by Steve Bailey

Laurie Lawrence, Ph. D., admits she was thrilled to see She Be Wild, a filly by Grade 1 winner Offlee Wild, capture the Grey Goose Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies (G1) in November at the Oak Tree at Santa Anita Park meet.

Lawrence teaches equine nutrition at the University of Kentucky, and the university’s animal and food sciences department will offer a yearling filly by 2009 leading freshman sire Offlee Wild at Monday’s Fasig-Tipton Kentucky winter mixed sale. The dark bay or brown filly is out of the unraced Distant View mare Distant Vision and is cataloged as Hip #75.

“It was really exciting to watch She Be Wild win the Breeders’ Cup,” Lawrence said. “You never know when you breed to a stallion exactly what you are going to get, but it looks like we were able to get the best possible result.”

The equine studies program owns the mare and received a donated stallion season to Offlee Wild from Darley. The filly is listed as owned by Maine Chance Farm, which at one time was owned by cosmetics magnate Elizabeth Arden and now is the university’s horse farm and equine nutritional research center in Lexington.

Lawrence said the filly has been shown to consignors quite a bit in the days leading up to the sale and that she has taken all of the attention in stride.

“She seems to enjoy it, actually,” Lawrence said. “She’s very feminine, plain brown, and very pretty.”

Lawrence said the proceeds from the sale of the filly will go back into the maintenance of the farm and its educational programs. Although she would not predict what the filly might bring once she goes through the ring, she said she was “cautiously optimistic.”

“You have high hopes, but with the way the economy is and everything, you try not to let yourself get carried away,” she said. “The fact that Offlee Wild turned out to be last year’s leading freshman sire can’t hurt, though.”

The one-day sale is scheduled to get under way at 10 a.m. EST. 

Steve Bailey is deputy news editor of Thoroughbred Times