‘Sense Of Relief’: Half-Sister To Preakness Winner Journalism Going Home To Don Alberto After Fasig-Tipton Saratoga originally appeared on Paulick Report.

Don Alberto Corp. was left with a massive void in its roster of fillies and mares with the early death of Mopotism, whose first foal was the Preakness Stakes winner Journalism.

On Tuesday, the operation took a big step toward filling that void with Mopotism’s daughter, an Into Mischief filly who will go back to Don Alberto’s Lexington, Ky., farm after finishing under her reserve with a final bid of $3.9 million at the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Select Yearling Sale. In time, she is expected to join the farm’s racing stable, and later its broodmare band.

Reed Ringler, chief operating officer for Don Alberto Corp., watched the filly go through the ring from the back of the Humphrey S. Finney Pavilion in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., and when the auctioneer’s gavel came down, the fog of conflict he was feeling inside cleared in an instant.

“I really wasn’t really sure what I was rooting for. In all honesty, it’s a sense of relief,” he said. “It’s been such an emotional roller coaster for the entire farm to be on this ride with Journalism, to lose the mare, to have the Flightline filly on the ground, and then to come up here and make the effort…I’m just relieved. I would have been outside crying if she sold, but we understand it’s a business at the end of the day, and we love them like our kids.”

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The filly, offered as Hip 165, is the third foal out of the Grade 2-winning Uncle Mo mare Mopotism, and she is the second-to-last out of the mare, following the aforementioned Flightline filly, who was born on April 30. Denali Stud consigned the filly, as agent.

Journalism was Mopotism’s first foal, and the Curlin colt preceded his sister at the Saratoga sale by selling for $825,000 in 2023, also handled by Denali Stud. Today, he is one of the top 3-year-olds in the division, with Grade 1 triumphs in the Preakness Stakes, Haskell Stakes, and Santa Anita Derby, to go along with runner-up efforts in the Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes.

It’s hard to get a catalog update doing more work for a page than what Journalism is doing for the horses under Mopotism’s produce record, and Ringler said the filly’s buyback was certainly not from a lack of buyer interest.

“We wanted to come up here and showcase her in front of everybody,” he said. “She was out 250-plus times. She’s a beautiful horse, but at the end of the day it’s so hard to find a filly like that that’s a half-sister by Into Mischief to a multiple Grade 1 winner that’s going to the Breeders’ Cup, and with the mare gone, it was going to take a lot to push us over the edge, and I’m just really proud of our team back at the farm for making her look so good, and coming up here. Hopefully she’ll go on and carry on her mother’s legacy, and be a great racehorse and a good mom.”

Ringler said the filly would get about 60 days back at the farm to decompress after the sale before being sent to Bridlewood Farm in Ocala, Fla., to begin her training, with the hope that she could one day join the barn of trainer Michael McCarthy. Bridlewood is part of the ownership group that campaigns Journalism, and McCarthy trains the colt.

“Would we like to sell her for something? Yes,” Ringler said. “But, I said to my wife tonight, we are so blessed by God to be up here competing with our peers, and to take her home…Carlos (Heller Solari, founder of Don Alberto Corp.) will be just fine with that. We’ll go turn her into a racehorse.”

This story was originally reported by Paulick Report on Aug 6, 2025, where it first appeared.