As a farm that has raised or sold 36 Grade 1 winners since the turn of the century, anyone surveying the grounds at Keeneland for the November Sale would be wise to stop by Mill Ridge.
It is a record that the farm’s General Manager Price Bell is particularly proud of, and with a 53-strong draft featuring representation from America’s most prominent bloodlines, the 37th Grade 1-winning graduate could well be lurking among the broodmares, weanlings and racing and breeding prospects that Mill Ridge will send through the Keeneland ring at next month’s auction.
Price Headley Bell and Price Headley Bell Jr. | Image courtesy of Mill Ridge
Undoubtedly, the highlight of Mill Ridge’s November Sale offerings is the Grade 2-winning mare Gift List (GB) (Bated Breath {GB}), who began her career in the UK before she was purchased privately by Amerman Racing and transferred to the care of US trainer Brian Lynch.
Having won or placed in all five of her starts as a juvenile, including a second at stakes level, Gift List tasted Grade 2 success on just her second start in the US, where she easily accounted for a quality field which included the previous year’s G1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf heroine Aunt Pearl (Ire) (Lope De Vega {Ire}), who subsequently sold for US$3 million (AU$4.7 million) at last year’s Fasig-Tipton November Sale.
A daughter of high-class sprinter Bated Breath (GB), who hails from the family of Redoute’s Choice, Gift List is out of the undefeated French Group 3 winner Birthstone (GB) (Machiavellian {USA}) and is a direct descendant of Trillion (USA) (Hail To Reason {USA}) - a Champion in both America and France and the dam of nine-time Group 1 winner Triptych (USA) (Riverman {USA}). Fellow Champions Treve (Fr) (Motivator {GB}) and Generous (Ire) also feature on the page, as does G1 Caulfield Cup and G1 Metropolitan H. winner Tawqeet (USA) and Saturday’s emphatic G2 Moonee Valley Gold Cup winner Francesco Guardi (Ire) (Frankel {GB}).
Gift List (GB) | Image courtesy of Mill Ridge
With an impressive race record to complement her high-class international pedigree, it’s no wonder that Bell holds Gift List in such high regard.
“The Amermans have imported horses out of Europe for a number of years, and they’ve had some great success,” he said. “They’re very shrewd in doing it and they do a great job.
“They imported this filly, she’s by Bated Breath and when you peel it back another layer it’s a really nice piece of paper. Nureyev is the sire of her second dam and then you pop down underneath there and you have Furioso, who was a Champion Sire in Japan. It’s a deep pedigree.
“She was very good at two, she had a quickness and a turn of foot that was pretty breathtaking. They brought her over at the beginning of her 3-year-old year and she ran at Keeneland in a Grade 2 in the spring and then she took on Aunt Pearl, who was the previous year’s champion - she was like the second coming of Lady Eli - and Gift List just trounced her on (Kentucky) Oaks Day. It was a brilliant performance.
“She doesn’t have a Group 1 on her resume - the way our racing season works is that the first Group 1 for 3-year-old colts or fillies doesn’t happen until the beginning of the summer - but that race on Derby Day is a Group 1 calibre race. She’s a lovely filly.”
“She (Gift List) doesn’t have a Group 1 on her resume... but that race on Derby Day is a Group 1 calibre race.” - Price Headley Bell Jr.
Gift List is not the only mare in Mill Ridge’s draft who can lay claim to being Group 1 calibre, with Irish Constitution (USA), a daughter of Tapit’s (USA) best sire-son Constitution (USA), boasting a fourth placing in the G1 Spinaway S. on just her second career start as a 2-year-old.
A stakes placegetter at both two and three, Irish Constitution is a half-sister to fellow stakes placegetter Wild N Ready (USA) (More Than Ready {USA}) out of the fast and durable mare D’Wild Ride (Can) (D’Wildcat {USA}), who won four stakes races and placed in a further nine during a stellar race career.
“She’s from a fast family and her mother was a very good 2-year-old,” Bell said. “There have been plenty of others in the family who have won at two as well.
“She won first time out at Saratoga and then ran fourth on her next start in the Spinaway (Stakes), which is a Group 1 at Saratoga. That doesn’t catalogue for us, but it does for Australia, which should help her appeal.
