Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Select Sale Day 2 Picks

Additional horses to watch from the Saratoga select sale

Next week is the first day of the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Select sale, and I’m back with additional selections from the second day of the sale. If you haven’t yet checked out my pedigree picks for day one of the sale, you can do that here.

As before, I tried to find a few horses with interesting pedigree angles that might not be apparent at first glance. With a sale like this, every horse is exceptionally well-bred and well-conformed, so I want to highlight horses with unique pedigree angles that I could effectively write about. I’ve chosen five such horses selling on the second day of the sale to discuss in this post.

Hip 145 - c. Practical Joke x Rumandice (Congrats)

This colt by Practical Joke is out of the Congrats mare Rumandice, a useful mare on the racetrack who took a while to break her maiden, placing in 7 of her first 9 starts against maiden special weight company without a win, but figured things out when dropping in for a $75,000 tag at Churchill Downs, drawing off to win by 6 1/2 lengths that day. She would get an additional win in a Delta Downs allowance race and earn $128,774 in her 16 lifetime starts.

Her first foal, a filly by Munnings, has yet to race but has been putting in some very sharp works at Arindel Farm and Gulfstream Park, including two sub-36 second gate drills at the former. That filly, Dot, was a $60,000 weanling at Keeneland November, and appears to be close to debut.

I really like the choice to send Rumandice to Practical Joke for her second foal. Practical Joke has done very well with mares carrying A.P. Indy so far, with five stakes winners, including a G1 winner, in 33 foals bred on the cross (15.2% SWs), including a stakes winner out of a mare by Congrats’ full brother Flatter. Including that foal, Prairie Gold Lassie winner Tx Women For Arts, Practical Joke has three stakes winners from mares carrying Congrats’ third dam Glowing Tribute - 13.6% of 22 starters on the cross.

Practical Joke’s sire Into Mischief has also done well with mares carrying this colt’s second damsire Tough Gold, with three (15.8%) stakes winners in 19 starters. Into Mischief has also had success with this female family, with four stakes winners in seven starters (57.1%) going back to this colt’s fourth dam, including G1 winner Dayoutoftheoffice and Practical Joke’s stakes winner Determined Jester. There are two stakes winners and a stakes placed winner by Into Mischief under this colt’s second dam.

With success from both the sire lines involved and the female family, this colt is my top pedigree pick of the second half of the sale. He’s a bit immature physically, but that’s to be expected as an April foal, and I feel like he has good mechanics to work with.