by David Mattia, USTA Web Newsroom Senior Correspondent

New Brunswick, NJ — Mystical Sunshine 6,1:50.3 ($1,793,755) is an immeasurably talented daughter of Yankee Glide, from the Royal Prestige mare Aura Of Glory, and up until last Friday afternoon she was owned by Sidney Korn and the estate of Alvin I. Jacobson.

Entering the sales ring at Harrisburg as hip #1687 as part of the Northwood Bloodstock consignment, this royally bred millionaire created quite a buzz when the hammer fell and she sold for a whopping $525,000. The buzz was well deserved because seeing a mare of this caliber pass through a public sale is a somewhat rare occurrence.

The two-time Breeders Crown champion mare was purchased by Carter Duer, acting as agent for Dana Parham and Robin Schadt’s Odds On Nourrir — the breeding arm of their successful racing and breeding operation.

“She’s a grand looking mare,” said Duer. “I had a client who wanted to buy the best one there — or one that I thought was the best. Mystical Sunshine was the best one on that particular day and she’s the one we bought.

“I would like to breed her to Donato Hanover if I can get in. Hopefully, in the latter part of March she’ll be bred to Donato Hanover because I don’t see why we wouldn’t get him.

Racehorsephoto.com photo

Mystical Sunshine finished her career on the track with 27 wins and nearly $1.8 million in earnings.

Mystical Sunshine has had phenomenal racing success since she began her career back on July 19, 2003 in a qualifier at Springfield, Illinois. She won that qualifying race in 2:05 over a sloppy track for driver Tom Simmons and trainer Erv Miller. She followed that with another qualifying win, but strangely, she didn’t break her maiden until May 9, 2004 when she won a $10,000 overnight event at The Meadowlands in 1:55.3 for driver Jim Morrill, Jr. and trainer Chris Ryder.

After that win her career skyrocketed. She finished up with 27 lifetime wins and a thick bankroll that might even impress Donato Hanover.

In spite of her on-track success, Mystical Sunshine is also known in trotting circles to be a beautiful horse, and Carter Duer, with the eye of an artist, but using the words of a man in the business of breeding horses, describes her best.

“She looks like she is — she looks like a great horse. She has the look. She’s a very strong mare and she’s relatively correct. She’s what you want a mare to look like. Her racing record was great, and she competed on all sized tracks against all or any of the horses that were out there. She didn’t always win but she was a very competitive mare over a four-year period.

“The only downside is I wish that she was a year younger. She raced this year at six and if I could change anything I would make her a year younger, but I can’t do that — you have to go with what you’ve got.”

This isn’t the first time Duer has signed for a big-ticket mare. In 1998 he purchased a 5-year-old Continentalvictory for the hefty sum of $760,000.

Duer was impressed with the sales results this year, and he offered his opinion as to why some horses were bringing big bucks and others weren’t.

“The sales were very strong on the upper end of the market, particularly the trotting market. I guess somewhat because of the number of foreign buyers we had here, and the value of the Euro and the Canadian dollar as opposed to the U.S. dollar made it a better deal for them.

“The few people we have in the business anymore — you know most of them go toward high quality stock because of the costs involved with staking and training, so we have fewer owners who buy fewer horses, but they buy higher quality ones. There’s more demand for the high quality ones and less demand for the lesser quality ones.”

Currently, Mystical Sunshine is relaxing at Duer’s Peninsula Farm in Lexington, Ky., and she is being prepared for the 2008 breeding season.

“We’ll put her under the lights the first of December,” said Duer. “Hopefully, we’ll get her ready to breed and hopefully again she’ll go about that part of her life as a broodmare just like she did her racing part.”

While the harness racing world eagerly awaits the first foal from Mystical Sunshine, Carter Duer is just hoping for a healthy horse.

“I don’t care if it’s a colt or a filly,” said Duer emphatically. “Just as long as it’s relatively correct and healthy, and out of the mare Mystical Sunshine it wouldn’t make a whole lot of difference so long as you got the right individual — probably a very striking colt might bring a lot more initially — but I don’t care what it is so long as it’s okay.”

Sometime in early April, Mystical Sunshine will hopefully be pronounced in foal — and the stallion on the mating certificate will be Donato Hanover.