Caledonia Road Eventually Headed to Auction

Champion Caledonia Road (Quality Road), heroine of last term's GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies, will be sold publicly at auction either at the end of this year or next year.

The filly's managing partner, Luc Paiement, who runs under the Zoom And Fish Stable banner and owns Caledonia Road along with Charlie Spiring and Newtown Anner Stud, told TDN there are two factors for the eventual sale.

“You saw at the [Fasig-Tipton November] sales last year Songbird (Medalia d'Oro) sold for $9.5 million and Stellar Wind (Curlin) for $6 million [at Keeneland November] and Tepin (Bernstein) for $8 million [at Fasig-Tipton November],” Paiement said. “It's highly likely that I will sell her either at the end of this year or the end of next year. I will not keep her as a broodmare. She is worth too much for me to keep, and I don't want to be in the breeding business. I like to buy yearlings and I will sell them when I think the price is right.

Paiement, Executive Advisor of the National Bank of Canada, has been in the horse racing business for 40 years with Thoroughbreds and Standardbreds. He and Spiring, Chairman/Founder of Wellington-Altus Private Wealth, became partners in horses a few years ago after previously having interests in Team Valor horses. They bought Caledonia Road for $140,000 as a KEESEP yearling and sold a one-third interest in the filly after her second start to Maurice and Samantha Regan's Newtown Anner Stud. The deal included that the filly would run every third race in Newtown Anner Stud's colors.

Caledonia Road, a winner in her seasonal debut in an optional claimer at Belmont Apr. 29, will carry Newtown Anner's colors in the GI Acorn S. at Belmont June 9. A combination of surgery to remove a chip from her right front ankle last fall and a virus this year forced her to miss some training time since her big win at Del Mar.

“We really want to go to Saratoga in top shape,” Paiement said of future plans. “Ideally we'd like to win two Grade Ones and go to the Breeders' Cup in November. That would be our main goals.”