Boyd Racing Lands Ways and Means for $5M at F-T

The excitement built up at Fasig-Tipton's The November Sale around the offering of Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Sprint (G1) winner Ways and Means. The bidding kicked off at $500,000 and rose to $2.5 million in only a few bids for the ELiTE-consigned mare. When the dust settled, Boyd Racing landed the multiple grade 1 winner for $5 million. Agent Brittany Linton signed the ticket. The 5-year-old daughter of Practical Joke is a six-time graded stakes winner, with her best performances in the 2024 Test Stakes (G1), this year's Ballerina Stakes (G1), and the Filly and Mare Sprint that boosted her career earnings to $2,157,500. "I think she's clearly the best horse in our opinion in the sale," Randy Boyd said. "I expected her to go for a lot more." Boyd said he and his wife, Jenny, were watching the sale for "entertainment purposes," and then at the last minute realized that the bidding had stopped much lower than he thought. "I said, let's weigh in for one bid before it keeps skyrocketing, and the bidding stopped," he said. "We just felt like we got really lucky. We weren't expecting to win. "We had other horses we were planning on bidding on, but if we had an opportunity to get the best horse in the sale for what we think is a great value, we couldn't pass it up." Boyd said he will talk over the mare's future with their trainer and decide whether they will keep her racing or retire her to join their broodmare band at Killora Stud near Paris, Ky. "She will definitely be a big part of the broodmare band; whether she's got some more races in her or not is really up to our trainer," Boyd said. Boyd said it is unlikely they will bid on any other horses over the next couple of days in Lexington. "We feel pretty good with what we got," he said. "We've said we don't really want to be the biggest. We just want to be the best and we want to have a small broodmare band that's the absolute best that we can possibly have. And I think that Ways and Means fits that strategy perfectly."