Leading the annual Sneaker Creeper footrace for children in Chestertown, Md., Allison Davis graciously paused at a chute near the finish line to let another runner pass.
"Why did you let that other little girl go first?" Allison's mom Becky asked afterward.
"Oh," 3-year-old Allison replied. "I wanted the other girl to go first."
"But you didn't win the race," Becky said. "Why didn't you want to win the race?"
"I don't know, Mommy, that's just how my heart works."
Becky Davis hugged her daughter, and quickly jotted down the phrase as a potential name for a Thoroughbred. Fourteen or so years later, Allison just received her first college acceptance letter and a yearling out of How My Heart Works topped Fasig-Tipton Midlantic's fall yearling sale for the second consecutive year. Hip 49, a filly by City of Light, sold for $165,000 at the Timonium, Md., sale Oct. 1 to join her half-brother by Nyquist who brought $205,000 last year. The back-to-back toppers join a $200,000 Nyquist filly sold in 2021 and a $180,000 Arrogate colt sold in 2022.
Testing the research department, no mare has topped the sale in back-to-back years so call How My Heart Works a history maker. The feat wasn't lost on co-breeder Dr. Tom Bowman.
"Anything like this that happens, if I reflect back on how long I've been around, it has to be a sense of pride, a sense of accomplishment," he said. "You can't get a big head about it though, because a lot of it is just biological luck."
How My Heart Works goes way back with the people in her life. Bowman and business partner Milton Higgins III, who died a month before the 2024 sales-topper was born, bought her granddam Formalities Aside as a broodmare prospect in 2005. She'd won a maiden race in Canada in 2004, but was injured in a race at Delaware Park and was at Fair Hill Training Center recuperating.
"She was a small, pretty much non-descript mare that had hurt her knee, and an ordinary kind of racehorse," said Bowman. "But Milton lit up when he saw her family. He said that family could explode into something special. That mare's purchase was based on Milton's global view of things."
She produced 10 winners, topped by stakes horses Awesome Flower, First Mondays and If Not For Her.
Mated to Not For Love in 2011, Formalities Aside produced How My Heart Works the following spring. Kept to race, she won her debut in 2015 for Bowman and Higgins before losing her next three and joining the broodmare band. By then, half-sister Awesome Flower's racing career had taken off and full-sister If Not For Her had won three times.
"It was obvious her value as a broodmare was going to be more than what you would have to run her for to have any success as a racehorse so we bred her," said Bowman. "None of those decisions were very difficult. Not For Love was going well enough that you had to think about wanting to own a filly or two as a broodmare."
Her three foals to race include Maryland Million Classic winner Monday Morning Qb (a son of Imagining), Group 3-placed Asawer (the $200,000 Nyquist filly) and second-in-his-only-start Papa Lapa (the $180,000 Arrogate colt).
Butch Reid trained Monday Morning Qb (a $25,000 purchase) and has Papa Lapa in the barn, so obviously looked at Hip 49 and was thrilled when the filly went his way for owner Glen Bennett's LC Racing.
"It's a family we're very familiar with," Reid said. "Monday Morning Qb was giant and that ended up being his downfall. He was so big it was hard to keep him sound for those better races. This one is a little more compact, a little smaller in size and that's OK. She's as broad as he was. He's a tough guy, so if she has any of that she'll be fine. We have another half-brother, Papa Lapa, who's had some issues, but he can really run and we like those kind who can really run."
Davis and her father discussed the filly's sales prospects beforehand and tried to gauge interest from potential buyers.
"What do you think about her?" Bowman asked.
"I think she's special, she's going to be a good sale," Davis replied. "I don't think she's big enough to command the huge price we may have seen in the past but big doesn't make a racehorse."
And Davis is all about making racehorses. Her recent Timonium graduates include $1.2 million-earner Field Pass, near-millionaire Post Time and his stakes-winning dam Vielsalm, eight-time stakes winner Street Lute and 2024 juvenile stakes winner Studlydoright. Her 25-horse consignment of 2021, which includes Post Time and millionaire Neecie Marie, has earned $3.3 million. She sold the sales-topper for the fifth time in nine years.
There's no secret. Davis calls her strategy a mix of nature and nurture. Young horses spend as much time as possible turned out in groups, learning to be competitive and building their bodies. Davis and company focus hard on nutrition. They're careful about the weaning process. Their horses sell at Timonium in October, not Saratoga in August or Kentucky in July. Like everyone else, they worry about horses running through fences or banging into each other, but the theory remains that horses turn out better with a little less human care and fine-grained management.
"None of them are on walkers, they've never had any kind of forced exercise, that's not necessary for sales," she said. "You get a lot less injury and illness, respiratory things, irritations and all that because they're not just standing in stalls all the time. We have so many good racehorses come off our farm because we're not pushing medications through them, not pushing supplements through them, there's no forced exercise. Sometimes, by the last day of the sale, they're dragging a little bit from all the showing, but I think people understand that now."
