Barbara Banke’s Stonestreet Stables and the Coolmore contingent continued their strategic alliance Wednesday at Keeneland September, teaming up to take home a $925,000 Pioneerof the Nile full-brother to speedy turfer Midnight Storm, who recently completed a three-race win streak that started in Santa Anita’s GI Shoemaker Mile S. June 4, continued with the GII Eddie Read S. July 17 and was completed in the Aug. 21 GII Del Mar Mile H. The dark bay colt was consigned to the sale by Warrendale Sales, Agent XVI as hip 529.
Stonestreet purchased another colt by the same sire for $950,000 at the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga sale in August.
“We bought another Pioneerof the Nile at Saratoga,” Stonestreet’s John Moynihan noted. “This was a beautiful, beautiful horse. We loved him, and hopefully we’ll have some luck with him–now we’ll figure out where he goes.”
Hip 529 was bred in Kentucky by Alex Venneri and Marjorie Post Dye. Venneri bought him back for $300,000 as a weanling at last year’s Keeneland November sale. California socialite Post Dye had passed away that April.
“Alex Venneri bought out Miss Post’s estate,” explained Warrendale’s Hunter Simms. “They raced Midnight Storm together in partnership with Little Red Feather. It was a very good buyback, to say the least.”
When asked why he decided to keep the colt last year, Venneri offered, “I just didn’t want to get rid of him for the $300,000. He actually had live bids up to $285,000, and I just really liked him, so I decided to take a shot. I thought he’d grow up to be a nice-looking horse, because I know that mare’s weanlings are good-looking, but her yearlings become exceptionally good-looking… We knew he’d bring a lot of money–he had all the big guys on him, but you never know what the end result will be. He’s certainly a nice horse, and I hope he does fantastic for them.”
Venneri is the founder and president of La Canada, California-based real estate mortgage business Reme, Inc. He also bred and campaigned two-time Grade II winner Bright Thought (Hat Trick {Jpn}) with Post Dye.
“Cliff Sise, Jr. trained for me many, many years ago, and he said to me, ‘Hey, do you want to partner with one of my clients? She’s really sweet.’” Venneri explained when asked how he first got involved with his former partner. “I said I’d love to, and we ended up partnering on a horse, then we bought a few more and then I told her at one point that I really wanted to start a breeding operation, and she said, ‘Ya! I’ll do it with you.’ I was fortunate enough to have a partner who let me do sort of cock-eyed things, because most partners would’ve told me I was crazy. I took these mares that really weren’t great mares, but I liked their conformation or pedigree and I said, ‘Let’s go to Kentucky and breed to the most expensive stallion we can afford.’ And she said, ‘Go for it.’”
Hip 259’s dam My Tina (Bertrando), an $82,000 yearling purchase at the 2002 CTBA Del Mar Yearling sale, won just once in maiden-claiming company from eight tries for Venneri, Dye and Sise. Her still-unraced Stay Thirsty 2-year-old colt was a $280,000 KEENOV weanling in 2014. My Tina failed to produce a foal after being bred back to Pioneerof the Nile in 2015, and visited Bodemeister this spring.
“We just wanted to stay with the Empire Maker line,” Venneri, who owns more than 40 horses, including 15 broodmares, noted. “We just really like [Bodemeister] as a stallion. We’re considering Medaglia d’Oro for her next year.”
Courtesy of the TDN
