Owner Mike Rutherford spent $1.15 million to acquire Hip 215, a Volatile filly out of grade 1 winner Love and Pride , during the second session of the September Yearling Sale at Keeneland.
Hip 215, consigned by Taylor Made Sales Agency, is from the first crop of Volatile, a grade 1-winning sprinter who stood for an advertised fee this year of $12,500 at Three Chimneys, which is headed by chairman Goncalo Borges Torrealba. Volatile’s first foals are yearlings of 2023.
“It’s very gratifying. It further proves if you bring the goods up here you’re going to be rewarded for it,” Three Chimneys chief operating officer Chris Baker said.
The seventh foal from her dam, who captured the 2012 Personal Ensign Handicap (G1) in the highlight of her near-millionaire career, Hip 215 is related to six other winners, two of them stakes winners. Half sisters Bella Runner (Gun Runner ) and Princesinha Julia (Pioneerof the Nile) captured the 2022 Zia Park Oaks at Zia Park and the 2019 Trapeze Stakes at Remington Park, respectively, both for owner-breeder Three Chimney Farms and Hall of Fame trainer Steve Asmussen.
Three Chimneys bred Hip 215 and this time the farm was rewarded with success in the sales ring.
Mike Rutherford in the Keeneland sales arena
“We’re especially excited with the Volatile filly. His first crop has been super impressive to us,” Baker said. “We’re believers, and obviously we were in breeding that mare to him. And the public believe also.”
He noted Three Chimneys bred some of the top mares to the young sire. Love and Pride is out of the grade 1-placed Storm Cat winner Ile de France, and the immediate family also produced champion 3-year-old colt, American classic winner, and prominent sire Bernardini.
Reflecting on Volatile’s foals, he said, “They have size, substance and scope and they look fast. Very consistent in that regard.”
Hip 215 is a gray or roan, just like her sire, who won five of six starts, topped by 2020 Alfred G. Vanderbilt Handicap (G1) for Asmussen and co-owners Three Chimneys and Phoenix Thoroughbred III.