The sales-topper and $150,000 runner-up, a Maryland-bred half-brother to Street Lute by Nyquist, were the stars of Davis' show along with a $120,000 McKinzie filly.
"Those two fillies came in out of the field a little earlier than some to try to avoid whatever -- a kick, a bump, sun-bleached coats," said Davis. "That's the beginning of June instead of mid-July and means they were up around the barn and coming in and doing things more slowly and more carefully."
Pinhooker David Scanlon bought the Nyquist colt as a prospect to sell next year. His Timonium record includes spending $35,000 on Army Mule in 2015 -- and selling him for $825,000 -- and getting $1.3 million for Tomodachi after buying him for $235,000 in 2021.
"My goal is to come to this sale and try to find what I think is the best colt and we target him and go after him," Scanlon said. "I look for an athlete first. I look for a horse I think I can get some value in and then we go back to the catalog page to see what we're going to have to pay for him. I thought he stood out. He had nice, strong cannon bones, short cannon bones, a strong hind leg, good, strong body. He looks like a horse that had all the right pieces, but had a lot of room to improve and grow up and kind of really turn into a nice horse."
Davis sold 16 horses for $708,000, but couldn't match a late charge by Northview Stallion Station, which led all consignors with $811,000 in sales from 32 horses sold. The squad included three of the top seven hips, led by a $115,000 Engage filly purchased by Chuck Zacney's Cash Is King racing stable and Thornmar's $100,000 Midshipman colt bought by David Hughes' Men's Grille Racing.
Hughes made a run at the Maryland-bred Engage filly from the back ring, only to be outbid by Zacney sitting in the front of the pavilion.
"That was my last bid, 115," Zacney said. "I was doing $5,000 increments, and I think they were doing $2,000. She's a beauty, great mover, we scored her high. We're very, very happy to get her. We took several looks at her. She scored the highest of all the horses at this sale for us."
From the first crop of Northview stallion Engage, the filly is from a deep Sycamore Hall Farm family including his stakes-placed dam Stickingtogether, granddam Who Did It and Run and a slew of stakes performers including Giant Run, Introduced, American Victory, Who's in Town and Wet My Beak, among others.
“We’re absolutely thrilled with that. There were a couple of nice Engages
in the sale and she was the one everybody gravitated toward . . . We had the granddam and we still have the dam and raced the granddam and developed that whole family.”
– Northview Stallion Station’s David Wade,
about a solid sale for first-crop sire Engage
"We're absolutely thrilled with that," said Northview's David Wade of the Engage interest. "There were a couple of nice Engages in the sale and she was the one everybody gravitated toward. It's just a fantastic family. We had the granddam and we still have the dam and raced the granddam and developed that whole family."
Cash Is King and LC Racing, frequent partners on the track in the region, bought eight horses combined.
“I was signing the ticket for one
and trying to bid on the other.
They were both clean, vet wise,
and I liked both of them. We’ve
been very fortunate here at this sale.”
– David Hughes, of Men’s Grille Racing,
about buying horses two hips apart
"There were some we liked that didn't quite meet our expectations with vetting and things like that, but I think we were on the right horses," Zacney said. "This is a great sale for us. It's the Mid-Atlantic -- New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia-certified, Virginia-bred, Delaware-certified, Maryland-breds -- we love this sale."
After missing the Engage filly, Men's Grille went right back to Northview and landed the Midshipman colt thanks to a quick conversation with Wade. He watched Hughes bid on the Engage filly, and thanked him for being the underbidder.
"Have you got another good one?" Hughes asked.
Wade didn't blink. "I have a really nice Midshipman, Hip 235, come on down to the barn and look."
Hughes and his wife Lori went to the barn, liked what they saw and added the half-brother to Grade 2 winner Still Having Fun to the barn. Bred in Maryland by Thornmar Farm, the chestnut colt is out of Casual Kiss, the dam of five other winners including 2024 stakes winner Too Many Kisses.
Two hips later, Hughes struck again when going to $72,000 to buy a Blofeld filly out of Celtic Music. Bred by Audrey Murray, the chestnut is out of a full-sister to stakes winners Celtic Innis and Clever Yankee.
"They were right close together so that was a challenge," Hughes said of the timing. "I was signing the ticket for one and trying to bid on the other. They were both clean, vet wise, and I liked both of them. We've been very fortunate here at this sale. We bought Studlydoright here. I like yearling sales because you can get them Virginia-certified if they're not already, and then if you do things right you can send them to Delaware. You get both certifications, and they can be Maryland-breds or New York-breds or Pennsylvania-breds too."
Marshall Silverman sold the Blofeld filly as part of a 26-horse consignment that also produced a $125,000 Vekoma colt (the third-highest price at the sale) purchased by Gatsas Stables. The latter figured to sell well thanks to the sire power and a female family that includes stakes performers Richter Scale, Outperformance, Best Pal and P. S. U. Grad. The Blofeld filly shouted regional class, and backed it up with the physical characteristics to attract attention.
"She's a package and if you don't have a package you're just not going to get a good price anymore," said Silverman.
