The Dynaformer filly that topped the opening session of the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga selected yearling sale Aug. 5 is a product of the successful Thoroughbred operation of billionaire businessman Brad Kelley.
Consigned by John Stuart's Bluegrass Thoroughbreds, the filly was sold for $1,225,000 to Three Chimneys, agent, for Borges Torrealba.
The filly's dam, Indy Pick (by A.P. Indy), is the dam of multiple graded stakes winner Optimizer and descends from a strong female family that owes its success largely to the Phipps family's racing and breeding operations.
The filly was bred in Kentucky by Kelley's Bluegrass Hall. Kelley Farms Racing had purchased Indy Pick for $260,000 from the Lane's End consignment to the 2007 Keeneland November breeding stock sale.
Kelley, who previously operated under the Bluegrass Hall banner, put together a trust that now owns historic Calumet Farm.
Eddie Kane, who manages Calumet, said the successful mating of Indy Pick to now-deceased Dynaformer is a credit to Kelley's acumen as a student of matings.
"He (Kelley) was the one that put Dynaformer with that mare," Kane said. "He loved Dynaformer. He is the one who makes these decisions to sell or race. He loves the matings—figuring out which stallions to go to which mares.
"There is a reason he is breeding every mare to a certain stallion."
Kane said Kelley and farm personnel always had high expectations for the Fasig-Tipton session-topper and she lived up to the billing.
"She did exactly what we thought she would do. She ended how we thought she would. From Day One, she was nice," Kane said. "As a baby, she was straightforward. She was good size and obviously she was a nice-looking Dynaformer, and she never had any of that typical, plain Dynaformer look about her. She had class about her—good head, good eye."
Kane said the filly's half brother, Optimizer, epitomizes the stamina and gameness throughout the pedigree.
"Optimizer is a throwback to yesteryear—an old war horse who lays it on the line every time," Kane said.
Richard Hogan, consultant to Regis Farms, said underbidder Nat Rea's interest in the filly was what everyone saw in her.
"It's hard to get into those pedigrees," Hogan said. "(She's from) an old Phipps family and has a great pedigree. If she works out to be a good race filly, you've got the residual (value). She's a half sister to a really good horse and with that kind of pedigree she could be a blue hen."
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