What do a weanling, a lay-up and a $500 mare have to with a top weekend at the races? For Meg Levy they led to an unforgettable 72-hour stretch at Saratoga last weekend with New York-breds.
The biggest personal win came Sunday when Levy-bred Simply Ravishing won on debut for trainer Ken McPeek and owners Harold Lerner, Magdalena Racing and Nehoc Stables. Bred on a stallion right her husband owns in Laoban, the New York-bred filly was also sold by Bluewater Sales for $50,000 at the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky October yearling sale.
The victory was a fitting next chapter in the story of Simply Ravishing’s dam Four Wishes, who had been abandoned at a boarding facility and purchased for just $500 by Levy on her birthday in 2017.
“It was on my birthday in February and we were driving over to the Fasig-Tipton February sale,” Levy said. “Someone called me and said ‘there’s a mare by More Than Ready that is in a bad place, she’s been abandoned and the boarding farm is just trying to sell her for whatever they can get.’ I asked what her name was and they said ‘Four Wishes’ and I thought ‘Oh my gosh, how can I resist stopping by to see a mare named Four Wishes on my birthday?’ I arrived and she was pretty thin and something just told me that she deserved a better place so I gave the guy $500 and we picked her up.”
