Ocala Breeders' Sales Company | Horse Racing Free Tips

OBS Supplemental Catalogue Online

The supplemental catalogue for the Oct. 13-14 Ocala Breeders’ Sales Company’s 2020 October Sale is now available online. It will also be available in printed form at OBS on or about Wednesday, Oct. 7.

Three 2-year-olds and two horses of racing age have been added to the two-day sale and will sell as Hip No.’s 55-59. Twenty-seven yearlings have been supplemented to the Selected Yearling portion and will sell as Hip No.’s 243-269. In addition, 28 horses have been added to the Open Yearling Sale, selling as Hip No.’s 694-721.

The sale begins Tuesday, Oct. 13, at 12:00 p.m. ET with the 2-Year-Olds in Training and Horses of Racing Age portions, followed immediately by the Selected Yearling Sale. The Open Yearling Sale will take place Wednesday, Oct. 14, at 10:30 a.m. ET.

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Xcira Provides Online Bidding Options at Keeneland and OBS

With pandemic-induced travel restrictions and crowd-size limitations nipping at its heels, the Thoroughbred auction scene finally made its debut on the internet this year, first with the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Company’s Spring Sale in June and most recently with the Keeneland September Yearling Sale. The company tasked with helping both OBS and Keeneland offer their buyers the opportunity to bid online was Xcira Global Technologies. Founded by Gary and Nancy Rabenold, the Florida-based company helps facilitate online auctions across the globe in industries as diverse as art, livestock and automobiles.

“We started this bloodstock odyssey earlier this year and every single company we spoke to said, ‘We wouldn’t do it unless there was COVID,'” said Simon Wells, head of sales and marketing for Xcira, which also provides online auction platforms for Tattersalls, Texas Thoroughbred Association, Equine Sales Company of Louisiana, and Iowa Thoroughbred Breeders and Owners Association. “So it was almost like they were put in a corner. And they sort of adopted what most other industries have had for years. We have been doing this simulcasting–or as you would call it, online bidding–for 21 years in automotives.”

Wells continued, “We first started contacting Keeneland, [Vice President, Chief Information Officer] Brad Lovell and [President] Bill Thomason and talking to them about this about nine years ago. And they said, ‘I don’t think our industry is ready for this.’ So we have had the longest courtship.”

OBS was able to hold its March sale on schedule just as the pandemic was shutting down most of the world, but as auctions were canceled and postponed, OBS officials began looking for alternatives.

“We had the March sale as scheduled without online bidding and we had the rescheduled Spring sale in June with it, so it was a very small window where we had to crank it up,” said OBS President Tom Ventura. “Certainly from our end, it was the highest of priorities in terms of trying to give buyers as many options as possible. For the March sale we had already increased the phone bidding, had multiple phones and multiple people to handle the phones. For the next sale, we really wanted to try to have online bidding in place, so we went from zero to 60 in no time. We had our backs up against the wall to ramp this up and to Xcira’s credit, they dedicated the manpower to get us there.”

Recalling the moment when he was convinced Xcira’s online bidding platform would work for OBS, Ventura said, “As we’d been looking at online bidding along the way, the concerns we had were A) Is it secure? and B) Is there any delay? It wouldn’t work if there was any kind of significant delay. What really drove home how there is basically zero delay, I had the Xcira system on my computer screen in my office and I had the OBS sale feed on my TV and the online bidding system was actually a half a second ahead of the sound on my TV screen. It was subtle, but you could hear they weren’t quite synced up.”

Of Xcira’s quick turnaround at OBS, Wells said, “So much in livestock is done on the hand shake and everything is about reputation,” Wells said. “So I think some of the reticence to adopt technology comes from the fact that it’s reputations at stake. Tom and [OBS Director of Sales] Tod [Wojciechowski] have been great people to work with because they were willing to risk that reputation. They were in the closest hole because we turned them around in 30 days. We really had to spin that round quickly and we did say to them, ‘You are going to have a life jacket rather than a boat. And then we will build you a boat in due course.’ Which is what we are doing now for bloodstock. We’ve reached out to all of them now and said, ‘Give us a list of the like-to-haves rather than the must-haves and we are developing the product.”