Irish Constitution (USA) | Image courtesy of Mill Ridge
“It’s a pretty clever play on horses like this - the American market might not value her as well because we can’t take advantage of that Group 1 placing at two.
“There have been some very clever Australians make a lot of money from doing that type of form research and I think being in foal to Candy Ride has to help her appeal.”
‘Like nothing we have ever seen before’
It is easy to see why Bell holds that belief, for the apogee of Candy Ride’s (Arg) 17 elite-level winners is the six-time Grade 1 Champion Gun Runner (USA), who has made an almost unprecedented start to his own stud career, siring an astonishing six Grade 1 winners from only two crops of racing age.
Gun Runner sits fourth on the overall US Sires’ standings behind only the significantly more established trio of Uncle Mo (USA), Curlin (USA) and runaway leader Into Mischief (USA). That is a remarkable feat for a second-season sire, and like most people, Bell has been taken aback by the explosive start the G1 Breeders’ Cup Classic hero has made to life at stud.
Gun Runner (USA) | Standing at Three Chimneys Farm
“It has been like nothing we have ever seen before,” he said. “To put it into perspective, with his oldest crop 3-year-olds, he’s had six Grade 1 winners, and I think Into Mischief only has like 13, or something like that. That’s bonkers.
“It’s fillies and colts as well. He hasn’t had many turf horses to my knowledge, but that doesn’t mean that he won’t.
“He’s beautifully bred, he was a very good 2-year-old, 3-year-old and 4-year-old. It’s nice to see that a proper racehorse is having this impact at stud.
“I love Maclean’s Music, but he ran one race. If you’re trying to breed or find the next stallions to influence the crop and you’re only breeding to horses that win one race, it’s going to be really difficult, so it’s nice that a good racehorse with some longevity is having the success that he’s having.”
Bell is hoping that a similar scenario will play out for Mill Ridge’s resident stallion Oscar Performance (USA), who, like Gun Runner, proved his ability to train on by winning Group 1 races at three and four. Unlike Gun Runner, however, Oscar Performance also recorded an all-important elite-level win as a 2-year-old in the G1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf.
Oscar Performance (USA) | Standing at Mill Ridge Farm
The son of Kitten’s Joy (USA) has made a promising start to life at stud and sits comfortably inside the top 10 freshman sires in the US, with Grade 2 winner Andthewinneris (USA) the early flag-bearer among his four first-crop stakes horses to date.
Bell believes there is plenty of evidence to suggest that Oscar Performance’s first-crop stats are even better than they appear on paper, and with up to four potential representatives across both divisions of the G1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf on Saturday week, the Mill Ridge team have plenty of cause for optimism when it comes to his burgeoning stallion career.
“I don't want to get too over my skis, but I wouldn't have conceivably thought that he could be a top 10 freshman sire at this stage of the year,” Bell revealed. “If you'd have told me when he went to stud that he would be a top 10 freshman sire by fall at Keeneland, I would have called you a liar.
“If you'd have told me when he (Oscar Performance) went to stud that he would be a top 10 freshman sire by fall at Keeneland, I would have called you a liar.” - Price Headley Bell Jr.
“To be honest, that's simply because they don't write many turf races in America. For example, he had a horse break his maiden in April, but that horse then couldn't run in a turf conditions stake until August. Most of the 2-year-old crop is written on the dirt.
“Also, Churchill Downs and Arlington Park had to close their turf courses, so you take those courses out of the summer and spring, and Oscar Performance is still a top 10 freshman sire - that's just unbelievable.
"At the moment he has four 2-year-olds targeting the Breeders' Cup - three in the colts race and one in the fillies' race, so we're full of hope. They aren't cheap speed, you can see they’re horses that are enjoying themselves, they're getting into the race on the bridle and they're wanting to run on. It kind of gives you that flutter in your heart that makes you think we've got a shot.
“This is the first year since we announced his (Oscar Performance's) retirement that the phone is ringing instead of us picking it up and ringing.” - Price Headley Bell Jr.
A total of six weanlings by Mill Ridge’s prized stallion are set to be offered across the 10 days of the November Sale, as well as another sextet of broodmares in foal to the four-time Grade 1 winner. Mill Ridge is set to offer one of those mares, the stakes winner Valued Strike (USA) (Smart Strike {Can}) who has already produced a multiple winner with her first foal.
