Blue Chip picked its blue chip stock for Lexington

by Dave Briggs

Blue Chip Farm will sell a select group of eight yearlings in Lexington, but about 50 more at the Standardbred Horse Sales Company yearling auction in November in Harrisburg, PA. So, how do the connections of the New York farm choose which ones will make the cut for the former?

Farm owner Tom Grossman said, “It’s far from a science, that’s for sure. We’ve played all around with it, but really for Lexington, at least for now, I’ve decided they’ve just got to be obviously good and have all the pedigree and all of the characteristics. I’m not sure of any of this, but it feels like it’s a little easier to get lost in Lexington. We go back and forth, but when on the bubble I tend to go to Harrisburg.

“We just bring the big, obvious ones to Lexington. We feel pretty darn sure about all the ones in Lexington… They wouldn’t be there if we didn’t really feel they clicked all of the boxes. The pedigrees are obvious.”

With that comes offspring sired by fantastic trotting stallion Chapter Seven, a stud that stands at Blue Chip. Chapter Seven has been the leading trotting sire by earnings for all progeny in each of the last five years.

“He’s incredible and I think people forget how he got there,” Grossman said. “He was not an obvious slam dunk stallion at the beginning and he made great horses out of mediocre mares. We started him at $7,500, from memory, and I believe one year we even went less than that. That’s when I knew he was the real deal, with mares that weren’t the obvious blue-blooded pedigrees and he was producing those great horses out of good raceway-type mares. That’s what I think really set him apart and then it hit hyperspace when he did get those great mares, which took a while. It took four or five years, but now he certainly gets as good of mares as anybody else and, obviously, the results speak for themselves.”

Today, Chapter Seven stands for $40,000.

“Honestly, it’s a mixed blessing because I make as many enemies as I do friends, because I have to say no to a lot of people that I really like,” Grossman said of the stallion’s stud fee. “It’s a good problem to have.

“While you’re on Chapter, the two that are most obvious to me — well, all three are very obvious – but Hip #142 out of Hey Livvy [Besta Blue Chip]. She was the fastest trotter that I’ve ever laid eyes on and other people who I respect say the same thing. She was a tad bit crazy and broke more than her fair share, but when she stayed flat she was absolutely lightning. If this was a filly, there’s no chance I would sell it. It’s a perfect individual and it was perfect from the minute he came out of his mother. It’s the first foal out of that mare that we all loved so much that we raced. That’s a slam dunk, in my opinion.

“The Oh My Goodness, Hip #272 [Bellona Blue Chip], that’s a beautiful filly. We’re only selling her because we kept a beautiful filly last year out of the mare. She’s a really nice individual with a great page. That’s the family of Cedar Dove. We feel very strongly about that one.

“The other one I’m proud of is from Religulous, Hip #120 [Barnabas Blue Chip], that we own with Andrew Harris and his guys. They had really struggled to get that mare in foal… She produced a really good Chapter [Seven] named Justice and this is a full-brother to Justice. She had gone empty a few years and they didn’t know what to do with her and we made a deal with them where we did a full share and got her in foal. That one packs extra pride for us that it even exists and it’s a really nice individual.”

Grossman said the New York program is set to explode now that shipped semen is allowed.

“The New York Sires Stakes finally has a very, very, very good reputation among the trainers,” Grossman said. “There’s several horses out there that earned $200,000 and $300,000 never leaving the state. There’s another $250,000 race in a week or two at Vernon that never existed before, so people are very high on New York right now, for the first time really in many years. Part of that is, with the shipped semen, we’ve been able to attract new stallions. We were struggling to find stallions that really wanted to stand here and be bred to, because stallion owners didn’t want to be subject to the shipped semen, but since then we’ve got Cannibal and Winner’s Bet right off the bat.

“So, it’s really increased… This year is a great year for a New York yearling buyer because the numbers are still down, but the money is up. The next few crops have a lot more New York breds because the Cannibals start selling and then the Winner’s Bets and the Back Of The Necks, which I shouldn’t have left out. We’re selling his first crop this year.

“Those were stallion choices that we didn’t have in New York and that was the knock. People would say, ‘I’d like to breed in New York, but I can’t get into Chapter and there’s no one else I really want to breed to.’ We now have a lot more to offer for them. So, it’s a very interesting year, in that the money has picked up, the attention has picked up, but the numbers haven’t picked up that you’ll have to race against until next year and the year after.”

But, back to Blue Chip’s Lexington consignment… As for one that stole Grossman’s heart, it was Hip #513 Bernadettebluechip, a Green Manalishi S filly out of Herbies Niece.

“Her pedigree is slightly lighter than the rest of this group that we have here, but the individual is just so stunning that I had to put her in there,” Grossman said. “We had quite a bit of debate around the farm about it, so if it doesn’t sell well, I’m going to be an ass.

“It’s one of those pedigrees that I like to buy, actually. The back pedigree is great and the mare – again, two of them didn’t make it for reasons I know well – but certainly it’s the family of Donato Hanover and Here Comes Herbie. The mare herself hasn’t produced like we had hoped… but this is a stunning individual. So, there’s Blue Chip street cred on that one selling well.”

Blue Chip is also selling one by its stellar pacing sire Bettors Delight.

“That’s a really nice colt, Hip #451 [Baywatch Blue Chip],” Grossman said. “He’s out of a nice Somebeach mare, Blonde Onthe Beach, who did pretty well on the track and out of the family of Arterra, which I think is the best pacing family in the business. I believe Cannibal comes out of that family as well.”