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NEWS 
THE TEAM
THE METHOD
GETTING STARTED
FAMOUS HORSES
STATISTICS
ROSTER
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“I liked him when I did my first pass through,” Irwin said. “He made the final cut. “I had decided to buy just the one colt and the one filly, but after buying the sale topper, my thoughts kept coming back to the white colt. When I saw him come into the ring while I was watching him on the monitor, I decided to get up and walk down stairs from the Fasig-Tipton board room to put myself in physical position to bid if the price was low. “I reckoned he would bring somewhere around $360,000. When the bidding sputtered at around $200,000, I bid $210,000. Somebody went to $220,000 and I made one more bid at $230,000 and got him. “The reason I bought him is that I sensed the sale was starting to break in two, with the fashionable horses that looked good attracting bids and the ones with marginal conformation or unproven pedigrees floundering. “This colt is by Tapit, which is not going to give many people a goose bump. But he was terrific looking enough to bring $70,000 as a weanling and he must have improved, because I liked him very much. “This colt will run long, he is rangy and he has a lot of quality. Usually grey horses do not sell well, because they don’t show well, as their color makes them difficult to assess. “This one was quite unusual for a grey in that you could see his quality all day long.” Irwin said that he cannot remember the last time he bought a grey horse. “They look lovely when their coat turns and you can tell something about the way they are built. Fortunately for us, this colt has lightened up so much already his quality was easily discernible.”
Irwin received phone calls or in-person visits from four of its trainers and one not currently on the payroll, as each registered his bid to be able to train the Tapit colt. John Kimmel had been underbidder and Dale Romans also bid on the colt. Irwin decided to give the youngster to Dale Romans, who trains in Kentucky, New York and Florida. The colt will be syndicated on the basis of $287,500 into interests of 10 percent ($28,750), 5 percent ($14,375) or 2 ½ percent ($7,187.50). Mortality insurance will be invoiced to partners separately for a one-year policy. Interested parties are asked to contact Amy Collingsworth at (888) 434-2677 or teamvalor2@aol.com Tapit, sire of Phantom Avalanche, was also grey. He raced only 6 times, winning half his starts, two of them Graded stakes, these being the Grade 3 Laurel Futurity at 2 in an amazing performance that made him a Triple Crown candidate, and the Grade 1 Wood Memorial at 3 in a race that stamped him as definite Classic material. “Possibly the worse-handled Classic horse in the last decade,” surmised Barry Irwin. “He had all the ability in the world, but between the trainer and the owner, there was more planning and strategizing than running. It’s too bad, too, because he was good enough to win a Triple Crown race.” Tapit has a stallion’s pedigree. His own sire Pulpit is a successful son of leading sire A. P. Indy and he has made an excellent name for himself standing at Claiborne Farm near Paris, Kentucky, where his fee is $80,000. The dam of Tapit is a stakes-winning three-quarter sister to Rubiano, who was an Eclipse Award-winning sprinter with the ability to stretch his speed as he exhibited when twice winning the Westchester Handicap in New York, where his best wins included the Grade 1 Vosburgh Handicap.
The next dam was a stakes-winning half-sister to Relaunch, double Graded stakes winner on turf at Del Mar who was Grade 1 placed in Southern California and has been an extraordinarily successful sire, sire of sires (Tiznow) and broodmare sire. So Tapit’s first four dams are all stakes winners and each is a half-sister to a stallion that made a mark at stud. Phantom Avalanche also has a successful female family. First of all, his broodmare sire Dehere, was a Champion Colt at 2 after winning both the Grade 1 Champagne and Hopeful Stakes. He won the Grade 2 Fountain of Youth at 3. He has done well at stud both in the United States and Australia. Dehere has come up with two tremendous horses with connections to Phantom Avalanche. A colt in Japan out of a mare by Relaunch named Keiai Guard earned more than $1.3 million and was a Graded stakes performer and stakes winner. And Dehere when bred to a daughter of Rubiano produced Take Charge Lady, a $2.48-million earner who won the Grade 1 Spinster Stakes twice at Keeneland. The first and only foal to run out of Phantom Avalanche's dam Bathsheba is named Birthday Kid. The second dam produced 3 stakes winners in Warm Heart (won the Group 3 Norfolk and was placed in the Group 1 Prix Morny at 2 in England and France), Royal Tigress (One Thousand Guineas Trial Stakes in Ireland for this Storm Cat filly) and Miguel Cervantes (stakes win in England for this son of Danzig). Third dam Summer Mood was a Champion in Canada where she won 17 races and earned more than $540,000. She produced a stakes winner in Japan and one of her daughters produced a stakes winner in France. Fourth dam Fairly Regal was a stakes winner at 2 in Canada that produced 4 stakes winners including Present Value, a multiple Graded stakes winner of $1,153,853 in Southern California. Related Links:
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