The sales companies function as trusted intermediaries between buyers and sellers and Xcira’s focus is to provide the auction houses the technology platform to create an additional avenue for sales.

“You still need the auction house’s reputation to broker the deal,” Wells said. “We’ve spoken in the office about what makes it all tick and what is most important and what’s it most like, because bloodstock is new to us. And the closest we’ve seen is Christie’s Art. We do their internet bidding and it’s the reputation of the auction house that that painting is really a Vincent VanGogh and it’s that trust with the auction house. Absolutely it’s the same with bloodstock. There is a trusted broker managing the sale. And I think any system like this is still reliant on that. We are almost like the backroom boys and they are placing their reputations on the line. Keeneland put their reputation in our hands as far as the technology working, but as far as the actual transaction goes, it is still very much the part of the auction house to have that trust in the transaction.”

Michelle Labato, a veteran of on-line car auctions, handled the internet bids at both OBS and Keeneland. Sitting in the bottom row of the press box at Keeneland, Labato kept close watch on both the auctioneers and her computer monitor, which shows her how many people are currently logged onto the site and ready to bid. As the bids rise in-house, Labato updates the asking price manually on her screen. When an online buyer makes a bid, it appears in a large red box on her screen and she raises her hand to have the bid recognized by the bid spotters.

“Michelle started off in automotives, she was a senior clerk for some time,” Wells said. “I knew her when she worked in Orlando in the auto auction. Tod asked if I knew anyone who could clerk for them because they started to realize how quick and how specialized it was and we sort of paired them. She’s followed us everywhere, other than Tattersalls, for most of our sales. She gets on really well with [Keeneland auctioneer] Justin Holmberg as he has done automotive. You’ll hear him say, “C’mon internet’ or ‘You’re out Michelle.’ She almost becomes another bid spotter.”

Online bidding at the 12-day Keeneland September sale attracted a total of 1,857 bids, which resulted in the sale of 126 horses for a total of $12,165,900 to buyers in 17 U.S. states, Japan, United Kingdom, Canada and Spain. The highest price recorded online was the $825,000 paid by Yuji Hasegawa for a colt by Tapit out of GI Breeders’ Cup Distaff winner Stopchargingmaria (Tale of the Cat).

“Online bidding worked as smoothly and was as popular among buyers as we had hoped,” Keeneland’s President Elect Shannon Arvin said at the conclusion of the September sale. “When you try something new, you kind of hold your breath to see how it goes. We are very pleased with our partner, Xcira, and the online auction technology system, as well as the level of participation by buyers.”

Approximately 40% of horses who went through the ring on the final day of the OBS July sale had at least one internet bid, according to Ventura, who said online bidding was just one more option to provide potential buyers.

“I think it just adds another way for people to participate,” Ventura said. “I think the level of comfort for people doing things online has changed over time as people get more and more comfortable. Ten years ago, I was not comfortable doing banking online and now I can’t remember the last time I wrote a check. So different generations may be slower adopting these sort of things–I still don’t really know what Venmo is–but the technology is there, it’s reliable, it’s secure and it gives people options. Especially when we have a long sale. Our 2-year-old sales with extended under-tack shows and then a gap and then sales days, if people want to get their homework done and head back to wherever they are heading, this will give them that opportunity to bid or have their clients bid.”

The Rabenolds founded Xcira over two decades ago in the closet of their son’s nursery room.

“Gary and Nancy are both ex-IBM people,” Wells said. “Their first fax machine was in their son’s nursery in the closet when they first started the company. Gary stayed on at IBM and paid the mortgage and Nancy went off and tamed the automotive world. When we started with cars, we were told by the head of Manheim, the car auction people, that this was a passing fad and it would never catch on, exactly the same attitude that bloodstock has now. It comes full circle. But we have the benefits of all those lessons we learned.”

