By: Lucas Marquardt
Pete Bradley is good for a few pinhooking homeruns each spring, and the Lexington-based bloodstock agent came away with yet another yesterday care of the $770,000 Medaglia d’Oro–Victory Ride colt. Bradley purchased the youngster last fall at Keeneland September for $140,000 before sending him to Eddie Woods in Florida for his early training.
“He had a really nice frame on him,” Bradley said of the colt as a yearling. “He might have been a little backward coming into the sale, but he was always a nice horse. He may have just gotten lost in the shuffle, because you usually don’t get to buy a horse like that for that kind of price. But if you sit there and put numbers on nice horses, once in a while you get lucky.”
Bradley’s slightly pained expression told the story as he monitored the slow bidding process from the rear walking ring, though with each $10,000 salvo on his star pupil, the tension eased. By the time the hammer fell, Bradley was all smiles.
“I’ve never had a horse that sold like this that never had a bid of more than $10,000,” he laughed. “He is an exceptional horse. With the amount of vetting we had on him, we expected that kind of range. But to watch a horse go in $10,000s all the way from $30,000 to $770,000, you know everyone is sitting on the last dollar, they’re not spreading it around. Obviously, he had the right quality, but I think the way the bidding went shows how sticky this market is right now. The reserve was about half of what he ended up bringing–we knew we had a nice horse. I think it’s a function of the market. There’s not that sizzle and zing, and the buyers are playing it cautiously. They have been all year, really.”
