By Esther Marr and Frank Angst
A yearling Street Sense half sister to two group/grade I winners fetched a standout price of $1,450,000 from Nat Rea of Regis Farm during the second session of the Keeneland January horses of all ages sale Jan. 8.
Produced from the stakes-winning Doc's Leader mare Please Sign In, the filly was consigned by Alfred Nuckols Jr.'s Hurstland Farm as Hip No. 517. She is the highest-priced horse to sell so far during the first two sessions of the sale.
According to Keeneland statistics, she is also the second-highest price ever for a newly-turned yearling at the January sale, behind Inkling (Seeking the Gold—Number), who brought $3.4 million from Demi O'Byrne in 1998.
The filly's group/grade I-winning half siblings are Certify (by Elusive Quality ) and Cry and Catch Me (by Street Cry (IRE)).
Certify won the 2012 Shadwell Fillies' Mile (Eng-I), Barrett Steel May Hill Stakes (Eng-II), and German-Thoroughbred.com Sweet Solera Stakes, while Cry and Catch Me won the 2007 Oak Leaf Stakes (gr. I).
An emotional Alfred Nuckols of Hurstland Farm at first struggled to get out the words to describe his excitement over the Street Sense filly's sale price.
"I thought coming up here she was a $300,000 to $350,000 filly. But when we had her up here, everybody was interested and we started to hear from a lot of people telling us what a lovely filly she was. The word was going around the sales grounds," Nuckols said. "I've had the whole family for four generations and she's probably the nicest filly to come along so far."
In between receiving congratulations from friends, Nuckols said of his own horses, it's the highest price one has ever secured. "And I didn't think I'd see this today," Nuckols said. "I thought if things went really well I might get $600,000 or $700,000 but I never thought she'd double it ... this is the best."
The Street Sense filly was bred in Kentucky on a foal share arrangement between Hurstland Farm, William Kartozian, and Darley.