Three days after Stardom Bound sold for $5.7 million at the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky November select mixed sale, her dam, My White Corvette, brought $825,000 during the third session of the Keeneland November breeding stock auction in Lexington.
Barry Weisbord, the president and co-publisher of the Thoroughbred Daily News signed the sale ticket Nov. 5 on behalf of celebrity chef Bobby Flay. According to Weisbord, he and other people they know may become partners with Flay in My White Corvette, who is out of an unraced daughter of Marfa.
Weisbord, who talked to Flay via cell phone during the bidding, had to fight off a challenge from Florida horsewoman Becky Thomas to secure the gray or roan mare.
“What can I say? We had no plans to buy her; we thought she would cost too much money,” Weisbord said. “I have to say I’m bit surprised. I didn’t call Bobby until the bid board was at $500,000, and I just said, ‘I don’t think the price is going to do what we talked about this morning. I don’t think she’s going to bring the kind of money we thought.’ ”
My White Corvette, who is not in foal, is a half-sister to stake winners Light My Fuse and Native Echo, the granddam of Preuvian champion Davidov.
“We’ve been pretty much watching the whole thing with Stardom Bound develop, but so has everybody else,” Weisbord said. “There wasn’t really much to think about. She (Stardom Bound) is a (probable) champion, and she (My White Corvette) is the dam of a champion. And she’s only 10 years old.”
While talking to reporters after buying My White Corvette, Weisbord got a text message from Flay asking, “Can we breed her to Tapit this afternoon?” Tapit is the sire of Stardom Bound, the recent winner of the Bessemer Trust Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies (gr. I).
"That (breeding My White Corvette to Tapit) would be the very logical thing to do,” Weisbord said. “We’ll decide about that in the next little bit.”
Weisbord planned to send My White Corvette to Craig and Holly Bandoroff’s Denali Stud near Paris, Ky.
Carolyn Gray, who bred Stardom Bound in partnership with her husband, Fletcher Gray, and John Youngblood, hugged Weisbord and gave him a bag of Kroger Starlight Mints, which are My White Corvette’s favorite treats.
“I think for this market it was probably very good,” said Carolyn Gray of My White Corvette’s price. “We’re pleased, obviously, any time we can make a profit because what we do is we buy mares and try to improve them and sell them. This is a good sale for us, but I think she could have brought anything in a different market. In a different market and a different year, she could have brought three times that much. We’re always very reasonable with our reserves, and we don’t get greedy. I wish them all the luck because she is a lovely mare, and they should do very well with her at that price.”
The Grays own Grayson Farm near Pleasant Hope, Mo. Youngblood owns an automobile dealership, according to Carolyn Gray.
“It’s very hard to give her up. We only have about six broodmares at a time, and she was always a standout,” Gray said. “We know Craig over at Denali. That’s where he (Weisbord) said she is going to go, and I’m very pleased with that because I know that she’ll get excellent care. I can go visit her this way; that’s great. If she had gone to Japan or something, it would have been a lot harder.”
Hunter Valley Farm consigned My White Corvette to the Keeneland November auction. Carolyn Gray purchased the mare, who was in foal to Monarchos at the time, for $90,000 from David and Ginger Mullins, agents, at the 2002 Keeneland November breeding stock sale.
Stardom Bound is a $50,000 graduate of the 2007 Keeneland September yearling auction, where Michael Yates purchased her from Legacy Bloodstock, agent. Earlier this year, Shadybrook Farm consigned her to the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Co. March select sale of 2-year-olds in training. Trainer Christopher Paasch bought the filly for $375,000, and she raced for Charles Cono before being sold Nov. 2 at Fasig-Tipton to Nick Sallusto, who was acting on the behalf of IEAH Stables.
A Lion Heart weanling half-sister to Stardom Bound also went through the sale ring at Keeneland Nov. 5. Consigned by Hunter Valley, she sold for $350,000 to Gus Bell, agent. However, according to Carolyn Gray, that transaction might actually have been a buy-back.
"I have to talk to my husband; stay tuned," she said.
It later was confirmed that the weanling's ownership didn't change.