While many of the concerns are the same, the Thoroughbred auction industry does present unique obstacles.

“Automotives has had it for 21 years and their adoption rate for North America is about 40% of the vehicles go through an online buyer,” Wells said. “However automotive is a commodity item, there are a lot of vehicles that are commodity items and there is a Blue Book guide for pricing, but no one has yet made a Blue Book for Thoroughbreds. So I think that, whilst it’s an essential tool in today’s marketplace, it is just another tool. Horses are like a piece of fine art, so much of it is in that gut feeling and in that look. You stand at the back of it and it walks right and you can’t say why it walks right, but it does. There is still that need because they are not commodities like automotive.”

Wells said the internet purchases at automotive auctions tend to skew to the top and the bottom, with the middle market often requiring more of an on-site presence.

“Of that automotive 40%, they tend to be the two extremes, they tend to be the very expensive, the nearly new factory cars that dealers have, and the very cheap ones,” Wells explained. “Whereas the ones in the middle, where it could be debatable as to the conditions, those are the ones that remain in-person. I think with horses as well, I think a lot of people are coming down, looking at the animal and then going home to bid or having someone there who says, ‘I can look at it for you.'”

A comparison of the online purchases during Keeneland September shows nine on-line purchases during the top-of-the-market Book 1 and a further 16 in Book 2 for gross internet sales of $8,672,000. Seventeen horses sold online for $923,200 during Book 3 and 21 Book 4 horses sold online for $1,423,000. A total of 34 Book 5 horses sold online for a gross of $898,500. During the auction’s Book 6, 29 yearlings sold online for $249,200.

“For the auction house, it’s not just the people who have won the horse, it’s the underbidder who has pushed it up one more bid,” Wells said.

One aspect of the online car auction scene which Wells thinks might be helpful in Thoroughbred industry is a consolidated source of information.

“I think at some point there is a need for the industry to look at how it moves data about,” Wells said. “I think everybody is running their own show and they work in isolation. If you were to look at Autotrader, auto dealers have gotten over the fact that there are other auto dealers out there and they list alongside each other. If I want to search for an F150 in white and gold lariat and I want sat nav on it, I can go straight to it and I can click it and find it. If I want to search for a horse with particular characteristics, I’ve got a lot of phone calls to make.

“There is only one racehorse of a certain type,” he continued. “It is a slightly different industry, so I’m not really comparing apples with apples. There is a bit of apples and pears there because all horses are a unique item, whereas F150s, there are millions pumped out from Ford and there are loads of them about, so I can choose from lots of different ones and I don’t have to worry about the temperament of my F150. You don’t get a cribbing F150. So it is different, but I think there is a point where the industry should come together for the greater good in moving data around.”

As the technology has evolved in car auctions, the need to provide potential buyers with advanced information has also increased.

“In automotive now we are spending so much of the effort on inspections and conditions reporting,” Wells said. “You look at Carvana now, you can have a 360-degree picture of the interior that you can spin around and there is all that imaging. So when you are buying online, you are getting much more information about what you’re buying.”

Now that the Thoroughbred industry has offered its first online bidding opportunities, it is better positioned to face any future challenges presented by the pandemic, according to Wells.

“Who knows when or if the second wave does hit, but our system allows you to go completely virtual,” Wells said. “So you could leave the animal in its paddock and sell it from a distance. Which is what happened in other verticals, like livestock in South Africa. They had hoof and mouth and they weren’t allowed to move animals, so they had a goat sale, believe it or not. The dearest goat was about $15,000 and that was bought by a buyer from Thailand. And the goat never left the field it was in, it was all done remotely, a virtual sale where everybody logged in.”

After purchasing the top three lots online at the Tattersalls August Sale last month, Ted Voute was a satisfied customer of the new technology. Voute told TDN‘s Emma Berry, “Bidding online was very easy and there was no need for me to be there today, having seen the horses yesterday. We had a vet there today to cover eventualities like a horse taking a lame step before going into the ring.”

