Something Good This Way Comes A-Blowing

It was a day for crazy manes and flying tails.

Sunrise at Fasig-Tipton.

A beautiful, warm Tuesday morning in Central Kentucky gave way to a tornado watch and a fierce wind that rattled the trees, the red and yellow leaves on the ground raced each other in lazy, upward circles. (Those leaves had me thinking of La Hojarasca, a book by Gabriel Garcia Marquez that I read in high school; the English title is Leaf Storm.) At 1:30, the breeze suddenly – quite literally in a matter of seconds – lowered the temperature some 20 degrees and brought with it a cold, wet rain that persisted into the evening.

Fasig-Tipton, 1:25 pm.

Standing outside showing and selling horses in this weather is not much fun, nor is getting soaked through to the bone and wearing wet clothes for six hours. However, on this – the second day of the three-day Fasig Tipton October sale – Four Star Sales (for whom I work at the sales) sent some nice horses through the ring as agent. The bright spot was hip #761, a bay colt by top sire Tiznow out of the graded stakes-placed Boston Harbor mare Papa to Kinzie. Canadian-based trainer Mark Casse purchased him as agent for $170,000. This flashy, unflappable yearling has a lot of size and scope, like his sire, and he was the second highest-priced horse of the session and third highest of the sale so far: