Star broodmare Puca will go into sales ring in November
Puca, who has produced two classic winners and a highly regarded colt in the current 3-year-old crop, has been ticketed for auction this fall with hopes she will fetch $5 million.
Resolute Racing founder John Stewart said Thursday that his star broodmare will be in the catalog Nov. 3 at Fasig-Tipton’s November sale in Lexington, Ky.
“She’s 13, so she’s empty,” Stewart said on Horse Racing Nation’s Ron Flatter Racing Pod. “The broodmare of the year, we’re taking her to the night of the stars, and we’ll see what happens.”
Stewart said a $5 million reserve would be set for Puca, the Big Brown mare who cost him close to 60% of that nearly two years ago.
“I think it’s going to take north of $5 million to buy her,” he said. “We paid $2.8 million for her. I don’t want to put horses with unrealistic expectations even though some people think that. You know, the guy that (says) his toys are always worth more than everybody else’s toys. I’m an investor at the end of the day. I may think she’s worth $20 million, right? That’s not like a market asset.”
As a nascent owner, Stewart bought Puca at the November 2023 Keeneland breeding-stock sale, where he went on an eye-catching buying spree. He actually finalized the deal after Puca went through the ring without meeting the $2.8 million reserve set by Robert Clay’s Grandview Equine. The total would have been the sale topper if it had not happened after the gavel fell.
At the time Puca was in foal to Good Magic with a colt now nicknamed Preaky, a full brother to both Kentucky Derby 2023 winner Mage and Belmont Stakes 2024 victor Dornoch. Along the very same bloodlines, Puca produced a filly May 5, her fourth foal by Good Magic.
“She foaled late this year,” Stewart said. “We were going to send her to Frankel. That’s what I would do if I had kept her. He’s the best stallion in the world. I think that there’s turf in the pedigree. She’s already proven on dirt what she can do. To take her to the next level and showing her (via turf), I understand that. But there’s a commercial part of this business as well.”
Stewart, a Kentucky native who runs a successful private-equity firm, turned his lifelong passion for racing into a headlong dive into the deep end of ownership in 2023. Puca, who by McKinzie produced Kentucky Derby and Preakness third-place finisher Baeza, is the star of Resolute Racing’s 51-mare roster.
“She’s definitely been my most lucrative,” Stewart said. “She’s done a really good job for us. Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than it is to be good. She wasn’t on our radar. We weren’t actually looking to buy her when we bought her. But she’s been a good one.”