While it has taken time for the bloodstock industry to adopt internet bidding, Wells said there is no going back now.

“I can quote more than person as saying the genie is out of the bottle now,” he said. “You can’t put it back. It’s like Pandora’s box is open. I don’t think any customers would say they want to step back from it. It was out of necessity that it started, but then it becomes, ‘We would like to have this as an option.'”

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Sandin Out to a Flyer With Pico d’Oro

Gerry Sandin, who grew up near Bay Meadows Racetrack and played Little League with future trainer Bill Morey, always knew he wanted to own racehorses one day. The California native finally made the dream a reality when he purchased a son of Curlin at the OBS March 2-Year-Olds in Training Sale this year and he was cheering the colt on from his Bay Area home when Pico d’Oro became his first winner while breaking his maiden in stakes company in the Runhappy Juvenile S. at Ellis Park Sunday.

“That was my first win and it happened to be a stakes win,” Sandin, a global operations manager for Apple, said while still savoring the victory Monday afternoon. “It was a pleasant surprise–I was on a high for the second half of Sunday, it was tough to go to sleep last night.”

Sandin traces his love of racing back some three decades to time spent at Bay Meadows as a kid.

“My uncle used to work at the front gate at Bay Meadows, so before I was even of legal age, he would let me in,” Sandin recalled. “I would go watch them in the paddock, I would handicap them, learned to read the Daily Racing Form and Andy Beyer’s Speed Figures. The first time I was there at Bay Meadows and saw those horses turning for home and the thundering as they were charging down the stretch, I was hooked.”

Sandin didn’t have to look far to find a trainer when he was ready to buy a horse, even if he did eschew his longtime friend’s initial advice.

“Billy Morey and I are old friends,” Sandin said. “We grew up right around the corner from one another in the California Bay area. His dad was a [CTBA] Hall of Fame trainer [William Morey, Jr.] in Northern California. Billy and I played Little League together and I always knew that he would follow in his father’s footsteps in a training career. He always told me the best way to get involved was just to buy a piece of a horse so you could understand the operational side of this business. I never invested early on, but just last year he made the move out to Lexington and I was ready to make my initial investment as a solo operator.”

Of the decision to forego a partnership, Sandin explained, “I wanted to make sure we did it the right way. As a solo operator, you get to call all of the shots, you get to pick your races and everything else.”

The two friends traveled to Ocala in March and purchased a pair of juveniles, first going to $255,000 to acquire Pico d’Oro (hip 241) and then going to $35,000 for a daughter of Malibu Moon (hip 530) now named Luna Tigress.

By Curlin out of Michelle d’Oro (Bernardini), a daughter of multiple Grade I winner Champagne d’Oro (Medaglia d’Oro), Pico d’Oro was an easy choice for Sandin.

“One of the first horses that I saw at Bay Meadows was A.P. Indy,” Sandin explained. “I saw him race there and I’ve always been enamored with the A.P. Indy bloodlines. Most of the horses that I do buy will somewhere have that bloodline in them because I’m a huge fan. With Pico especially, the cross between Curlin and a Bernardini mare, to me, is the best nick in the business.”

Pico d’Oro came in slightly under Sandin’s budget at OBS, but bidding didn’t go without some anxious moments.

“Pico came through the ring and I started bidding on him,” Sandin said. “My initial bid was $235,000 and someone got over me at $245,000 and I went to $255,000 and the announcer is saying, ‘Going once, going twice…’ and then the color commentator guy interrupts and says, ‘Folks, we have a son of Curlin here, you really ought to pay more for this horse.’ And I am thinking, ‘What are you doing? Drop the gavel! Drop the gavel!’ My heart was beating 1,000 beats a minute. Luckily, nobody bid further. I only had a budget of $300,000. So I had a little more room, but not a lot. If a couple more people had gotten interested and it quickly escalated up another $100,000, I would have been out.”

