‘A Great Start’: Jack Christopher’s First Crop Shines During Yearling Season’s Opening Tilt originally appeared on Paulick Report.
There’s no such thing as starting too fast when it comes to the bloodstock market, and Jack Christopher got the jump on everyone in his rookie stallion class on Tuesday at the Fasig-Tipton July Yearling Sale.
The Ashford Stud resident, a son of Munnings, was responsible for two of the top three offerings in the July sale’s Freshman Sire Showcase that kicked off the catalog, including the overall sale-topper; a colt who hammered for $350,000.
The sons and daughters of Jack Christopher that filed in behind the sale-topper displayed the market’s belief in the crop beyond the top individual. Nine of them sold out of the 10 that were cataloged, six of them hammered for six-figure prices, and three went for $200,000 or more. The group’s median sale price was $150,000.
“To get $350,000 for your first to go through the ring is a great start,” said Ashford Stud’s Adrian Wallace. “But, at the end of the day, (Jack Christopher’s) a very well credentialed racehorse who showed a a lot of precocity in winning his three Grade 1s when he was on the track, and they tend to look a little bit like him. Munnings stamped his horses very much like himself, and Jack Christopher seems to be doing the same.”
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Jack Christopher was North America’s fourth-most active stallion during his debut season at stud in 2023, attracting 247 mares to his book. His initial stud fee was $45,000.
He entered stud with five wins in six career starts and earnings in excess of $1.2 million. He won the G1 Champagne Stakes as a juvenile, then came back at three to win the G1 H. Allen Jerkens Memorial Stakes, the G1 Woody Stephens Stakes, and the G2 Pat Day Mile Stakes.
Bred in Kentucky by Castleton Lyons and Kilboy Estate, Jack Christopher is out of the placed Half Ours mare Rushin No Blushin, who is herself a half-sister to Grade 1 winner and sire Street Boss.
Jack Christopher tied for the third-most horses entered by a first-crop stallion in the Fasig-Tipton July catalog, with 10, and Wallace said the patterns among them were making themselves clear on the sales grounds.
“They’re generally well conformed horses,” Wallace said. “They look fast. They hopefully will be early and if they’re continuing to stoke the buyers’ enthusiasm, you’d hope that he’ll have a very good sales season, but what a great start for him, and and we’re tremendously pleased.
“They’ve got good hips and shoulders on them, great bodies, good enough movers,” he continued. “They’re very correct.”
Tuesday’s session-topper was Hip 35, a colt out of the winning Discreetly Mine mare Above the Crowd who sold to CHC Inc. and Maverick Racing – the nom-de-sales ticket of WinStar Farm’s Elliott Walden – for $350,000.
The chestnut colt’s third dam is the Grade 1 winner Strategic Maneuver, who is the pivot point for runners including Japanese Group 1 winner Admire Zoom, U.S. Grade 2 winners Cat Fighter and Tiztastic, and Irish Group 3 winner Ishiguru. The colt was bred in Kentucky by Susan King, and was prepared by Stonebridge Farm.
Hip 35, a Jack Christopher colt, topped the 2025 Fasig-Tipton July Yearling Sale at $350,000Fasig-Tipton Photo
Zach Madden’s Buckland Sales consigned the sale-topper as agent, and he said the colt separated himself from the rest as soon as he stepped off the van.
“He was as good showing today and this morning as he was the first day we showed,” Madden said. “He was out almost 200 times total. He was a machine out here, and he never really flicked a hair. He just had all the intangibles. It’s 95 degrees, and I’ve come over here before, and the horses have wilted.
“He was just such a pro, and he honestly deserved that, because when you come over here, you never know how they’re going to react,” he continued. “It’s a new environment, new everything. I give the folks at Stonebridge Farm a ton of credit because they had this horse fit. If they didn’t have him fit, it wouldn’t have been that result.”
While Madden’s colt was the standout among the Jack Christophers at this particular sale, the consignor said there would be plenty more where that came from in the auctions to follow.
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“I’m a big fan,” he said. “I loved him as a racehorse, and we have a handful to offer this summer and fall, but they all look like fast dirt horses. Obviously, that’s what he was, and it’s always good to see strength and balance. He’s throwing all that and it’s exciting to see, because as we know, that’s what sells and that’s what runs.”
Any strong performance at an auction serves the purpose of drawing attention to a sire, with the hopes of bringing them more mares in the next breeding season. With the breeding season recently finished for the year, success in the July sale is achieved with the hopes that breeders have a long memory when it comes to booking their mares for 2026.
Wallace felt confident that Tuesday’s strong first step for Jack Christopher could kick-start the stallion’s commercial momentum and roll on into booking season.
“He was very popular in his first two books,” Wallace said. “He had plenty of soldiers on the ground, and a lot of horses to go to war with him. He’ll be well represented at every sale.”
This story was originally reported by Paulick Report on Jul 8, 2025, where it first appeared.