By Jessica Martini
Adrian Gonzalez was possibly just humoring his wife Erin when he trudged up the hill through the snow at Keeneland on the last day of the November sale in 2017, but the hike proved fruitful when the couple came home with Expo Gold (Johannesburg) for just $13,000. The mare was in foal to Daredevil and the filly she had already produced that year by that same sire would go on to become Grade I winner Swiss Skydiver. While Expo Gold has changed hands three times since the November sale, the Gonzalezes' Checkmate Thoroughbreds will offer a half-brother by Danzing Candy (hip 577) to the star sophomore filly at the Fasig-Tipton Selected Yearlings Showcase Thursday, less than a week after Swiss Skydiver goes postward as one of the favorites for Friday's GI Kentucky Oaks.
Gonzalez was instrumental in syndicating Danzing Candy and standing the multiple graded stakes winner at Rancho San Miguel in California and it was his involvement with the stallion that kept him busy at the 2017 November sale.
“We were looking for mares to support Danzing Candy with, it was his first year going into stud,” Gonzalez recalled. “I was just trying to find some value, we needed some volume of mares. To be honest, I had spent our entire budget in the first week of Keeneland November. I had some weanlings that I thought were going to sell well and they didn't. So I was really panicking because we had overspent.”
He continued, “My wife was flying out for the second week of the sale and I didn't want to take the wind out of her sails by telling her we were done, we couldn't afford anything else. She had a big list of mares that we needed to look at and we were literally all the way through to the very last day of the sale. It was snowing and miserable and Expo Gold was with Denali way on the top of the hill at barn 46 or whatever it was up there. But she was just beautiful. Probably one of the better physicals of mares that I saw in two weeks. We didn't expect we would have to pay much because it was the last day of the sale and we got her. Of everything we bought, she was the least expensive mare we purchased for Danzing Candy and she turned out to have the liveliest update of any of them. I should have just sent my wife to the sale and stayed home myself.”
It was Expo Gold's then-yearling filly that attracted Erin Gonzalez's notice. By Verrazano, the youngster had sold for $100,000 the previous month at the Fasig-Tipton October sale. She would sell for $275,000 at the following year's OBS April sale and, turned over to trainer Simon Callaghan, Miss Hot Legs was second in this year's Wishing Well S.
“My wife thought if we could buy six-figure producing mares for 10% of that, that's what she looking for,” Gonzalez said. “The Verrazanos weren't selling that well and the filly brought $100,000, so my wife thought she must have been really pretty.”
Gonzalez bred Expo Gold to Danzing Candy and put the mare back through the sales ring at the 2019 CTBA January Sale were she sold for $15,000 to Blue Chip Thoroughbreds.
“She was in foal to Daredevil when we bought her and we didn't do very well selling that colt,” Gonzalez said. “He had some vet issues, so we were really disappointed with the outcome. We sold her in foal to Danzig Candy, which was kind of the point. We knew we couldn't campaign all of these horses, but we just wanted to make sure the stallion got plenty of the right kind of mares. We got her in foal and put her in the sale and sold her for a little more than what we had paid for her. So that was the plan. Nothing went wrong there, but obviously looking back, of any mare, we should have kept that mare.”
One of the underbidders on Expo Gold at the CTBA sale was Var Reeve, who along with partner Stan Ray, decided they really wanted the mare and purchased her privately.
“At the CTBA sale, she was purchased by a different group and after the sale the breeders of this [Danzing Candy] foal said we really missed out on that mare, can you put us in contact with who bought her,” Gonzalez said. “So we set that up, got her bought privately.”
He continued, “The good thing was that we sold the mare to some good friends of ours. If she had gone to Korea or Russia or somewhere we couldn't really root for her, that would have really stung. But knowing that our friends own the mare and that there still was this Danzing Candy in the pipeline, we are still rooting for her like we still own her.”
Expo Gold has since been sold again, with Taylor Made Sale Agency's Liam Benson confirming she had been purchased by a group of Taylor Made clients. Now in foal to Catholic Boy, she is entered in the Keeneland November sale.
“The history lesson for everyone who has owned this mare is that everyone has sold her too soon,” Gonzalez said with a laugh. “I can see her going to the November sale and bringing a ton of money and then maybe by January, Swiss Skydiver is an Eclipse champion and whoever sells her in November will be looking like they sold her too soon. That's been the lesson with her, don't sell that mare.”
The California-based Checkmate Thoroughbreds regularly offers 20 and 30-horse consignments, but Swiss Skydiver's little brother is the only yearling the operation is offering at Fasig-Tipton.
“The only option we have here in California is a sale towards the end of October and I felt like with the momentum Swiss Skydiver has, putting this colt selling closer to the Oaks was obviously going to benefit us,” Gonzalez explained. “At the time of entry, they were talking about her being a Derby horse and I thought, 'Gosh, we'd have to sit on this horse another 45 days?' I am sure we would have a bunch of offers privately, so it's best to put this colt in the soonest sale possible. Keeneland was already closed at the time and Fasig allowed us to enter late for this Select Showcase.”
Of the yearling, Gonzalez said, “He is a very strong colt that I think he's the type a trainer could really lean on him and this horse will push back. He's a little later foal [Apr. 15], but he is very mature and very developed.”
The yearling is from the first crop of Danzing Candy (Twirling Candy), who won the 2016 GII San Felipe S. and 2017 GII San Carlos S. and GIII Lone Star Park H. for trainer Bob Baffert.
“I am really, really proud of his first foals and what they look like,” Gonzalez said of the stallion. “This yearling is a good representation of what Danzing Candy is producing.”
Gonzalez is hoping the dark bay colt will be a good advertisement for the stallion to buyers outside of California.
“Here in California, everyone has seen the Danzing Candys and have a good feeling about them,” he said. “But I want Kentucky and the rest of the world to know that the stallion is legit. Putting this horse out there may help our future sales with some others that we have. We have some big, big pedigrees with the Danzing Candys and I think they could fit other Kentucky sales. So this is kind of our first step to open the door to maybe trading some other horses outside of California.”
The Fasig-Tipton Selected Yearlings Showcase will be held next Wednesday and Thursday at the company's Newtown Paddocks in Lexington. Bidding begins each day at 10 a.m.
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