Following a troubled late-closing runner-up effort behind Medicine Tail (Kantharos) in a six-furlong maiden special weight at Ellis Park in July, Morey had picked out some potential maiden races for Pico d’Oro’s next start, but Sandin had more ambitious plans.

“Billy came up to me with the maiden special weight races that were three weeks out and fit with the timing of his recovery and when he would be ready next,” Sandin said. “I looked at him and I said, ‘OK, but what about the Ellis Juvenile? I think Pico could have run past Medicine Tail in that race when we were blocked, but I also think, given another furlong, it will be better for him.’ So we nominated him and then we saw how the field came up. Nobody was overly scary to us and I thought we had a good chance. The race seemed overloaded with speedster types and Pico stalks and pounces. I thought it set up well for us.”

Pico d’Oro got off to a slow start in the seven-furlong Juvenile and Sandin admitted he was initially worried his plans had gone awry.

“When I saw the start, I was a little nervous because he generally doesn’t drop that far back,” Sandin said. “But it was all speed, so it was our plan to relax him early and let him finish. When I saw that first quarter in :22 and change, I was like, ‘All right, they are beating each other up up front. This is going to work well for us.’ And he slowly started to make his move going into the turn and picking horses off one by one and towards the end of the turn when he swung past a wall of horses, I thought he was looking good, he was guaranteed at least second. Medicine Tail had built a three- or four-length lead going into the top of the stretch, but I thought as long as we could keep the clear room on the outside, I knew Pico would keep coming. It was a long stretch run and he really bore down there under a little left-handed urging from Joe [Talamo] and he got him in the last sixteenth and kept drawing away.”

Pico d’Oro could make his next start in the graded stakes ranks.

“We are looking forward to stretching him out another furlong,” Sandin said. “I think we are probably going to target the [GIII] Iroquois S. at Churchill on Derby Day for his next appearance.”

In addition to his two OBS March purchases, Sandin also acquired Bronze Beast (Will Take Charge) (hip 427) for $60,000 at the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic Sale.

“Luna Tigress had a chip in her knee and had to have surgery,” Sandin said. “She is just about to start training and hopefully she will be ready to race in late September. Bronze Beast is just starting training and just like Luna we are hoping to get him out for an initial race in late September.”

Sandin doesn’t have a specific target number of horses for his racing stable, but does plan on a long-term investment in the sport. And he may be active at the upcoming yearling sales.

“I may end up going with Billy to the September yearling sales,” Sandin said. “But we are definitely look to invest every year at the 2-year-olds in training sales. I have had success with the 2-year-olds with Pico, but I like buying horses based on pedigrees more than works. For me the pedigree is what I’m looking for. Year to year, we are going to have to take a look at yearlings and 2-year-olds in training sales.”

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Distorted Humor Colt on Top as OBS July Sale Concludes

A reshuffled and rearranged juvenile sales season like no other came to a conclusion with the final session of the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Company’s July 2-Year-Olds and Horses of Racing Age Sale Thursday and, with a market left shaken by the fallout of the ongoing global pandemic, numbers were predictably down at the three-day auction.

“Certainly the numbers were off comparatively, but it’s hard to compare this to other years with so much that has gone on,” said OBS Director of Sales Tod Wojciechowski said. “There were some bright spots and then there were some not-so-bright spots. I think we were fortunate to get the sales off and completed. We are dealing with a different environment even from June to July. That environment posed obstacles, but I think with our online bidding we were able to help buyers who were unable to travel still participate in the sale. So that was one bright spot that we can look to.”

At the close of business Thursday, 498 horses had grossed $15,195,300. The average fell 12.1% to $30,513 from a year ago and the median dropped 23.5% to $13,000.

At the 2019 June sale, 615 horses sold for $21,349,300. The average was $34,714 and the median was $17,000.

While the buy-back rate concluded at 20.5%, only 650 of the 1,100 juveniles went through the sales ring.

“It’s hard to say why that was,” Wojciechowski said of the large number of outs. “People make different plans with horses, they might decide to keep them, so it’s difficult to pinpoint. Everything is so topsy-turvy this year, that it’s kind of hard to start assessing or assigning reasons why to things.”

