A Distorted Humor filly from the family of sterling broodmare Better Than Honour was purchased by Charlotte Weber's Live Oak Plantation for $1 million during the Aug. 5 session of the Fasig-Tipton selected yearling sale in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.
The filly, Hip No. 23, was the first to reach the seven-figure level during the early part of the session. She was consigned by Hill 'n' Dale Sales Agency and bred in Kentucky by Hill 'n' Dale Equine Holdings and Edward McGhee out of the stakes-winning A.P. Indy mare Cascading.
Better Than Honour, the stakes-winning third dam of the filly, produced four stakes winners, including champion Rags to Riches and fellow Belmont Stakes (gr. I) winner Jazil.
"She is very balanced and has plenty of sense to her," said Live Oak general manager Bruce Hill. “She is a very nice filly. She went for a little more than what we appraised her at, but we expected to pay a high price. If we find a good horse, we will go beyond our appraisal price.
"The fact she is a filly doesn’t bother us. There is a safety net for a filly."
"I thought she was a million-dollar filly and beyond that ... I don't think you get to see a filly like that very often. If you judge her physically, she's a really good specimen," said John Sikura of Hill 'n' Dale. "She really has everything and if I wasn't in this pedigree and I was bidding on this filly, I'd give that or more for her.
"It was a very fair price and I respect Live Oak that bought her. The reserve was $400,000. We wanted to offer her to the market and let the market appraise her. I'm in the horse business and the only way you're in the horse business is if you sell horses. I try to sell them; sometimes we're disappointed and sometimes we're happy and in this case I thought we were right where we're supposed to be."
Sikura noted that the breeders had owned the produce within the pedigree and had never offered any of the fillies at public auction.
"She's a unique filly in that we've retained all of the daughters, as much as we've been proud of the family, we've never presented it to auction," he said. "You're always sort of guessing when you have a great appreciation for something that's never been exposed to the marketplace, how they're going to be received and valued on pedigree. Obviously they valued her significantly and it's a real proud moment.
"We spent a long time developing this pedigree. We've owned Better Than Honour twice, we've had great success with her and I believe her daughter Teeming is going to be the next fantastic mare ... and for Cascading to have a filly of this quality as a first foal is really exciting.
"It's obviously a great thing for our families and helped keep us relevant in the business. It's all about the horses and we've taken care of them and they've rewarded us."
Ron Mitchell, Claire Novak, and Emily Walden contributed to this article.
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