The Ontario MARE PURCHASE PROGRAM has been a very successful initiative from Ontario Racing and the Thoroughbred Improvement Program and one of the biggest home runs came Monday night at the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga yearling sale.
Jay and Christine Hayden of Saintsbury Farm in Lucan, Ontario, have bred to sell and also raced for several years at the higher end of the Thoroughbred sales scale. In 2023 at the Keeneland November sale, they purchased an unraced War Front mare named War Classic, herself out of Grade 1 Ashland Stakes winner Weep No More, for $60,000 in foal to Nyquist.
That Ontario-bred foal, a colt, sold for $550,000 USD at Saratoga on August 4. Consigned by Cara Bloodstock of Bernard and Karen McCormack, the Nyquist colt was bought by Live Oak Plantation and will reportedly go to the stable of Mark Casse.
A bit later in the first session of the lavish Saratoga sale, David Anderson’s Anderson Farms sold another top yearling as his Uncle Mo – Full Tap by Tapit colt went for $1,000,000 to John Magnier and Peter Brant’s White Birch Farm.
FULL TAP, bought by Anderson for $375,000 in foal to Empire Maker in 2017, has been a gem for the St. Thomas breeder.
The Empire Maker filly, named Cafe Society, was stakes-placed twice and earned over $247,000 in her career. Full Tap’s 2019 foal, also by Empire Maker, sold for $50,000 to X-Men Racing and that runner, Dryden, is a three-time winner.
It was Full Tap’s 2021 offspring, a Nyquist filly, who put the mare on the map. That filly brought $625,000 at the 2022 Saratoga sale.
There are two more Ontario-breds in the Saratoga sale for the second session that begins Tuesday at 6:30 p.m.
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