On seventh try, Reprized Halo gets his wings

He might not be a stakes horse, now or perhaps ever, but he isn't a run-of-the-mill claimer, either. At least, not today.

Reprized Halo ran like he could walk on water and skipped home a 12 1/4-length winner over the slop Friday in maiden special weight company at Miami's Calder Race Course.

The colt, the 29th of my 187 juvenile sales tips of 2010 to break maiden, was already making his seventh start at age 2. After showing a modicum of promise among maidens but still without a win, he was twice raced against stakes horses, to poor results. Returned to the maiden ranks and risked for a $25,000 tag, he was second beaten only a length, also on a sloppy track. On Friday, he broke sharply from the inside post, raced comfortably along the rail even when headed by competitors on the back stretch, battled through the turn, then simply left the field in his muddy wake in the stretch. (Results and video at Bloodhorse.com.)

Reprized Halo was ridden confidently to the win by apprentice Jose Alvarez, for trainer Manuel Azpurua and owner Roger Urbina. He covered the sloppy mile in 1:42.83.

Urbina purchased Reprized Halo (Halo's Image-Reprized Angel, by Reprized) for just $23,000 from the Ocala Breeders' Sales Co. April auction of 2-year-olds in training, where the colt was catalogued as Hip 331.

I recommended the horse despite his status as the first foal out of an obviously unproven broodmare. His dam, however, won five times from ages 2 to 5, earned nearly $85,000, and was non-blacktype stakes-placed in the Kansas Oaks and Miss Kansas City stakes at the now-defunct Woodlands Racetrack in Kansas City.

More important, she is a full sister to Tropical Park Derby-G3 winner VALID REPRIZED, who also won the Hialeah Juvenile Stakes. Their half-brother, CONVEYOR'S ANGEL, won the Buena Vista H.-G2. Reprized Halo's second, third and fourth dams all were unraced -- as was his dam-sire, Reprized, though a sibling of numerous stakes horses including G1-winning brother, PRIZED -- and usually I'd avoid that kind of mare. But in this colt's case, mama ran, and her unraced dam managed to produce eight winners from nine foals, including the two "big" horses.

Whatever made this family relevant again, I like it. And Reprized Halo helped his case with a 21.2 breeze at the sale, though still sold for less than OBSAPR's modest sale average of $27,918. Reprized Halo earned $24,820 for Friday's win -- more than he cost in April, though obviously other costs have mounted since -- and looks capable of moving forward off that victory.

Especially, it appears, if the connections go storm-chasing.

It was a winless week leading up to Friday for the sales-tips, though What's The Rumpus collected second in a maiden-claimer at Fairplex, winner Bestcasescenario missed getting his second lifetime victory by a neck in a claimer at Laurel, and debuting Unstoppable Mick -- bought for just $10,000 -- finished third (despite 15/1 morning line odds) for a $30,000 tag at Turfway Park.

With 29 maidens broken, that means 15.5 percent of my sales-tips are now winners, before the month of September is out in their juvenile season. They have won 36 of 211 starts (17.1 percent strike rate) and have finished second 39 times and third another 20 for an in-the-money rate of 45 percent.

Their earnings have reached $1,230,136. That equals $5,830 per start.

Follow the class in its entirety here.