By Katie Petrunyak
Steve Cauthen sat in the shade of Barn 42 at the Four Star Sales consignment Tuesday afternoon, basking not in the memory of his glory days as a Hall of Fame jockey, but in quiet celebration after selling one of the top-priced yearlings of the day at the Keeneland September Sale.
The colt, a flashy son of Sharp Azteca out of the stakes-placed mare She's Roughin It (Forest Camp), sold for $250,000 to Jerry Namy and Garry Simms.
“This is as exciting as winning a race,” Cauthen declared. “When you get a good one and people like it enough to fight for it, it's great.”
Cauthen has been involved in the breeding side of the industry since back when he was riding, when he owned a few mares that stayed with his father at the farm in Walton, Kentucky. After retiring from the saddle in 1992, the Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year took up golf for a while, but got bored after a few years. So, he decided to go out and find a few more broodmares to get more involved as a breeder.
Today, Cauthen has eight mares at his Dreamfields Farm in Kentucky. Most of the broodmares are owned in partnership with various friends. They focus on breeding to sell, but have also raced several homebreds over the years.
“We've done quite well,” Cauthen said. “We've breed some nice stakes horses. We bred a nice colt called Pegasus Wind (Fusaichi Pegasus) that ran in the 2006 GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile.”
Cauthen picked out She's Roughin It, the dam of this most recent yearling success, at the 2007 Keeneland November Sale for $80,000. The daughter of Forest Camp had placed in a pair of stakes as a juvenile and won once as a sophomore for Steve Asmussen before landing with Cauthen.
She's Roughin It's first foal, The Truth and K G ( Successful Appeal), won over $200,000 and placed in a Grade III. She has since produced five more winners including Francesco Appeal, another stakes-placed son of Successful Appeal.
“She has had a lot of good foals,” Cauthen noted. “They're all really typey and the great thing is, her last three foals have been the best foals she has had.”
In addition to this Sharp Azteca colt, the mare also has a juvenile filly by the same sire named T. T.'s Women who ran fourth in her debut earlier this month as well as a weanling filly by Cloud Computing.
Cauthen was first drawn to Three Chimneys sire Sharp Azteca when the Grade I winner retired to stud. Doug Cauthen, a member of the advisor board at Three Chimneys, encouraged his brother to go visit the new stallion. Now a standout young sire, Sharp Azteca currently leads his class of first-crop sires by winners.
“Sharp Azteca is a big, beautiful stallion,” Cauthen said. “He's a striking individual and did plenty on the track, so I was happy to get involved and now I have a breeding right to him. I think with the fact that he has had MSW Tyler's Tribe, GSP Honed and SW Sharp Aza Tack, his horses are going for the top races and that's what gives people confidence to say maybe this horse can be a top stallion.”
Cauthen's colt was the first Sharp Azteca yearling to go through the ring this year at Keeneland September, with nearly a dozen more to follow as the week progresses.
Cauthen said that he had high hopes for his homebred from the beginning. The youngster spent his early days at Cauthen's farms before going through sales prep with Renee Dailey.
“This colt looked good since the day he was born,” Cauthen shared. “He was always a good type of individual and he just kept growing and improving. From a long time ago, I was hoping to get to $200,000 with him so this is a little better than I was expecting, but of course this has been a crazy good market. It's unbelievably strong and when you get to this point in the sale, there are still some good horses but less really nice individuals, so you hope [the buyers] all end up fighting for them.”
Cauthen is looking forward to watching another one of his yearlings go through the ring later in the week. His Cloud Computing filly out of the Dialed In mare Brilliant Dial sells as Hip 3381 with Fours Star Sales on Thursday. Until then, he'll celebrate today's achievement.
“The highest-priced yearling I've ever sold was $425,000,” he said. “My mares are nice but they're not Grade I winners so for me, this was great.”
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