by Pete Denk

Trainer Steve Klesaris, agent for Puglisi Racing, went to $575,000 for a Lion Heart colt to top the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic sale of two-year-olds in training at the Maryland State Fairgrounds in Timonium.

The two-day sale ended Tuesday with 328 horses reported as sold for total receipts of $15,763,400, a 19.2% decline from last year when 350 horses sold for $19,498,700. Average price dropped 13.7% to $48,059, and median declined 20.3% to $27,500.

This year’s buy-back rate was 33.9%, compared with 28% a year ago.

“It was a little bit softer than last year, probably reflective of the world we’re living in and the economy we have,” said Boyd T. Browning Jr., chief operating officer for Fasig-Tipton.

The sale-topping colt is out of Bye the Bye, by Balzac, and is a half brother to multiple Grade 1 winner and sire Shossberg. He was bred in Kentucky by Gaines-Gentry Thoroughbreds.

A $190,000 purchase at the 2007 Keeneland September yearling sale, the Lion Heart colt worked two furlongs in :21, believed to be the fastest two-furlong drill in Timonium history.

“He displayed brilliance on the racetrack,” Klesaris said. “To me, it superseded everything else we saw at this sale.

“We knew there was going to be a little fight to get him. But if we took one home from this sale, we wanted it to be him. So we just got tied on and ready for the battle.”

Crupi’s Newcastle Farm, agent, consigned the colt on behalf of an undisclosed pinhooking partnership.

The sale’s top-priced filly also sold on Tuesday when chef Bobby Flay’s B Flay Thoroughbreds paid $250,000 for a Successful Appeal filly out of the Deputy Minister mare Foxy Coxy.

Scanlon Training Center, agent, consigned the filly, who worked one furlong in :10.20. Flay said Todd Pletcher will train the Successful Appeal filly.

“Mike Ryan, who I really trust, recommended this filly to me,” Flay said. “I’m also a Successful Appeal shareholder, so I’ll be rooting in a lot of directions.”

Puglisi Racing was the leading buyer with nine horses purchased for $1,374,000.

For and hip-by-hip results, click here.

Pete Denk is sales editor for Thoroughbred Times