Underneath the bigger figures, Silverman sold 10 horses for $10,000 or less and didn't sell 10 others offered. Despite the limited interest, he saw a future for them even if the region's racing climate casts uncertainty.
"These cheap horses that bring a couple thousand, we'll see them winning races in two or three years," he said. "They'll be fine. The guys around here, not knowing what's going on with Maryland racing, they're a little unsure. Their owners are saying, 'Hey, it costs a fortune to get them to the races and we don't know what the races are going to look like.' It's tough."
How Small?
After running over two days for several years, the sale took place in a single session and included a downsized group of 251 horses after withdrawals. Predictably, the smaller sale produced smaller numbers as the gross dipped to $4,287,700 on 180 horses sold from $7,082,000 on 290 sold from 368 offered in 2023.
On the positive side, the smaller numbers did little to decrease the average which clocked in at $23,821 compared to $24,421 in 2023.
Fasig-Tipton's Boyd Browning Jr. called the sale "a solid day of work" if not exceptional. He was pleased with the average and median (which increased to $15,000 from $12,000), and encouraged by the buyers on hand considering the fewer horses for sale.
"It was a very consistent sale, results were similar to last year in terms of the average and the median," he said. "The catalog size was down a little bit, I think that's reflective of what we've seen in regional markets right now. They're not easy . . . I was a little concerned honestly coming in with the smaller catalog what kind of attendance and participation we would have."
In the end, demand was high for quality horses and Browning noted the purchases by regional owners Men's Grille, Jagger Inc., Cash Is King, LC, trainer Jerry Robb, Louis Ulman, Ultra Championship Racing and others which offered positive signs for the region's racing industry.
"Broken record, there was significant demand for what seemed to be the better horses," Browning said. "The horses that were not considered outstanding conformationally or were lacking in terms of commercial pedigrees were difficult to sell. That's the same trend we've seen in recent years, and I think we'll continue to see."
The sale came a week after Fasig-Tipton's California yearling sale, which put up similar numbers on gross receipts of $4,781,400 and an average of $29,334, and Browning drew comparisons. Both offered smaller catalogs and produced lower gross receipts on similar averages/medians. Both also depend on the health of regional racing programs.
"Certainly it's impacted this marketplace and unless changes are made, long term, it will continue to impact it," Browning said. "I'm not going to say it's going to eliminate it. I didn't say that and I don't mean to imply that but it's going to be hard to have a dramatic turnaround in this region."
Northview's Wade echoed the sentiment, connecting the health of racing in the region to the health of the sales market.
"Absolutely I worry about that because it's shrinking," Wade said. "All of the regional markets are suffering. The regional stallions are suffering, broodmare populations are dropping, book sizes are getting smaller, it's a very big concern especially since we're a stallion farm.
Everything's trending toward Kentucky stallions being the commercial horses and I'm not quite sure what the answer is. I'm hoping we're going to see a revitalized racing industry in Maryland when we get the track and the training center and get something figured out with the racing dates with possibly a circuit where all of these regional tracks aren't competing against each other for field sizes."
Browning also sees hope in the shifting racing winds, and plans to be part of the future.
"As I've said and continue to say, we serve the market, we don't make the market. I think that hopefully as we've mentioned there's some opportunity and hope in the Maryland racing industry," he said. "We see some good things that are happening in Virginia. There are some good things in the Delaware program. Let's hope that we continue to see increased strength in the racing product in the region."
Browning went back to his California experience, where the possibility of regional cooperation between nearby states gets discussed similarly to the Mid-Atlantic. Horses bred in California, Arizona and Washington sharing opportunities could help all three states' Thoroughbred industries for example. The same theme could play in the Mid-Atlantic someday.
"No one's asked my opinion, but I think that it's incumbent upon the racetracks and the breed organizations and the breeders to help create more of a regional perspective than an individual state perspective," Browning said. "I live in Kentucky and the Kentucky program is so strong right now and it's continued to gain strength. It's not going to go anywhere. It's very successful. New York is very successful. It's hard to compete with those two areas . . . and in order to do that you're going to need to have cooperation within Virginia, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey [and West Virginia] to say, 'How do we be competitive on a racing and breeding perspective with our competition?'
"It doesn't seem that impossible, but it requires everybody putting their egos aside and saying, 'OK, we've got to try to make it better.' Necessity sometimes forces that."
Sales Notes
New York-based Gatsas Stables bought two horses near the top of the leaderboard, the $125,000 Kentucky-bred Vekoma colt from Silverman and a $120,000 Maryland-bred McKinzie filly out of the Jump Start mare Moon Virginia from Davis. Four days after the sale, Gatsas and trainer John Terranova won Keeneland's Woodford Stakes-G2 with Our Shot, a Pennsylvania-bred purchased at the 2020 sale . . . Six of the top 10 prices are Maryland-breds. . . Three class winners from the Maryland Horse Breeders Association's yearling show were sold at the sale, including Silverman's Blofeld filly for $72,000. The three averaged $40,000.
