A bay filly by Practical Joke  brought CA $180,000 (US $142,780) to top the Canadian Thoroughbred Horse Society (Ontario Division)’s Premier Yearling Sale Sept. 1 at Woodbine, where five yearlings were bought for six figures from 158 sold.

Consigned as Hip 75, the filly sold to J. Nelson from the Shannondoe Farm draft. She was bred by Stablemates in Ontario out of the multiple stakes-winning mare Silent Treat, by Silent Name.

“She was raised at the farm in Paris (Ky.); I usually bring our babies to that farm in April-May of their yearling year. There were about half a dozen I left behind for my farm manager there to prep, and then we brought her up a few weeks before the sale,” said Arika Everatt-Meeuse of Shannondoe, which has an Ontario division and a Kentucky location. 

“I just really liked (Practical Joke). The dam is a smaller mare, so physically he suited her, and cross-wise I thought it would be good,” Everatt-Meeuse said. “The breeders have the one mare, and their focus was commercial. She’s got a Classic Empire filly at her side as well.

“They’re going to stay in for a piece, and I think it will be a nice partnership,” Everatt-Meeuse added.

On selling the sale topper, Everatt-Meeuse said: “We topped this sale a couple of years ago with a Society’s Chairman at CA $200,000 and that was unbelievable, so for her to sell for what she did was very good. There were some nice prices in there, the usual story—the top sells well, the middle market is spotty, and the bottom is non-existent.”

-edited from http://www.bloodhorse.com