Another Indian Charlie for Wounded Warrior

Chip McEwen’s Wounded Warrior Stables is GI Kentucky Derby bound with GIII Gotham S. runner-up Uncle Sigh (Indian Charlie) and the stable added a daughter of the late Airdrie Stud stallion early during Tuesday’s second session of the OBS April sale. Trainer Gary Contessa, sitting alongside McEwen in the sales pavilion, signed the ticket at $390,000 for hip 384. 
   “I just loved the way she moved,” Contessa said of the New York-bred who was consigned by James Layden. “What a coincidence that Uncle Sigh is an Indian Charlie New York-bred, believe me that had nothing to do with it. When she ran past me, I said, ‘I’ve got to have this filly.’ And it was an easy sell. Now if Sigh wins the Derby, we’ll be in good shape.” 
Contessa said the filly’s price tag was about the top of his budget. 
    “That was our top dollar,” he confirmed. “We really wanted to get her for $300,000, but you know how it happens when you get to a sale. She’s got a stellar pedigree, she could be any kind of broodmare. She’s got residual value, she’s a big good-looking filly. She had everything going for her.” 
    The juvenile, who worked in :10 flat during last week’s under tack preview, is out of My Success (A.P. Indy) and is a half-sister to ‘TDN Rising Star’ Taste Like Candy (Candy Ride {Arg}), runner-up in last year’s GI Hollywood Starlet S. and this term’s GII Santa Ynez S. Bred by Jonathan Davis’s Milfer Farm, she RNA’d for $90,000 at last year’s Fasig-Tipton Saratoga sale. Milfer Farm purchased My Success, with this foal in utero, for $85,000 out of the 2011 Keeneland November sale. 
    Contessa has four horses in training for Wounded Warrior Stables and the operation has another three or four on the West Coast. The trainer said McEwen is always looking to add quality to the roster. 
    “He’s always looking to add a superstar,” Contessa explained. “In the words of Chip McEwen, ‘I want to run in stakes races, not claiming races.’ We don’t go out and claim horses, but we buy horses we think might be stakes horses. Hopefully I am right.” 
    Contessa added that bidding had been competitive through two sessions of the OBS sale. 
    “I think the market is strong,” he said. “I think the high end for horses like this is strong. We just have to try to battle. We’ve paid a little more than we wanted to pay on every horse we’ve bought. But it’s a good healthy market.” 
As for Derby hopeful Uncle Sigh, Contessa said, “He’s doing real good. I’ll fly home tonight and work him Friday and hopefully send him Friday afternoon to Kentucky. That’s the game plan.”