Daily Racing Form
Written by: John P. Sparkman
9-4-2017, For a state that produces only around 500 Thoroughbred foals per year, Oklahoma has produced its fair share of top racehorses. Racing Hall of Famer Lady’s Secret, who was Horse of the Year and champion older mare in 1986, earned $3,021,325, but is not the leading money-earning Oklahoma-bred. That honor belongs to Kip Deville, winner of the 2007 Breeders’ Cup Mile and three other Grade 1 races, who earned $3,103,197.
Lady Ivanka, winner of the Grade 1 Spinaway Stakes at Saratoga on Sept. 2, may never reach those heights of fame and fortune, but with a Grade 1 victory already on her resume, she will have a plaque reserved for her in the Oklahoma Horse Racing Hall of Fame at Remington Park.
Bred in Oklahoma by Scott Pierce, Lady Ivanka passed through the auction ring at Keeneland both as a weanling and a yearling without finding a public buyer at modest reserves. Despite matching the fastest quarter-mile breeze show time of the sale of 21 2/5 at the 2017 Fasig-Tipton Midlantic sale of 2-year-olds in training, Lady Ivanka still failed to find a buyer in the ring, but was purchased privately after the sale by agent Kim Valerio on behalf of Michael Dubb, Bethlehem Stables, Michael Imperio, and Susan Montanye for $80,000.
One reason for buyers’ lack of confidence in this filly with obvious speed was her pedigree. Her dam, Lady Leftennant, by Officer, had placed once in four starts and sold to Pierce at the 2013 Heritage Place Thoroughbred Sale. At that point she had two non-winning foals of racing age, but her next three foals were winners in modest company. Lady Ivanka is her first foal bred by Pierce, and she has since produced a 2017 colt by Tapiture.
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