Kiss that maiden goodbye

As we're about to kiss their juvenile season goodbye, my sales-tip Class of 2010 -- slowed by weather and other scratches the past few weeks -- collected its 47th maiden-breaker Thursday in Aqueduct victor Kisses From Karen.

Maylan Studart hustled the filly away from the gate, taking advantage of their rail post, and got away with moderate fractions of 23.79 and 48.61 on their way to a 1:14.97 time for six furlongs, winning in gate-to-wire fashion among a field of fillies entered for maiden-claiming $16,000.

Kisses From Karen broke maiden in her fifth start, and has earned $13,852. She is owned by Engel Stable, Darlene Bilinski and Jennifer Contessa, and was trained for the win by Gary Contessa. The daughter of Chief Seattle-Senita Lane, by Ascot Knight, was bred in New York by Tom Dushas.

I shortlisted the dark bay filly when tasked by a client to find the most promising, but least expensive prospects at the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic Sale at Timonium, Md., in May. She sold for $15,000 as Hip 322. I liked that her modest stakes-winning dam (at Hastings Park in Canada) had produced 100 percent starters and six winners from seven older foals, including G2-placed Zip Quik, and that her stakes-placed second dam Kalispera (Golden Reserve-Juana Del Mar, by Fortino) also produced seven winners. It hasn't always been a brilliant family, but it has been a consistently winning one. Her 11-flat breeze was decent for the sale, and though she had a few minor conformational quirks, she showed good bone and was a decent mover.

As noted, Kisses From Karen becomes the 47th winner from the horses I selected on this blog from several of 2010's juvenile sales catalogs. That's 25.1 percent of all selections and 41.2 percent of the 114 to have made at least one start worldwide. The class has won 65 of 437 starts (14.9 percent) and finished in the money in 44.4 percent of all starts. Collective earnings have reached $3,324,960, which is $7,609 per start and an average of $29,166 per starter.

Of the 48 selections I shortlisted at EASMAY, where the horses I recommended on average cost less than half the sales average, Kisses From Karen is one of 26 to race (54.2 percent) and becomes the 11th to win (22.9 percent).

Follow the exploits of the entire sales class in the list at this former post.