez went to $58,000 to purchase a Sky Mesa colt, the top-priced two-year-old colt at the Barretts summer sale. Consigned by Greg Vartanian Bloodstock, the Sky Mesa colt worked one-furlong in :10 at the breeze show. He is out of Grade 3-placed winner Better as a Memory, by Gone West.
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