It is a pair of racing or broodmare prospects, however, whom Bell expects to garner the most attention from Down Under. The two fillies in question are Sterling Crest (Ire) - a stakes-placed daughter of red-hot stallion No Nay Never (USA), who sired his first Australian Group 1 winner last weekend courtesy of G1 Thousand Guineas heroine Madame Pommery - and Bicameral (USA) (Constitution {USA}), who was Grade 1-placed as a 2-year-old on just her second career start.
While stopping short of declaring the latter as the next Con Te Partiro (USA) (Scat Daddy {USA}), who so memorably won a pair of Australian Group 1s for Newgate Farm and SF Bloodstock following her import from America, Bell does believe that Bicameral’s pedigree and precocity offers plenty of optimism that she could be a useful addition to the Southern Hemisphere ranks.
Watch: Bicameral (USA) winning Race 4 on Friday, April 15, 2022, at Santa Anita Park
“Bicameral is interesting, she was third in a Group 1 at two in California and she’s a racing and broodmare prospect,” he said. “She’s a Constitution filly so she’s Tapit, and her mother Humble Song is by Songandaprayer which is Unbridled’s Song, and I feel like that line has done well on the broodmare side in Australia.
“She’s a pretty mare. I’m not saying she’s going to be the next Con Te Partiro, but she might be.
“She’s (Bicameral) a pretty mare. I’m not saying she’s going to be the next Con Te Partiro, but she might be." - Price Bell
“I thought that move on Con Te Partiro was an interesting play, a clever as a hell play, to take a filly who is maybe a little out of form in America and put some Australian sunshine on her back. They sure improved her value!”
Renewed Optimism
Off the back of a record-breaking Keeneland September Yearling sale - the highest grossing sale in the auction house’s rich history at US$405,495,700 (AU$635,773,000) - all recent evidence suggests that those making the trip to Keeneland for this year’s November Sale should brace themselves for some fierce competition.
Despite sales records being re-written almost monthly around the world this year, Bell is confident that there is still value to be found in Lexington over the course of the next few weeks, particularly for those who are willing to put in the hard yards.
Price Headley Bell Jr. | Image courtesy of Mill Ridge
“What has felt good about the industry here is that it has been a very broad base of buyers at a lot of different price points, and generally a lot of people who want to race horses,” he said. “There are times when the market is fuelled by people just looking to turn, and it has felt like we have been getting more people looking to race because prizemoney is where it is.
“September was a great sale and I loved the diversity of the buying bench. The beauty of that sale and the beauty of the November Sale is that there are nearly 4000 horses on offer. With that volume, there is opportunity across the board. It makes it a game of endurance, and if you put the work in then you've got a shot.
"There are nearly 4000 horses on offer. With that volume, there is opportunity across the board... if you put the work in then you've got a shot." - Price Bell
“It's great fun and it's unlike anything else in the world. The sales companies have worked very hard to put on a good show and the mood feels very hopeful.”
It wasn’t long ago that the mood around Lexington was very different to the air of optimism that now fills the lungs of the residents of horse country.
A sequence of high-profile welfare issues prompted intense scrutiny from the general public, but owing to a number of key industry changes, Bell feels that the US racing and breeding industries are in a much better place than they were 12 months ago.
“America has a lot of wealth and I think we are putting a better product out there at the high end that people want to participate in with wealth,” he said. “It feels like people are enjoying themselves, enjoying racing and enjoying the idea of owning horses.
“We have taken care of some foundation issues, like horses breaking down at the track - talk about the best way to get rid of people quickly! Our safety and aftercare has improved dramatically - you can look people in the eye and say ‘your horse will be safe on the racetrack and will have a good home throughout its entire life’.
Scenes at Keeneland September Yearling Sale | Image courtesy of Keeneland
“I also feel like all our media is focused more on the stories of the horses and trying to connect people to horses, and Lexington itself as a community has really risen to the occasion. Our restaurants have been improving and continue to improve, our cultural events and all these different things continue to drive forward.
“You can now come to Lexington and have a great experience. That's really important because it shouldn't be all work - for agents it is, but for others who are writing the cheques, they need to have a good time.
“Those are fundamental things that we just had to do, and now that we have done that and got prizemoney in line, it feels good.”
