When bloodstock agent David Ingordo bought Zenyatta (Street Cry {Ire}) for just $60,000 out of the 2005 Keeneland September Sale he probably thought he had found that once-in-a-lifetime horse.
Little did he know that the 2010 Horse of the Year, who was admitted to the Hall of Fame in 2016, might not be his very best purchase.
Fourteen years after he discovered Zenyatta, he picked out Flightline (Tapit), paying $1 million for the future superstar.
There was nothing coincidental about any of these selections.
Over the years, Ingordo has solidified his reputation as one of the best in his business. He's also involved with industry issues and has served as a key member of HISA's Horsemen's Advisory Group. Last but not least, he is also married to trainer Cherie DeVaux, who just won her first Breeders' Cup race.
To talk Zenyatta, Flightline, HISA and so much more much, Ingordo was this week's Guest of the Week on the TDN's Writers' Room Podcast presented by Keeneland.
“Along with Bill Farish, I was invited out to the farm of his breeder, Jane Lyon, in what was Flightline's yearling year,” Ingordo said. “We were there to look at another yearling by Tapit, Triple Tap. He was a half to American Pharaoh. I liked the horse, that is Flightline better. I kind of said something under my breath and Bill Farish kicked me. He said 'look at the other horse, that's who we came out to see.' We got back in the car and I said, 'for what it's worth, I like the bay one.' The other horse was a chestnut. So we went out there several times over the next several months and I kept liking the other horse.
“And when we went to Saratoga, they still had the Tex Sutton plane,” said Ingordo. “I got in the back of the plane and one of the attendants said, 'hey, these are all yearlings in the back and it's going to get bumpy.' So I put a shank on one. I'm petting a horse, and he had the name on his halter. It was Flightline. So when we got there Bill said, 'there's the horse you like.' I said, let's buy him' and we put something together and the rest is history. And to answer your question, I think we were just getting started when we bid and we got fortunate that at a million dollars the bidding stopped.”
It's no surprise that Ingordo believes that Flightline will become a superior sire. He just purchased the first Flightline foal to come to auction at the Fasig-Tipton November Sale for $675,000.
“I like it when a stallion stamps his offspring because the whole point of a stallion is to dominate,” he said. “We're hoping that those genes that made him such a great racehorse come through in the offspring. So I like the fact that [his weanligs] look like him. If you give them a mare, he seems to dominate the mare. Whether she's a small mare or big mare, he seems to impart the Flightline look on them.
“I'd seen that foal that we bought on the farm,” Ingordo said. “He was raised here at Lane's End. He was one of the top ones I saw. And then there were several others we tried to bid on. There was another beautiful filly that scratched that I thought was as good a horse as a weanling that I've seen all year, whether at a sale or privately on farms. The thing about Flightline I like, and liked about the foal we bought, was that he's stamping them and this one reminded me a lot of Flightline at that stage of his life.”
And what did he see that he liked in Zenyatta?
“Zenyatta was a yearling and I actually still have the catalogue, saved with my notes in it,” Ingordo said. “I like buying horses that match their trainers. It is a lot like recruiting for any sports team. If you have a certain kind of offense, you need a certain kind of player. That year I was buying horses for Mr. [Jerry] Moss that were to go to John Shirreffs. Zenyatta looked like a John Shirreffs horse. I fell in love with her.
“I can say now because the breeder has passed away, but we had a lot more money for Zenyatta than 60 grand,” he said. “And I told [Zenyatta's breeder] Eric Kronfeld that one time over a couple of bourbons. We really had more money earmarked for her. It was meant to be. There's Zenyatta and I never thought it would get better than that. Now there's Flightline, but you know, Zenyatta was my first. She holds a special place in my heart and in my career.”
In our breeding spotlight section we looked at the Winstar stallion Life is Good (Into Mischief).
Elsewhere on the podcast, which is also sponsored by the Pennsylvania Horse Breeders' Association, West Point Thoroughbreds, WinStar and XBTV.com, the team of Zoe Cadman, Bill Finley and Randy Moss took a look at some of the Eclipse Award races that are expected to be close, including the one between Fierceness (City of Light) and Sierra Leone (Gun Runner) for the 3-year-old male championship.
All three hosts went for Sierra Leone. It was also noted that both are expected to run next year, which is a very welcome development for the sport.
Moss also pointed out that the head-on shots of the Breeders' Cup races were never made available for public consumption.
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