River Bend Gets Bulletday Daughter

Fleetwood Bloodstock’s Tim McMurry, bidding on behalf of Ina Brown Bond’s River Bend Farm, secured the well-pedigreed Elusive Jackpot (Elusive Quality) for $375,000 yesterday afternoon. The daughter of Hall of Famer Silverbulletday (Silver Deputy) was consigned to the sale by Hill ‘n’ Dale Sales Agency as hip 267 in foal to fellow Mike Pegram colorbearer and Hill ‘n’ Dale resident Midnight Lute. 

While Silverbulletday’s daughters have not necessarily lived up to their pedigrees on the track, they’ve more than made up for it in the breeding shed. The unraced Silver Bullet Moon (Vindication) was responsible for 2013 GI Malibu S. hero Shakin It Up (Midnight Lute), and sold to Katsumi Yoshida at last year’s Keeneland November sale for $1.25 million back in foal to Midnight Lute. Another unraced sister to Elusive Jackpot, Silverbulletway (Storm Cat), is the dam of GIII Sunland Derby winner Govenor Charlie (Midnight Lute) as well as stakes winner Crisis of Spirit (Vindication). 

“One mare died last year and she’s trying to build her broodmare band up,” McMurry explained after congratulating Bond on the phone. “We shopped in November and got outbid, so this was one of two we had to bid on. I’m thrilled to have her. It’s a live family with a lot of daughters. She’s in foal to the right horse and we’ll see what we do from here.” 

Of the price he had to pay, McMurry offered, “I was hopeful, but I thought she might bring more and I wouldn’t be able to buy her. That’s a little less than I thought she might bring just because there aren’t that many [of her caliber] 
around… We’ve had some good luck with horses like her and she had a good [Apr. 10] cover date.” 

Louisville-based Bond, President of the W.L. Lyons Brown Foundation, is a retired director of the Brown-Forman Corporation and serves on the boards of the Glenview Trust Company and Muhammad Ali Center. Along with her son Austin Musselman, she operates Ashbourne Farms LLC, which breeds beef cattle and grows agricultural crops. 

River Bend Farm, which focuses on commercial breeding, was founded in 1990, and has bred or co-bred the likes of MSW and GSP Ground Transport (Big Brown), MSW and GSP Devilment (Peaks and Valleys), MGSP Bonay (Wild Again) and GSW Diggins (Seeking the Gold). Bond, who owns approximately 12 mares, purchased then-8-year-old Patti’s Regal Song (Unbridled’s Song) in foal to Malibu Moon for $325,000 at this sale a year ago in partnership with her son and his wife Janie.