by Dave Briggs

Rather than speak the obvious about the 13 horses Blue Chip Farms is selling at the Lexington Selected Yearling Sale, farm owner Tom Grossman opted to go in-depth on two horses.

“There’s two that stick out to me,” Grossman said. “The one is the Chapter Seven filly that we’re selling, Hip 121 (Vulpine Blue Chip). Her video is good, but doesn’t do her justice. The page is the page and she’s obviously a very interesting cross, but nothing I can tell you that anyone that’s going to bid on the horse wouldn’t know. I think the video is good, but that’s one where I lose a little sleep because I’ve seen her in the paddock real quiet several times and I’ve seen her do things out in the field, even before she was brought in, that, to be honest, the video doesn’t do her justice. It’s not bad and it wouldn’t turn anyone off, but I don’t think it jumps through the screen, yet I know that she’s had those moments.

“Maybe this is too inside baseball, but I try to view them as if I was a buyer. The pacing filly I have, which is out of Obvious Blue Chip, which we love (Hip 284, Varsity Blue Chip). I really have had to try to trick my enthusiasm… I’ll be honest, she’s just the kind of pacer that I try to buy. Obviously, I like the pedigree. I might be guilty of probably liking your own cooking too much, but she doesn’t stand absolutely perfectly. You could knock her conformation, but in the paddock and even in the video, I know she handles it much differently than it looks standing on the floor.

“There will be some people that look at her on the floor and say, ‘The front end isn’t perfect’ and that’s true, but, for me, when I’m buying, I like to buy when there’s a small flaw but it seems as though the horse handles it very well and it’s not going to be a point of breakdown or it’s going to put too much stress on that spot.”

Lexington is just the beginning for Blue Chip this auction season. The New York farm will sell almost 60 yearlings in November at the Standardbred Horse Sales Company’s auction in Harrisburg, PA.