Wonder Gadot to breed with Almond Eye's Japanese sire

The final quarter of Tuesday night’s Fasig-Tipton November Sale figured to produce rapid-fire, million-dollar purchases. 

In the process, a pair of champions who used to call the Mark Casse barn home gained new connections.

First, Mike Shannon won out for Shamrock Rose, the Eclipse Award-winning female sprinter who captured the 2018 Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Sprint, for $2.5 million.

Later, Japan’s K I Farm bid $2 million to purchase Canada’s 2018 Horse of the Year, Wonder Gadot, who won two legs of her home nation’s Triple Crown and appeared in the Travers Stakes (G1) against males.

K I Farm’s Tomo Nakamura, whose family runs the operation, said Wonder Gadot will go to Japanese stallion Lord Kanaloa, sire of star turf runner Almond Eye.

Almond Eye is the multiple Group 1 winner of races such as the Dubai Turf having won seven of nine career races.

Nakamura’s operation has also purchased Canadian champs Lexie Lou and Catch a Glimpse — other Casse trainees — in recent years.

“We’re very happy to have the champions from Canada,” Nakamura said via translator.

Other notable purchases as time wound down on Tuesday’s “Night of the Stars” included…

• Hip 155: Grade 2 winner Mopotism, who ran for trainer Doug O’Neill, went to Don Alberto Corporation for $1.05 million.

• Hip 159: My Miss Lilly, another Grade 2 winner of Aqueduct’s Gazelle, also fetched $1.05 million from Lake Villa Farm.

• Hip 172: Road to Victory, the only horse to thus far beat Monomoy Girl, that in the Golden Rod (G2) toward the end of 2017, hammered for $1.45 million. She’s headed to Stonestreet Farm.

• Hip 175: Secret Spice, whose swan song came with a ninth-place finish in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff, is also a Grade 1 winner of Santa Anita’s Beholder earlier this year. Katsumi Yoshida signed for $1.4 million.

• Hip 177: Separationofpowers, a Grade 1-winning sprinter at ages 2 and 3, went to Hunter Valley Farm for $2.1 million.

• Hip 193: The Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf runner-up Vasilika was another for Yoshida, this one costing $1.5 million.

• Hip 197: Wow Cat, Grade 1 winner of last year’s Beldame, finished up with a seventh in the Distaff. She went to White Birch Farm for $1.7 million.