From stallions of the first season Volatile Of the six winners from 20 starts, two came Saratoga Racetrack— a small sample, but also encouraging for Three Chimneys, where the son of Violence stands for $15,000.

“This is really exciting for a horse that was super fast but not particularly precocious,” said Chris Baker, COO of Three Chimneys. “His two-year-olds are doing this in the right places before the sales.”

The Three Chimneys home breeding Reliable source from the unraced mare Broken Vow Repeat is Volatile’s most recent winner, winning a Maiden Special Weight by 2 1/2 lengths at Saratoga on July 28. Reliable Source was bred by Three Chimneys and is now trained by Steve Asmussen. He was a $250,000 RNA at last year’s Keeneland September Yearling Sale.

“We liked her so much that if someone wanted to buy her from us, they had to value her significantly more than we did,” Baker said. “When that didn’t happen in September, we were happy to put her into training. She’s athletic and is by our first-time stallion, who we believe in. She’s out of a mare that has proven to be an excellent producer of racehorses with various sires, so it was a pretty easy choice. I think the market liked her, but maybe not as much as we did. For a stud fee of $17,500, $250,000 is a lot of money. A price more than 10 times the stud fee would make a lot of people say, ‘Yeah, I’m out.'”

Repeta is the mother of the Grade 3 winner Mucho Del Oro (from Very Macho Man ) and Grade 1-placed stakes winner Once again fantastic (from Fantastic ).

Bradley Thoroughbreds, agent, did not hesitate to bid up to $315,000 for Volatile’s other winner at Saratoga this summer at the same auction. Performance bonus From the Distorted humor mare Distinguishable The chestnut stallion is owned by Klaravich Stables and won by 2 1/2 lengths in his debut on July 20.

“(Trainer Chad Brown) works really hard at Keeneland on Books 1 and 2, and every now and then, when we don’t quite find everything we want, he tells me to call him if he sees anything later in the sale,” Bradley said. “I called him about three horses in Book 3, he looked at them and said, ‘Let’s try this one.'”

Incentive Pay was bred in Kentucky by Kathryn Nikkel, Old Dominion and Turtle Creek Farms and consigned by Four Star Sales.

“Did you see him in the paddock?” Bradley asked after the horse race. “He was the same at the sale, just relaxed. The horses in Book 3 in particular have to be shown a lot and he was a first-class performer the whole time.”

“He’s beautiful and poised,” Bradley continued, “and he looks like a horse with two turns.”

“Buying offspring from first-crop stallions has been a successful approach for Seth and me,” Brown said of owner Seth Klarman. “Our two Preakness winners are from first-crop stallions.”

Brown and Klarman won the 2017 Preakness (G1) with Cloud Computing jointly owned with William Lawrence, from the first harvest of Maclean’s Music and repeats in 2022 with Early voting out of Arms smugglers ‘s first harvest. Gun Runner is also available at Three Chimneys, for a private fee.

“Buying the offspring of first-bred stallions fits Seth’s approach to buying horses and building his portfolio,” Brown said. “He wants to find value. He’s not looking for the best-selling horse that’s worth a million dollars. That’s not part of our plan. Often times, good individuals from first-bred stallions present opportunities in our price range.”

Brown also noted that it was Bradley and Nick de Meric who conducted the initial training for Incentive Pay and were also responsible for putting him in touch with Klarman.

Volatile Saratoga winners offer impressive updates for the grey/roan colt offered at this week’s Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Sale. Bred by Three Chimneys Farm, he is out of the mare Smart Strike Bush pilot and half-brother of Millionaire, who won Class 1 Weapons Pilot who Baker said is expected to run in the Forego Stakes (G1) at Saratoga on August 24. He was consigned by Taylor Made Sales Agency as Hip 240 and received an A+ grade in BloodHorse’s Auction Edge sales preview.

“Volatile has been extremely consistent in all of his books,” Baker said. “He has decent numbers of mares from a variety of demographics and he has shown good, correct, athletic-looking physical performance. His foals are good-natured and easy to handle.”

“Now it looks like those consistent performances are matching up with athletic performance, and that’s what he really needs.”