Pope Doesn’t Back Down

Mandy Pope of Whisper Hill Farm stared down the determined duo of trainer D. Wayne Lukas and owner Willis Horton to acquire a colt by Unbridled’s Song for a sale-topping $1.6 million during Tuesday’s second session of the Keeneland September sale. Lukas and Horton were sitting in the pavilion as Pope did her bidding out back. The two men negotiated several times throughout the bidding before making their final salvo with a $1.55-million bid, but Pope answered back immediately to sign for the youngster, who is a half-brother to the GI Preakness S. winner Oxbow (Awesome Again). 

It was the second purchase of the day for Pope, who paid $700,000 for a daughter of Tapit earlier in the session. 

“Especially after buying a filly, I thought I would venture out and try something different,” Pope explained. “He is absolutely gorgeous. Everybody says these things, but he is tremendous. Unbridled’s Songs tend to go on and run and then become stallions. Obviously, that’s what we are hoping for. With Oxbow in there, we’re hoping he will make a stallion before we follow in his trail. Hopefully we’ll win the Derby on the way there. He is awesome.” 

Oxbow began his stud career in 2014 at Taylor Made. He will stand at Calumet Farm in 2015. 
Pope admitted she was near her limit with her final $1.6-million bid. 

“The price is awesome–it is definitely overwhelming for me to spend this much money on a colt,” she said. “For a filly, okay. But colts, it’s a very risky business. I knew he would bring at least a million, so I was hoping for between a million and a million and a half. But at that point, what was a little bit more?” 

Lukas, who trained last year’s Preakness winner Oxbow, was able to sign for a yearling a few hips after the sale topper, but he was still lamenting the loss of the prized yearling as the ink dried on that ticket.

 “We didn’t get the one we wanted,” Lukas commented. “Mr. Horton, he stepped up one more time [with the $1.55-million bid]. He loved the horse just as much as I loved the horse. I was so connected to the horse, what with Oxbow. We just felt he was a top colt and I really, really wanted him. But [Pope] came back strong. I thought maybe at $1.5 million, it would be the cutoff point for some people, but– bam!–it came right back.” 

The yearling, bred by Rich Santulli’s Colts Neck Stables and consigned by Burleson Farms, is out of the unraced Tizamazing (Cee’s Tizzy), a full-sister to Tiznow, Budroyale, Tizdubai and Tizbud. The mare was purchased by Reynolds Bell as agent for Santulli for $1-million Keeneland September yearling in 2003. 

In addition to Oxbow, she has produced stakes winner and graded stakes placed Awesome Patriot (Awesome Again). She has an unraced 2-year-old filly by Speightstown and she produced an Awesome Again colt this spring. 

  “I’ve been fortunate enough to have some pretty good stock, but he was a special horse,” commented consignor Lyn Burleson, who boards six mares for Santulli, and famously consigned the $11.7-million Meydan City (Kingmambo) on behalf of Santulli and George Prussin here in 2006. “It takes a special horse to get to where he got. He was always a big, growthy colt. Unbridled’s Song is a great sire and he gets a really great-looking horse. We’ve loved him ever since he was born.”

“I didn’t have a great feeling starting out just because people were slow to come and this colt really didn’t pick up until yesterday afternoon,” Burleson said. “And we’ve been showing for four days, but it all worked out.” -J Martini