A bid of $1.7 million was not enough to buy the Maryland filly Xtra Heat last night at the Fasig-Tipton November selected sale of thoroughbreds in Lexington, Ky.
The Eclipse Award-winning filly will be transported by van back to her Laurel Park stall today and continue racing for her Maryland owners, said John Salzman, her trainer. Salzman owns the 4-year-old Xtra Heat with fellow Marylanders Ken Taylor and Harry Deitchman.
They had placed her in the auction with a reserve of slightly less than $2 million, Salzman said, meaning a bid had to surpass that for her to be sold. Bidding started at $500,000 - 100 times the $5,000 the trio paid for her 2 1/2 years ago - but fizzled out before reaching the reserve.
"We did what we came to do," Salzman said by phone from the sales pavilion. "We ran her through the ring. We weren't going to give her away. She's worth more than that to us to keep her racing."
Xtra Heat has won 24 of 32 races and earned $2.2 million, making her the richest sprinting filly in history. As she entered the ring about 9:15 p.m., Terence Collier, the announcer, told the crowd in the packed pavilion: "This is the moment you've obviously been waiting for."
Collier said seeing Xtra Heat in the ring "sends shivers down your spine. ... She's one of the most exciting horses in training today. ... She's the type of mare anybody in the world would want to own."
Even Collier's salesmanship couldn't spark a bid high enough to consummate a sale. The identity of the high bidder was not immediately known.
This was the fifth auction for Xtra Heat. As a weanling she sold for $9,100, as a yearling for $4,700 and as a 2-year-old for $5,000. After paying that $5,000 in May 2000 at Timonium, Salzman and his partners tried unsuccessfully to sell her last year at an auction on the Internet.
Meanwhile, they raced her every month but two, and she responded by winning 23 stakes, including one Grade I, five Grade II and four Grade III. After finishing second in last year's Breeders' Cup Sprint, she won the Eclipse Award as outstanding 3-year-old filly.
In her most recent race, the Breeders' Cup Sprint nine days ago at Arlington Park, Xtra Heat finished sixth. Salzman said he didn't know when she would race next. The Frank J. De Francis Memorial Dash on Nov. 16 at Laurel Park is a possibility, he said.