The July sale was into its supplemental section when bloodstock agent Jacob West made the week’s highest bid, going to $700,000 to acquire a colt by Distorted Humor on behalf of Robert and Lawana Low from the McKathan Bros. consignment.

“It still shows you that the top end still has plenty of strength,” Wojciechowski said of the sale topper. “So it was nice to have that towards the end of the day.”

West purchased four juveniles during the July sale from every price level and the agent said there were plenty of people looking to buy horses this week in Ocala.

“Competition was pretty fierce all around,” West said. “I probably bid on a total of six or eight horses and ended up walking out of there with half of them. I bought one for $4,000, one for $50,000, one for $110,000 and then one for $700,000, and we followed a handful of others in hoping we would get them and we didn’t end up getting them. So there were enough people there to spend money.”

The $700,000 topper marked a highlight of the sales season for Kevin McKathan, who had purchased the youngster for $165,000 at last year’s Fasig-Tipton October sale, but the Ocala horseman says sellers will have to reassess the market going into the yearling auctions this fall.

“I am thinking people are going to have to expect that the yearling market is going to be a little better for us [2-year-old pinhookers] for once,” McKathan said. “I think over the years, it has just seemed to be multiplying with these babies costing so much and then so much more every year. It almost put us out of the game. So hopefully everyone can step back and take a breath and maybe have the market readjust for itself. I want to go in and buy nice horses and nice horses always cost money. So I don’t expect to buy them cheap, but hopefully we can get a little better market on them.”

With 18 horses sold for $1,081,000, de Meric Sales was the leading consignor at the July sale. Jacob West’s lone sale-topping purchase for the Lows made him the leading buyer. He was followed by Dennis O’Neill who purchased five juveniles for $620,000.

Late Fireworks for Distorted Humor Colt

Jacob West, bidding on behalf of Robert and Lawana Low, acquired the highest-priced offering of the week at OBS when paying $700,000 for a son of Distorted Humor (hip 1027) from the McKathan Bros. consignment Thursday in Ocala.

“He appealed in every aspect, from conformation, to pedigree to breeze (:10 flat), so when they do that you have a pretty good idea that you’re not going to go in and steal him,” West said. “We had an idea that he would bring somewhere around that and we’re just happy to get him.”

The dark bay colt is the first foal out of Tizacity (Tizway), a daughter of stakes winner Vindy City (Vindication) and from the family of graded-placed Lady Chace and graded winners Bahamian Squall and Apriority. He fit the mold of horses West seeks out for the Lows.

“To me, he just looked like a two-turn, go-win-the-Derby type horse,” West said. “Mr. and Mrs. Low, their goal is to win the Arkansas Derby and then go win the Kentucky Derby after that.”

Asked if he thought the colt might have cost more in the pre-pandemic market, West admitted, “I honestly don’t know. All I can say is, in 2020 during the middle of a global pandemic, he brought $700,000.”

Distorted Humor Colt a Score for McKathan

Kevin McKathan purchased hip 1027 for $165,000 at last year’s Fasig-Tipton October Yearling Sale and the Ocala horseman admitted the later auction dates due to the pandemic may have helped the youngster who was supplemented to the July sale after being withdrawn from the June catalogue.

“He was a big, rangy stretchy kind of horse, but he was really immature at the [October] sale,” McKathan said. “So I saw a lot of potential in him. I thought if I could get him to develop in time, he would really grow into a beautiful horse. So with COVID, that gave us the time. If we had been pushing to make March, it would have been a little different story. April was the spot we were aiming for and for one reason or another, it all fell apart, so we ended up here and it worked out well, I think. It’s nice to be a big fish sometimes.”

Despite the down market, McKathan was confident the colt would bring a top price Thursday.

