Mandy Pope’s Whisper Hill Farm landed the day’s top-selling mare in the course of the Nov. 5 opening session of the Keeneland November Breeding Inventory Sale when she purchased a number of graded stakes winner Roses for Debra (Hip 198) for $2.4 million. The strapping grey or roan mare is a daughter of Liam’s Map , who received graded stakes on all-weather and turf.
Roses for Debra, consigned by Sweet Meadows Gross sales, is out of the Bernardini daughter Important Rose, making her a half sister to stakes winners Rose’s Imaginative and prescient (Artie Schiller) and Rosie’s Alibi (Justify ).
“She was very elegant, very nicely put collectively. She was very quick. It was on the grass, which isn’t essentially ultimate for American breeding packages, however she was so quick. I wanted some mares with velocity so as to add to the stallions that I might wish to breed to,” mentioned Pope.
Whereas Pope she is at all times on the lookout for alternatives on the breeding inventory gross sales, she is eager this 12 months to search out mares to assist
We’re primarily taking the alternatives as they arrive up. In a while we’ll be on the lookout for mares to assist homebred stallion and grade 1-placed, grade 2 winner Cost It , who’s coming into stud subsequent 12 months at Gainesway at $12,500, and Blue Grass Stakes (G1) winner Tapit Trice , who she raced with Gainesway and likewise enters stud subsequent 12 months with a $20,000 charge. Each entering-year stallions are by Gainesway’s a number of main sire Tapit .
“In all probability related sort of mares (for each sires). Neither certainly one of them may actually get out of the gate. They at all times wanted an opportunity to get going. We’ll most likely be on the lookout for some mares to place some velocity with them,” she mentioned.
As for mating plans for Roses For Debra, Pope mentioned she is on the lookout for a stallion able to the identical versatility as her latest broodmare buy. Roses For Debra received her first graded stakes within the 2023 Caress Stakes (G3T) at Saratoga Race Course. At 5 this 12 months, she added to her graded stakes credential by capturing the Large’s Causeway Stakes (G3T) at Keeneland after which proved her versatility in profitable the Presque Isle Downs Masters Stakes (G2) on the Tapeta most important monitor at Preque Isle Downs.
“Considering Curlin, Justify, we have now a pair good choices there. Each work on the grass and the dust, it is a good cross,” she mentioned.
Roses For Debra, campaigned by John O’Meara, compiled a 9-2-2 document from 16 begins and earned $821,618.
