Tap Your Heels Dies During Foaling

Tap Your Heels (Unbridled–Ruby Slippers, by Nijinsky II), dam of leading sire Tapit, died Thursday morning from complications during foaling at Dromoland Farm in Lexington, Kentucky, where she has resided for the past 15 years. The 20-year-old mare's Super Saver colt survived, according to a Facebook post by owner Barouche Stud (click here for TDN feature).

“We are sad to announce that Tap Your Heels, dam of two-time champion sire Tapit, died from complications during foaling early [Thursday] morning,” the farm's Facebook page stated. “We would like to thank Gerry Dilger and all his staff at Dromoland Farm, who have looked after her like royalty over the past 15 years. She will be sadly missed by her owner Mrs. Barbara Facchino and all at Barouche Stud and Dromoland Farms. She leaves us with a colt foal by Super Saver.”

Bred by Heronwood Farm, Tap Your Heels–a half-sister to champion sprinter Rubiano (Fappiano)–was sold to Oldenburg Farm for $750,000 carrying her first foal by Pulpit at the 2000 Keeneland November sale; the resulting foal was Tapit. Purchased for $625,000 by David Fiske on behalf of Winchell Thoroughbreds at the 2002 Keeneland September sale, Tapit went on to win the 2004 GI Wood Memorial S. and is now the nation's leading sire. He stands at Gainesway Farm for a fee of $300,000.

Tap Your Heels returned to the Keeneland November sales ring in 2002, where she brought $900,000 from agent Fred Seitz while in foal to Forestry. She would go through the sales ring one more time in 2010 at the Fasig-Tipton November sale, where she RNA'd for $1.8 million in foal to Elusive Quality.

Of Tap Your Heels's 12 foals, nine went through the sales ring and all fetched six-figure pricetags. Her 2012 foal Aldrin (Malibu Moon) achieved a final bid of $1-million mark to top the 2014 Keeneland April Sale of 2-Year-Olds in Training. Owned by a partnership of Gainesway, Mt. Brilliant Stables and Robert LaPenta at the Keeneland April 2-year-old sale in 2014. The ridgling recently broke his maiden for trainer Chad Brown Mar. 4 at Tampa Bay.

The gray mare's most recent offspring to go through the sales ring is the now 3-year-old filly Rubies are Red (Medaglia d'Oro), who sold to SF Bloodstock for $400,000 at the 2014 Keeneland September sale. Tap Your Heels produced an Elusive Quality filly in 2014 and was barren in 2015.