NEWS
Baccari keeps ball rolling with Tapit filly
Posted: Tuesday, September 22, 2009 9:28 AM
by Jeff Lowe
Chris Baccari’s Baccari Bloodstock added to a banner year by selling a Tapit filly on Monday for $185,000, the highest price for a filly during the seventh session of the Keeneland September yearling sale.
Baccari previously set a personal best with the sale of a Rockport Harbor colt for $285,000 in Book Two, and he sold six-figure yearlings during the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky July yearling sale and Fasig-Tipton Saratoga selected yearling sale this summer.
The filly he sold on Monday had been purchased privately after she failed to meet her reserve on a $32,000 bid in the 2009 Keeneland January horses of all ages sale.
Baccari has been buying for his Texas-based stable and as a bloodstock agent. One of his clients is Ben Leon, who bought an Unbridled’s Song colt for $875,000 and a Storm Cat filly for $460,000 in Book One.
Baccari advised Leon in the recent private purchase of the stakes-winning filly With Flying Colors from the Phipps Stable. With Leon, Baccari is dealing with elite pedigrees, along with conformation. He built his reputation working with half that equation.
“My racing stable has taught me what I need to find to have a horse that has a shot on the racetrack,” said Baccari, who moved from Texas to Kentucky about four years ago and keeps about 30 broodmares at his farm in Lexington. “I don’t buy horses because they’re by certain sires. They have to be the right individual.”
Baccari bought Great Hunter on behalf of Eric and Ilona Whetstone for $30,000 at the 2005 Keeneland September yearling. Based initially with Baccari’s primary trainer, Joseph Petalino, Great Hunter was sold privately to J. Paul Reddam after winning his second career start in June 2006 at Lone Star Park. He went on to score in the Lane’s End Breeders’ Futurity (G1) that fall.
On September 12, Baccari Racing Stable’s Lone Star Cowboy won the Hillsdale Stakes at Hoosier Park by five lengths. The Western Outlaw colt was a $27,000 purchase in the 2008 Fasig-Tipton October yearling sale.
Baccari bought Kick On for $12,000 out of the same sale in 2007 and watched him win the $125,000 Remingon MEC Mile Stakes and $150,000 Jean Laffitte Stakes last year.
“I try not to get caught up in the pedigree and pay more attention to the horse,” said Baccari, whose background is in the Quarter Horse show world. “I did buy a Storm Cat up at Saratoga, but it was the right horse.
“I’ve been doing it on a certain budget, but [Leon] has the wherewithal to buy at a different level. His stipulation is that the horse has to have a huge pedigree. Anything I can do for him has to have a tremendous upside. I can do it. I like it.”
Jeff Lowe is a Thoroughbred Times staff writer
