$550,000 Session Topping Filly for Classic Empire

The first day of the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic Two-Year-Olds In Training Sale was a banner day for Classic Empire, whose $550,000 filly was the third most expensive offering and most expensive filly of the session.

Purchased by West Bloodstock as agent for Robert and Lawana Low, the filly out of Newbie comes from the Chester and Mary Broman breeding program and was offered by Sequel Bloodstock. Breezing in :10.1 last week, the New York-bred is a half-sister to multiple stakes winner Newly Minted and stakes placed New Girl In Town.

Their winning Bernardini mare Newbie is out of the stakes winning Changeisgonnacome and from the family of Grade III winner and multiple stakes producer Miss Union Avenue.

“This filly breezed incredibly quick here and she galloped out big,” Jacob West told Thoroughbred Daily News. “She did it on the racetrack that's not the easiest to do that on. The New York-bred status was just an added bonus. She could have been foaled on the moon and we would have bought her. She is a beautiful filly. She'll go to Todd [Pletcher] and we'll keep our fingers crossed.”

Classic Empire’s top colt of the session was a $250,000 purchase by BL Racing also from the Sequel Bloodstock consignment.

Another :10.1 breezer, the colt out of Stop The Wedding is out of a half-sister to the stakes performing dam of Grade I Preakness Stakes third Social Inclusion. Stop The Wedding was a juvenile winner and already has a winner herself. Her granddam is the multiple stakes winner Classy Tricks, who is also the dam of two stakes performers – including Stop The Wedding’s own dam.

Classic Empire’s first juveniles have brought $550,000, $450,000, $410,000, $410,000, ect this sales season with an average of $156,160. According to West, that’s no surprise.

“He was an incredible racehorse himself, so it should be no surprise that he is getting good-looking stock,” West said. “And now we see them on the track at the 2-year-old sales. It's not a surprise that they are fitting the bill of what we are looking for. It's not very often you are champion 2-year-old and come back and win a big graded stakes at three like that. Mark Casse was always very high on him. You have a lot of confidence when you can buy one like that.”

A Champion 2-Year-Old who won the Grade I Arkansas Derby at three, Classic Empire has already sired his first winner from only two runners so far from his first crop.