The next Good Magic? Brown to train $2.1 million Keeneland colt

After signing the ticket Wednesday for a $2.1 million son of Pioneerof the Nile, agent Mike Ryan pointed to his hat and said, “We’re hoping he’s as good as this horse up here.”

The cap promoted the 2-year-old champion colt of 2017 Good Magic, who’s now standing at Hill ’n Dale Farm.

Good Magic’s co-owner, e Five Racing, purchased the Keeneland September Yearling Sale’s Hip 519. And suffice to say there are high expectations for the half-sibling to unbeaten 3-year-old filly Guarana, a multiple Grade 1 winner.

“He’s a different color, but he reminded me of him a lot,” said Ryan, with Good Magic a chestnut and this new acquisition a dark bay or brown colt. “His mechanics, his movement, his mind, his aura, his demeanor.

“He’s young — he’s a May foal — but he’s beautifully made.”

“She went from his maiden to the Acorn to the Coaching Club American Oaks,” Ryan noted of Guarana, a possible favorite in Parx Racing’s Sept. 21 Cotillion Stakes (G1). “The 2-year-old’s pretty good, too.

“The way the market was going, it was going to take that kind of money to buy him.”

Ryan said Hip 519 has the look of a horse that can run at age 2 but stretch his speed to 1 1/4 miles. Good Magic went down that road, breaking his maiden in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, finishing second to Justify in the 2018 Kentucky Derby and making the Haskell Invitational (G1) his final career victory.

“He’s not a big, heavy horse,” Ryan said. “He’s naturally lean and athletic and I would hope that he could be like Magic — run in the Breeders’ Cup.”

Chad Brown will train the colt, and Ryan suggested e Five Racing’s Bob Edwards could take on a partner by the time Hip 519 makes it to the racetrack.

Brown also trains Guarana.

"I'm excited they got the horse," Brown said, "and obviously we think so highly of Guarana. He looked like a lovely colt."