Taproot Bloodstock spends $515,000 on three yearlings at Fasig-Tipton sale

Taproot Bloodstock left Fasig-Tipton’s July Sale with a three-horse portfolio built for both the racetrack and the market, spending $515,000 on a Taiba colt and two fillies at Newtown Paddocks in Lexington. The headliner was Hip 36, a $300,000 colt by first-crop sire Taiba out of the Tiznow mare Dayfa, the highest-priced of only four Taiba yearlings sold at the auction.

Phil Hager’s group was not shopping for flash alone. The Taiba colt fit a clear profile: a big, two-turn dirt horse with mental composure, pedigree depth and enough commercial appeal to keep options open later on. His background is loaded with the kind of names breeders still chase, with inbreeding to Gun Runner’s family and multiple A.P. Indy influences. Bred in Kentucky by Don Alberto Corporation, the colt also carried a proven page through Dayfa, whose five foals have all sold for at least $100,000 at some point. She produced an $850,000 Gun Runner colt at the 2021 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Sale and a $400,000 Gun Runner colt at Keeneland September in 2023, while her second dam, Dance Quietly, produced stakes winner Dance d’Oro.

The other Taproot purchases filled out the same idea from different angles. Hip 40, a filly by Army Mule, cost $150,000 and is the first foal out of Dixie Supreme. Hip 62, a filly by Cairo Prince, rounded out the trio and pushed the total into seven figures of intent without crossing into excess. Hager viewed the group as a set of future runners with commercial lanes, not just three separate transactions.

That approach landed in a sale that was already running hot. Fasig-Tipton said 147 yearlings sold for $17,096,000, with both the $116,299 average and $95,000 median setting sale records. The day’s topper was a $600,000 Vekoma colt, while the July Selected Horses of Racing Age sale produced another headline when Our Moneyman brought a sale-record $2,000,000. Boyd Browning called it a “great start” to the yearling sales season and pointed to the blend of end users and pinhookers still active on the grounds.

Taiba’s appeal helped frame the buying. The son of Gun Runner entered stud in 2024 at Spendthrift Farm in Lexington and was advertised at a $25,000 fee for 2026. His four yearlings at the sale averaged $210,000, an early sign that the market has already given him credibility as a stallion whose best offspring may still be ahead of him. With three well-bred yearlings in hand, Taproot made a wager on that next wave of stakes talent.