By Ron Mitchell and Glenye Cain Oakford
Grade I winner Egg Drop, in foal to leading sire Tapit , brought a final bid of $1.9 million from John Malone's Bridlewood Farm during the Nov. 4 first session of the Keeneland November breeding stock sale. The transaction made the mare to top-priced offering at that point in the auction.
The 5-year-old daughter of Alphabet Soup was consigned as Hip 66 by Taylor Made Sales Agency.
"She was a tick below what we budgeted that we thought she'd bring," said Bridlewood general manager George Isaacs. "I actually thought for a moment I was going to get her at $1.5 million, so naturally that would have made me a lot happier. But she checked off all the boxes of what we're trying to buy."
Produced from the winning Adhocracy mare Rehocracy, Egg Drop won six of 13 starts and earned $534,020 for Little Red Feather Racing and trainer Mike Mitchell. Her graded wins came in the Matriarch Stakes (gr. IT), Goldikova Stakes (gr. IIT), and Yellow Ribbon Handicap (gr. II).
Bred in Florida by Centaur Farms, Egg Drop was purchased by Tom McCrocklin, agent, for $12,000 as a yearling when consigned by Janie Roper, agent, to the 2010 Ocala Breeders' Sales Co.'s August sale.
"We like to buy fillies so that ultimately we can have days like this," an emotional Billy Koch of Little Red Feather Racing said following the sale of the mare. "It's just an incredible feeling. We're so pleased.
"We have a couple of partners that this was one of their first horses, so, yes, it happens," he added. "Unfortunately, now their expectations of horse racing are a little different from the rest of us. But they call me the 'Manager of Expectations,' so I try to keep everybody level-headed, but days like this make it hard. Hopefully, everyone will come back and we'll have some more fun. But everybody has to know how hard it is to find horses like her."
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