Bargain Prices Bring Big Classic Results

Ten years ago, bloodstock agent Dennis O'Neill spied a 2-year-old colt at the Ocala Breeders' Sales Spring Sale of 2-Year-Olds in Training that he thought could be useful for his brother, trainer Doug O'Neill. Dennis got him for $35,000. "Generally, when I'm buying horses in that price range, I'm trying to find (horses for $30,000 maiden claiming races) or maiden 40s for Doug to win training titles," Dennis said. "We kind of joke about that." Dennis buys horses at auction each year in all price ranges, often for Paul and Zillah Reddam. He tailors his expectations for each horse based on research, price, and that indefinable gut instinct. His list of successes is long. Four years after he found the $35,000 colt for the Reddams, Dennis had a completely different agenda at The Gulfstream Sale, Fasig-Tipton's select sale of 2-year-olds in South Florida. For $400,000 he acquired a colt he thought might be a Triple Crown prospect. "My sales pitch to Paul was that this was a two-turn Derby horse," Dennis said. "That's how I saw him." As it turned out, both horses were Triple Crown material. The $400,000 colt, named Nyquist, was a champion at 2, won the 2016 Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (G1), and is turning into a successful sire. But the $35,000 colt went far beyond winning training titles via claiming races. Doug O'Neill never let I'll Have Another anywhere near a claiming race. Graded stakes-placed at 2, I'll Have Another swept all four of his races at 3, including the 2012 Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes (G1). Everyone in racing longs for a victory in a Triple Crown race. But that doesn't mean the people with the deepest pockets always win. Bargains have abounded in the Derby and Preakness, and—to a lesser extent—the Belmont Stakes (G1). They've come from everywhere, including the smallest of backyard breeders. Jack Price got 1961 Derby and Preakness winner Carry Back by breeding a mare who cost him $150 plus an overdue board bill to Saggy, who stood for a mere $400. Northern Dancer won two-thirds of the 1964 Triple Crown and became a phenomenal international sire and influence on the entire breed. His breeder, E.P. Taylor, had offered Northern Dancer for auction as a yearling at $25,000. No one wanted him. California Chrome, the Derby and Preakness winner of 2014, is out of a mare who ended her career running for a claiming price of $8,000. And Gail Rice, who bred Medina Spirit, this year's Derby first-place finisher, had to sell the colt for a mere $1,000 as a yearling. Public auctions demonstrate the biggest difference between the Nyquists and the I'll Have Anothers. The sales ring acts as an equalizer—anyone can buy any horse if he or she has the money. Yet the million-dollar horses don't often end up wearing roses on the first Saturday in May. Only one horse that sold for seven figures at public auction has won the Derby. Fusaichi Pegasus brought $4 million at the 1998 Keeneland July Sale of Selected Yearlings and won at Churchill Downs two years later. Arthur B. Hancock III has experience with just about every kind of Derby winner. His Stone Farm consigned Fusaichi Pegasus to the sale as agent, and he bred the colt in partnership with Stonerside. He and Leone J. Peters bred and raced 1982 Derby winner Gato Del Sol. But Hancock played perhaps the biggest role in one of the all-time Derby bargains, 1989 Derby and Preakness winner Sunday Silence. Unlike Fusaichi Pegasus, who looked so spectacular as a foal that Hancock nicknamed him "Superman," Sunday Silence "was cow-hocked and weedy," Hancock recalled. Sunday Silence didn't grow into a pretty yearling and could only get into the non-select session of the 1987 Keeneland July yearling sale. He didn't display well to prospective buyers either. "He had a mind of his own, and he didn't want to walk and show himself," Hancock said. When Hancock tried to sell him for breeder Oak Cliff Thoroughbreds and Tom Tatham, he had to buy the colt back for $17,000. Tatham said Oak Cliff didn't want Sunday Silence, and Hancock thought, "Well, I just blew another $17,000." That $17,000 turned into an incredible investment, even though Hancock failed to sell Sunday Silence a second time. The colt was a $32,000 buy-back at the 1988 California Thoroughbred Breeders Association March 2-Year-Old Sale at Hollywood Park. Before the California sale, Hancock had sold a half interest in Sunday Silence to his friend and attorney Paul Sullivan. Sullivan wanted out after the sale. "If I get out, he'll probably win the Kentucky Derby," Sullivan told Hancock. The California trip yielded one major coup. Hancock convinced Hall of Fame trainer Charlie Whittingham to buy a half interest in Sunday Silence and a filly. The filly never won, but Whittingham trained Sunday Silence to the 1989 Horse of the Year title on behalf of himself, Hancock, and Dr. Ernest Gaillard, the last-named brought into the partnership by Whittingham. "Charlie deserves so much credit," said Hancock, who remembers the patience Whittingham took with a sometimes recalcitrant Sunday Silence. "Charlie almost gelded him. Sunday Silence loved gray ponies, and he'd see a gray pony and he'd go for it." Instead of gelding him, Whittingham sent Sunday Silence out to gallop before dawn, and the colt became the dominant player in the great rivalry with Easy Goer. He beat Easy Goer in both the Derby and the Preakness, and though Easy Goer got a measure of revenge in the Belmont, Sunday Silence bettered him again in an epic Breeders' Cup Classic (G1). When U.S. breeders preferred Easy Goer as a stallion to Sunday Silence, Hancock reluctantly sold Sunday Silence to Japan. There, Sunday Silence became a phenomenal sire, despite only living to age 16. Fusaichi Pegasus also became a good sire, but Sunday Silence proved a much better return on investment. Trainer Kenny McPeek often stays well below the six-figure level in buying young horses, yet that hasn't kept him out of the winner's circle at Triple Crown time. He paid just $35,000 for Swiss Skydiver at the 2018 Keeneland September Yearling Sale, and she became the sixth filly to win the Preakness. "I don't necessarily get wrapped up in the high-priced pedigrees," McPeek said. "She was by a young stallion out of a young mare, and she just looked the part to me. If you were to put a filly together the way you'd want one to look, she looks it—a great hip on her, moved through herself well, great balance and shoulder." Swiss Skydiver won the Eclipse Award as champion 3-year-old filly of 2020. This year she has captured the Beholder Mile Stakes (G1) and run third in the Apple Blossom Handicap (G1). McPeek trained 2002 Belmont winner Sarava, a six-figure sale horse, and he selected Curlin out of the 2005 Keeneland September sale for $57,000. Curlin won the 2007 Preakness and placed in the Derby and Belmont when trained by Steve Asmussen. Tejano Run, a $20,000 Keeneland September yearling, ran second to Thunder Gulch in the 1995 Derby under McPeek's tutelage. McPeek also trained Senior Investment, a $95,000 yearling who finished third in the 2017 Preakness, and $42,000 yearling Atigun, third in the 2012 Belmont. Fillies rarely win Triple Crown races, and, thus, people combing sales looking for Derby prospects tend to concentrate on colts. The two modern-day fillies that won the Derby came from either end of the price scale. Trainer D. Wayne Lukas paid $575,000 for Winning Colors at the 1986 Keeneland July select yearling sale. Even that proved a bargain, as she became the third filly to win the Kentucky Derby. She earned an Eclipse Award and $1,526,837 on the track then sold for $4.1 million and then again later for $2 million. Genuine Risk, on the other hand, cost $32,000 at the 1978 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky July yearling sale. Matthew Firestone, then 14 years old, selected Genuine Risk out of the sale catalog and alerted his father, Bert; trainer, LeRoy Jolley; and Marvin Greene, manager of the Firestone family's Catoctin Stud. That $32,000 investment led to the winner's circle after the 1980 Kentucky Derby. Genuine Risk also finished second in the Preakness and Belmont. She is the only filly to win or place in all three Triple Crown events. Anyone with $22,000 at the 2001 Fasig-Tipton New York preferred yearling sale at Saratoga could have landed Funny Cide, who won two-thirds of the 2003 Triple Crown. Instead, pinhooker Tony Everard bought the ridgling, gelded him, and sold him privately to trainer Barclay Tagg for the Sackatoga Stable. Everard and Sackatoga stepped up their Saratoga budget in 2018 when Jack Knowlton of Sackatoga bought Tiz the Law for $110,000. In a Triple Crown that saw its scheduling go haywire due to the pandemic, Tiz the Law won the Belmont and Runhappy Travers Stakes (G1) before finishing second in the Derby. Not only did Canonero II and Mine That Bird not bring six figures at auction, they didn't even crack five. Canonero II in 1969 sold for a mere $1,200 as a yearling to Venezuelan interests, which led to the only time a Derby/Preakness winner prepped for the Triple Crown in Venezuela. Mine That Bird cost $9,500 as a yearling in 2007 and prepped for his Derby victory in Canada and New Mexico. Spectacular Bid might have gotten his name from his pedigree, being by Bold Bidder out of Spectacular, but the $37,000 that Harry Meyerhoff bid on him in 1977 lived up to the moniker. Spectacular Bid won the first two legs of the 1979 Triple Crown and as a 4-year-old never lost in nine starts, all graded races. He completely scared off the competition in the 1980 Woodward Stakes (G1), which became, literally, a walkover. While most Triple Crown classic winners considered bargains won the Derby and/or Preakness, a few Belmont heroes also came from modest roots. That race tends to attract more homebreds than the first two legs, so not that many winners even went through an auction ring. Bet Twice (1987) and Sir Winston (2019) only cost $50,000 each while Victory Gallop cost half that at the 1996 Keeneland September yearling sale. Victory Gallop's nose triumph in the Belmont thwarted the Triple Crown hopes of Real Quiet, a $17,000 buy at that same Keeneland sale. But the most famous bargain in Triple Crown history won it all. Seattle Slew toed out in his right front leg, a conformation defect likely responsible for Jolley's looking at him briefly prior to the 1975 Fasig-Tipton summer yearling sale before saying, "Put him back." Instead, Mickey and Karen Taylor from Washington State bought Seattle Slew together with Dr. Jim and Sally Hill from New York for $17,500. It might be the best $17,500 ever spent on a racehorse. Seattle Slew in 1977 became the first horse to go undefeated through the Triple Crown, a feat equaled 41 years later by Justify, a $500,000 yearling. Justify won six times through his Triple Crown, all as a 3-year-old. Seattle Slew won three times at 2, earning an Eclipse Award as champion 2-year-old male; and then six times at 3 through the 1977 Belmont. With just three losses in a 17-race career, Seattle Slew earned $1,208,726. But he repaid that $17,500 even more at stud. Seattle Slew was syndicated for $300,000 a share based on 40 shares, with the Taylors and the Hills keeping half of him. Seattle Slew went on to become a tremendous stallion, his sire line made strong through the likes of his son A.P. Indy, the paternal grandsire of Tapit. Seattle Slew even appears through A.P. Indy in the bottom line of Justify. Most Triple Crown winners have been homebreds—and homebreds won two thirds this year—but Seattle Slew exemplifies the notion that it doesn't necessarily take boatloads of money to win a Triple Crown race or sweep the series. Karen Taylor put it best when she addressed the Thoroughbred Club of America in Lexington after Seattle Slew had completed his Triple Crown. "I think the most exciting thing about the whole experience," she said, "is that we have proven anybody in America can go out and for $10,000 or $20,000—or even $30,000—pick out a horse that may do what Seattle Slew has done."