Stewart Purchases Touching Beauty, Dam Of Kentucky Derby Hopeful Just A Touch

Owner/breeder John Stewart's Resolute Racing continued a run of high-level buys with the private purchase of Grade 3 winner Touching Beauty, the dam of Grade 1 Blue Grass Stakes runner-up and Kentucky Derby hopeful Just a Touch.

Stewart announced the purchase from previous owner Don Alberto Corp. on Wednesday via social media.

A 17-year-old daughter of Tapit, Touching Beauty won three of 10 starts during her on-track career for earnings of $183,166. Gainesway co-bred Touching Beauty with Winchell Thoroughbreds and the operation raced her in partnership with Joseph Cornacchia. 

Touching Beauty is out of the stakes-winning Ikari mare Victory Road, making her a full-sister to stakes winner Noisy Feet and Grade 2-placed Tritap.

Competing in New York and Florida for trainer James Jerkens, Touching Beauty was Grade 2-placed as a 2-year-old, then earned her biggest career victory the following season in the G3 Comley Stakes.

Touching Beauty was bred to Unbridled's Song for her initial mating, and she was put through the 2012 Keeneland January Horses of All Ages Sale, where she hammered for $450,000. She went through the ring again during the 2014 Keeneland November Breeding Stock Sale, that time selling to Don Alberto Corp. for $800,000.

Her first foal was her most successful prior to Just a Touch, with the Unbridled's Song colt Corps of Discovery becoming a stakes-placed runner. In total, she has produced five winners from six foals to race.

Just a Touch, a Don Alberto-bred son of Justify, turned heads after winning his debut start by 4 1/4 lengths in January at the Fair Grounds. After that effort, Resolute Racing joined an ownership group that already included Qatar Racing and Marc Detampel.

The colt made his stakes debut in his following start, running wide in the G3 Gotham Stakes and finishing second to Deterministic. He then punched his ticket to the Kentucky Derby with a runner-up effort in the Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland, where he held the lead in the stretch, but was caught by winner Sierra Leone.

Touching Beauty enters Stewart's broodmare band having recently delivered a colt from the first crop of Kentucky Derby winner Mandaloun. Stewart said on social media that the mare would be bred back to Justify in 2024 to produce a full-sibling to Just a Touch.