By Sarah Mace
The Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Sale is among the most renowned and competitive arenas for the North American yearling market, and success at the Spa will certainly put an up-and-coming breeding operation on the map.
This was exactly the case for Thirty Year Farm at the 2023 renewal of the annual auction, which once again set records for total sales and average price. On Tuesday, August 8, in the second session of the two-day sale, Hip 227, the farm’s yearling filly from the first foal crop of Authentic, a half-sister to multi-millionaire and multiple Grade 1 winner Casa Creed, brought a winning bid of $725,000 from Charlotte Weber’s Live Oak Plantation.
Foaled on April 15, 2022, the bay filly debuted in the sales ring as a weanling at the 2022 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky fall mixed sale. In Kentucky, the youngster RNA’d on a final bid of $390,000, implying that her connections were confident that the well-bred individual was meant for bigger things. The $725,000 Saratoga price tag validated that belief. Paramount Sales consigned her both last fall and at the Saratoga sale. Virtual inspection.
The filly’s dam is Achalaya, an unraced daughter of Bellamy Road who was purchased by Thirty Year Farm with the sale filly in utero for $725,000 at the 2021 Keeneland November Breeding sale. All four of Achalaya’s foals to start are winners, led by the hardy Casa Creed, who has earned more than $2.1 million over six seasons and 32 career starts. Among Casa Creed’s achievements are three Grade 1 wins (Fourstardave H. and Jaipur S. [twice]), the Grade 2 Hall of Fame S., the Grade 3 Kelso S. plus two more listed stakes. The Kelso victory at Saratoga came on July 15, and was one of four timely updates on the filly’s already black-type-laden catalogue page. Achalaya is also the dam of graded winner Chess’s Dream.
The filly’s second dam is Wild Heart Dancing, a multiple graded stakes winner and dam of two stakes performers, as well as Allemande, an unraced graded stakes producer. Third dam Star of Wicklow also produced multiple graded winner Man from Wicklow.
The farm has much to look forward to with 11-year-old Achalaya. She foaled a Curlin filly on April 20, 2023 and has been bred to Life Is Good.
Thirty Year Farm is owned Kristen Esler and her husband Matt, and was named in honor of the couple’s thirtieth wedding anniversary when they purchased the property six years ago. Also instrumental to the aspirations of team Esler are farm consultant Jeff Raine, former manager of Chestertown Farm, and farm manager Lolly LaRue. The farm was profiled in last Sunday’s TDN (“Thirty Year Farm On Track to Stamp Its Presence in Saratoga”).
With the conclusion of trading at Fasig Tipton’s select yearling sale in Saratoga, there is less than a week to go before the event at the same venue that virtually every New York-breeder circled on the calendar a long time ago: the Fasig-Tipton New York-bred yearling sale. Held Sunday and Monday, August 13-14, the sale is rightly billed as the industry’s leading source of quality New York-bred yearlings.
