A Harlan's Holiday colt became the top-priced horse sold at the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic Eastern fall yearling sale so far when he commanded $300,000 during the auction’s second session Oct. 6 in Maryland.
Francis Vanlangendonck of the Summerfield sales agency signed the sale ticket on behalf of Florida pinhooker Nick de Meric. Samantha Siegel of Jay Em Ess Stable and Alan Quartucci of North Shore Bloodstock also were in the hunt for the striking bay yearling, which went through the sale ring early in the afternoon.
Vanlangendonck has a consignment at the auction, and the Kentucky-bred Harlan’s Holiday colt was stabled nearby in the temporary tent complex that houses some of the sale yearlings.
“He just told me to bid on him,” said Vanlangendonck, who communicated with de Meric via cell phone during the bidding. “He’s a lovely colt. He was over next to me out there, and he obviously was a class act. I watched him for three days, and he really showed well. He looked like an athlete and handled everything mentally.”
Paramount Sales consigned the six-figure yearling for Gerry Dilger’s Dromoland Farm near Lexington. Dilger purchased the colt in the name of Filbert Farm for $150,000 at the 2008 Keeneland November breeding stock sale. Then a weanling, the colt was consigned to the mixed auction by his breeder, Brereton Jones of Airdrie Stud.
“He had been awfully popular, and Nick loved him; pretty much everybody was on him,” said Paramount’s Gabriel Duignan. “You just could not pick the horse apart. He’s so balanced, and he showed himself like a professional. There was nothing to fault the horse on his physical. He had perfect X-rays. He’s just a very special horse. It was a very fair price for him.”
Dromoland originally had consigned the colt to the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga select yearling auction in August, but he suffered a stone bruise in a front foot while in New York and was scratched from the sale.
“In a market like this, I’m delighted with the price,” Dilger said. “He showed well at first at Saratoga and then he started to get ‘ouchy.’ We tried to work him through it and couldn’t. When he got home, he popped a gravel and after that he was fine, so we went on from there. Things like that happen to horses. He was already prepped for a sale, so we didn’t have to do much with him this time around at all. I just let the market take the horse to where he dropped. There was a reserve, but there was a lot of room between it and the final price.”
The colt is the first foal out of the 5-year-old unraced Yankee Victor mare Keep It Going, who is a half-sister to Impending Bear (by Farma Way), who scored in the 2000 Appalachian Stakes at Keeneland. Keep It Going and Impending Bear's dam, Harlan Honey (by Silver Hawk), captured the Appalachian and Palisades Stakes in 1993 at Keeneland.
