Weanling Could Justify Inaugural Green Hills Consignment At Keeneland

Maria Sol Aller, who along with Murat Sancal, has been training, buying and selling racehorses for over a decade from their base at Elmendorf Farm, has taken the plunge and will be consigning under her own banner, Green Hills at Elmendorf, for the first time at the Keeneland November Breeding Stock Sale. The fledgling consignment could get off to a flyer when it offers a weanling filly by Justify (hip 96) during Book 1 of the auction Wednesday in Lexington.

“We've been very busy. We have been buying around 60 to 65 horses a year at the November sale at Keeneland,” Sol Aller said of the advent of the consignment. “Some of them were going to go racing and some, we were doing the quarantine [at Elmendorf] and exporting them out of the country, going to Europe, South America and mostly to Turkey. But this year, I decided to open the new consignment since we have such a big number of horses selling as well, to just to start selling on our own.”

A bay weanling, hip 96 will be the first horse to go through the ring under the Green Hills at Elmendorf banner. The filly is out of Primadona (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}), a mare Sancal purchased for just $37,000 at last year's Keeneland November sale.

Following his two-win day at the Breeders' Cup last Friday, there couldn't be a better time to be selling a daughter of the Triple Crown winner, Sol Aller agreed.

“We are super excited about her,” Sol Aller said of the weanling. “She is beautiful. She is well-bred. And she is super nice and moves really nicely and she's extremely smart.”

And the filly is already proving popular at the Keeneland sales grounds.

“She is showing a lot,” Sol Aller said. “We started showing Sunday and she showed a lot yesterday and she has been out almost all [Monday] morning.”

The success of the cross of Justify and Galileo mares makes the weanling even more appealing. Both GII Jessamine S. winner Buchu (Justify) and GI Dewhurst S. winner City of Troy (Justify) are out of Galileo mares.

“We think this pedigree is going to serve, not only American clients, but we also think that hopefully Coolmore and a lot of the European clients are going to be interested in her,” Sol Aller said. “We think she will be great for running in the States or overseas. She really looks like a runner.”

Hip 96 | Thorostride

Primadona won her lone career start for breeder Moyglare Stud and trainer Christophe Clement in 2011. She is a daughter of multiple group winner Dress To Thrill (Ire) (Danehill).

Sancal admitted he was surprised to be able to purchase the 15-year-old mare, with the filly in utero, for $37,000 last November.

“The Keeneland November sale has a lot of opportunities to buy nice horses at bargain prices from day one to the last day,” Sancal said. “Knowing that, I really work hard to find this type of horse for my clients. When they show up, it's time to buy. Primadona was one of them. She is a lovely Galileo mare who was in foal to Justify and I knew some nice horses were in training on this cross. My clients had a budget for her around $150,000, but bidding suddenly stopped at $37,000–which I was very happy about. Now Primadona has produced this beautiful-looking filly that will stand out nicely at the sale. We love her personality so much that it will be very hard to say goodbye after the sale.”

Sol Aller first found her love of horses working with Polo ponies in her native Argentina, but it was when she first came to Kentucky 15 years ago that she found her true passion.

“When I came to Keeneland for the first time, I just never left,” she said. “I completely fell in love with the Thoroughbreds. Even though I had a polo background in Argentina, I just fell in love with how smart Thoroughbreds are. It's just a pleasure to be able to work with them. I started at zero, prepping horses for the sales and things like that, down at the bottom.”

She met Sancal through mutual friends and eventually the two formed a like-minded partnership.

“We became great friends,” said. “Then Murat decided to start training on his own–he had been working for someone else. He decided to go out on his own and he asked me if I would help him out. And I said yes. So I started to work with him as an assistant trainer at the track.”

The two maintain strings both in Kentucky and Florida and switch off taking care of both, while balancing purchasing and selling horses on behalf of overseas clients. While Sancal stays busy with clients during sales time, Sol Aller decided it was time to start her own outlet to sell horses.

Asked if there was pressure in starting her own consignment, Sol Aller said, “Yes. But I am also pretty excited. This has been super fun. And it's been a great experience. I am meeting a lot of new people and talking to a lot of new clients. At the same time, we care about doing the best for the clients and for the horses. So I am really excited about doing this and I hope it works out for all of them.”

Green Hills at Elmendorf will offer 35 horses at the Keeneland November sale and plans to have consignments at the Keeneland January Horses of All Ages Sale in a couple of months.

How will Sol Aller balance training and consigning, along with all the other facets of the partners' business?

“That is a good question,” she said with a laugh. “Step by step. You know how it is in horse racing, we will go day by day and go from there. Always work, prayer and hope for the best.”

The Keeneland November sale opens Wednesday with a single-session Book 1 section beginning at 1 p.m. The auction continues through Nov. 16 with sessions beginning daily at 10 a.m.