Friday, April 28, 2023
Highgate heads to its third sale of the year on Sunday with a strong draft of 14 racehorses offered at the Keeneland April Selected Horses of Racing Age Sale.
That group kicks off with the first hip of the night when an unraced daughter of Quality Road goes through the ring as Hip 1. A half-sister to stakes winner Gotham Gala and graded stakes placed Eastwood, All Night is working regularly and ready for her first start.
Quality Road is a successful sire of 3-year-olds fillies with 10 of his daughters winning stakes races in their 3-year-old season and 29 placing at the level, led by three Grade 1 winners. That group includes 3-year-old champion Abel Tasman – who is out of a Deputy Minister mare just like All Night. Abel Tasman continued her success at four with two more Grade 1 victories.
Hip 50 – a colt by American Pharoah – was a Keeneland Maiden Special Weight winner on April 20. Making his third start, Ocean City was a $600,000 Keeneland November weanling purchase by M.V. Magnier in 2020 as a half-brother to champion Jackie’s Warrior and six-time winner King Theo.
Race 3 at Keeneland goes to #3 OCEAN CITY ($19.68), a son of @coolmoreamerica‘s American Pharoah. Another winner for @JRosarioJockey, Steve Asmussen trains. pic.twitter.com/xfEreFhQkK
— TVG (@TVG) April 20, 2023
Triple Crown winner American Pharoah is a top stallion who leads all fifth crop sires in three different stakes categories. When bred to A.P. Indy granddaughters like this colt’s dam, American Pharoah has sired multiple Grade 2 winner and Grade 1 placed Merneith and five other stakes performers from 43 runners.
Hot Little Thing was supplemented to the sale after winning an Allowance by 6 ½ lengths on April 18 to earn a 78 Beyer.
Selling as Hip 98, the Indiana-bred Hot Little Thing is the winner of three of six starts with two other top three finishes. Included among those wins is a 14 ½ length romp in last Fall’s Back Home Again Stakes after a seven length Maiden Special Weight victory in her previous starts. Those three victories come from five to six furlongs on the dirt.
Selling this Sun at Keeneland: HOT LITTLE THING, supplemented as hip 98! An impressive 6 1/2 length winner in open company at @HorseshoeIndy 4/18, earning career best 78 Beyer
Hear what @BrissetRodolphe had to say on @TVG about the SW filly consigned by @Highgate_Sales. pic.twitter.com/dMDfl7X0VB
— Keeneland Sales (@keenelandsales) April 26, 2023
As a broodmare prospect, Hot Little Thing’s family shows she’ll have plenty of potential in the breeding shed. Each of her first nine dams have produced stakes performers with seven of those producing stakes winners. She is by a grandson of A.P. Indy with his grandsons being the broodmare sires of 67 graded stakes winners, 172 stakes winners, and 374 stakes performers.
Also among the seven overall winners Highgate offers on Sunday night is the Grade 1 placed Commandperformance as Hip 83.
A son of Union Rags, Commandperformance came out running as a juvenile to register a solid second place finish in the Champagne Stakes (G1) behind Jack Christopher with the rest of the field seven lengths behind the gray. Commandperformance came back in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile (G1) to finish fourth. Last year as a 3-year-old, Commandperformance won two consecutive starts going 1 1/16 miles on the dirt. Ready to go straight to the track from the sale, Commandperformance made his 2023 debut at Aqueduct on April 6.
The Keeneland April Selected Horses of Racing Age Sale starts at 4:00p.m. ET on Sunday, April 30 in the Keeneland Sales pavilion with Highgate’s first offering coming as Hip 1 and final as Hip 112. Highgate will start showing out of Barn 15 on Saturday.
