November 2020 Member of the Month: Meg Levy

Meg Levy is the TOBA November Member of the Month.

Three years after buying the broodmare Four Wishes for $500, Meg Levy parlayed that purchase into top-flight success. This year, Four Wishes’ two-year-old Laoban filly, Simply Ravishing, has won three of four starts and earned $404,600. The daughter of Laoban finished a good fourth in the Nov. 8 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies (G1).

In 2018, Levy sent Four Wishes north. “I decide to send her to New York,” she said, “to breed her to Laoban on our breeding right to possibly make it a little more appetizing, I guess, to pay expenses on.” At the time, Laoban was standing at Sequel Stallions near Hudson, New York, though he has relocated to WinStar Farm in Versailles, Kentucky, for 2021.

Levy has been thrilled with the New York owners’ and breeders’ rewards. “Oh, what a surprise,” she said. “I had had a couple of New York-breds before, but never had a New York-bred by a New York sire, which really increases the percentage of breeders’ awards to have that, being by a New York sire.”

Levy owns and operates Bluewater Sales, located in Lexington, Kentucky, and has built productive relationships with clients all over the world. Bluewater consigned Simply Ravishing to the 2019 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky Fall Yearling sale, where she fetched $50,000 from Harold Lerner. Trained by Kenny McPeek, she now races for Lerner, Nehoc Stables, and Sherri McPeek’s Magdalena Racing.

On August 2, Simply Ravishing broke her maiden at Saratoga on the turf. On September 3, she romped by 6 1/2 lengths in the off-the-turf P.G. Johnson Stakes. Since then, she’s stuck to dirt, scoring by 6 1/4 lengths in the Oct. 2 Darley Alcibiades Stakes (G1) at Keeneland. But she isn’t the only remarkable filly sold by Bluewater to annex the Alcibiades. Bluewater consigned future multi-millionaire Take Charge Lady to 2000 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky July sale, where McPeek bought her for $175,000.

“It’s been an interesting fall of the pandemic, I guess,” Levy said. “It’s been kind of ‘pinch me’ for me and for us. We really had an amazing weekend this last week at the Breeders’ Cup.” In the Juvenile Fillies, Levy was closely connected to two other contenders. Bluewater sold eventual third-place runner Girl Daddy at the 2019 Keeneland September sale for $500,000. Moreover, eventual victress Vequist is co-owned by longtime Bluewater client Gary Barber. Levy added, “And then, later on in the day, we were with our clients Three Diamonds [Farm], and they won a Breeders’ Cup race with Fire at Will; they won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf [G1].”

At the recent Fasig-Tipton November “Night of the Stars,” Bluewater sold multiple grade 1 winner Got Stormy to Spendthrift Farm for $2.75 million. Nine hips later, Katsumi Yoshida spent $1.1 million on Bluewater-consigned grade 3 La Sardane, in foal to Justify. “We got very lucky with those two,” Levy said. “They were really nice fillies.” On the younger side, Bluewater sold a weanling colt, by Into Mischief out of a granddaughter of champion Maryfield, for $400,000.

At this year’s Keeneland September Yearling sale, Bluewater sold another potential standout. During the sale’s first session on Sept. 13, a Bluewater-consigned filly, sired by three-time leading stallion Tapit out of grade 1 victress Embellish the Lace, sold for $1.25 million. Other Bluewater graduates are grade 1 winners Drill, Grace Hall, and Flat Out.

The previous year’s November sale brought even more dividends. Last November 5, the agency sold three seven-figure mares in one night. That evening, champion Shamrock Rose went under the hammer for $2.5 million, Sovereign Award winner Wonder Gadot fetched $2 million, and grade 1 winner Belvoir Bay brought $1.5 million.

Levy runs a family business, valuing contributions from her husband, Mike Levy of Muirfield Insurance, and her son, bloodstock specialist Ryder Finney. She reflected, “My son, Ryder, does a lot with Bluewater from a bloodstock standpoint, and he works in the office on the farm and helps to prep the yearlings. It’s all a very integrated tapestry and some days it looks like a beautiful picture and other days it looks like a paint-slapper or a Rorschach inkblot. So sometimes it’s great and other times it’s stressful, but I think there’s very unique rewards, being able to work with your family, because it also makes me very proud.”