XY Inc. has landed on the moon.

The Fort Collins biotech company that has successfully performed sex-selection breeding for cattle and horses has purchased the 50-acre Moondrift Farm in northeast Fort Collins.

XY Inc. plans to move its horse-breeding operations to the farm, which has been owned by June and Robert "Spike" Baker since 1974.

Moondrift, 1108 N. Lemay Ave., is known for its exotic landscaping, including a long tree-lined driveway. It is currently home to the Baker's horse-boarding operations.

"I call it the showpiece of the northeast sector of the city," said Larry Stroud, a real estate broker who represented the Bakers in the sale. "We had three developers proposals (to buy the land). June felt strongly about not pursuing those."

XY Inc. - partly owned by Colorado State University's Research Foundation - paid $1.3 million for the property. As part of the deal, XY Inc. has agreed to care for the Bakers' horses after the couple moves off the farm at the end of the year.

When the Bakers acquired Moondrift Farm, the property was in disrepair, said June Baker.

"There was a little beet workers' house, and car bodies and glass - they used it as kind of a dump," she said.

The Bakers started the farm as a breeding operation before focusing on boarding and training.

"Our neighbors were most interested in keeping it a farm, too," she said. "We've had wonderful neighbors."

Mervyn Jacobson, president and chief executive of XY Inc., said the purchase will allow his company to consolidate its horse operations in town. Currently, XY's horses are scattered about the Fort Collins area.

"We have some at CSU and some at private ranches," Jacobson said. "In the longer term, we need to have horses in one location."

XY Inc. has previously made headlines with its breeding of horses and cattle that had their sex determined before conception.

XY's technology sorts sperm cells from a bull or a stallion between those that carry the X chromosome, for females, and the Y chromosome, for males. The mother then can be impregnated with preselected sperm.

The technology is considered a breakthrough in the horse and cattle industries, in which breeders want males or females for specific uses.