“I thought he was a really nice horse and I’d just come back from Baltimore [Fasig-Tipton Midlantic sale] and really nice horses were bringing a lot of money,” he said. “So I had some idea that the horse would sell well. If you end up at the top of the heap, at every one of these sales, even though it is a really tough market, those horses have all been hard to buy. I didn’t know what he’d bring, but I did feel like he was the best of them and so I had high hopes that he would sell well, that’s for sure.”

With the end of an abbreviated, disjointed juvenile sales season, McKathan said he was ready to start over again with the yearling sales.

“It feels like I’m always out of a job, so I have to start all over,” he said with a laugh. “It’s like filling out my resume again and off I go hunting for work. But I love doing what I’m doing. I love training horses. A little break is nice, but I really look forward to my barns being full and getting to play with another group.”

Tizacity Timely Buy for Lyons

Hip 1027 was bred by Three Lyons Racing, HTH Enterprises and Distorted Humor Syndicate and was a standout result, not just for McKathan, but also for Matt Lyons who purchased Tizacity for $5,000 at the 2017 Fasig-Tipton February sale.

“We do still have the mare,” Lyons confirmed Thursday evening. “She is going to get an extra flake [of hay] tonight.”

Lyons knew plenty about Tizacity and her family before she went through the ring at Fasig-Tipton three years ago.

“I foaled her and raised her,” Lyons, the former manager of Woodford Farm, said of the mare. “I know the family pretty well. We had Squall City, the granddam, when I worked at Classic Star, and we foaled her mother, Vindy City, there. We raised Tizacity and sold her at Saratoga for Woodford as a $425,000 yearling. She was a beautiful filly, she really was. Mandy Pope bought her. She had a little injury setback and never got to quite realize her potential at the racetrack, but for a Tizway to bring $425,000, that tells you what she looked like. So when she came back through the Fasig-Tipton sale, obviously I was interested in her. Luckily I ended up getting her. We bred her to Distorted Humor on a foal share and we got that colt and we have a Street Boss colt who is a yearling and we have a Munnings colt that is a baby.”

Of his early impressions of the OBS July topper, Lyons said, “He was always a nice colt, pretty with a clean neck. He looked like the mare in that respect. He was a Distorted Humor with a little bit of scope and stretch and he was good through his pasterns. He was popular at the sale, he got enough action and he sold well. We were happy to see him go to the McKathans and they have obviously done a fantastic job with him. It’s great to see him going to good hands.”

The mare’s Street Boss yearling will be offered at this year’s Fasig-Tipton October Yearling Sale, according to Lyons, and the mare is back in foal to Goldencents.

Malibu Moon Colt to Wilson

Carolyn Wilson and trainer Larry Rivelli have found success buying out of the OBS sales ring with graded winners like Wellabled (Shackleford) and The Tabulator (Dialed In) and they went back to the well to acquire a colt by Malibu Moon for $260,000 Thursday in Ocala. Consigned by Eddie Woods, the bay colt is out of Grand Pauline (Two Punch) and is a half-brother to graded winner Keen Pauline (Pulpit). He was a $100,000 Keeneland September yearling purchase.

“He is just a big, beautiful, athletic-looking colt,” Rivelli said of the juvenile. “I know that Eddie Woods was excited about him and a lot of the guys around his operation thought he was a special horse. When we pulled him out of the stall, Carolyn and I were looking at him and it was one of those that was, ‘Oh, look at this one.’ The video was great. The time was good (:21 1/5). And I think it was value. I think the sale is a little light, so I think we did good.”

Wilson also purchased a colt by Cairo Prince (hip 342) from the Woods consignment for $150,000 during Tuesday’s first session of the July sale.

“I think the good ones are selling ok-to-good and that’s about it,” Rivelli said. “But we are really happy with both the ones we purchased.”

Wellabled, purchased for $340,000 at the 2016 OBS Spring sale and winner of that year’s GIII Arlington-Washington Futurity, won the Honor the Hero S. at Canterbury Park Wednesday night. The Tabulator was purchased for $460,000 at the 2017 OBS March sale and went on to win that year’s GIII Iroquois S. Both participated in juvenile Breeders’ Cup races.

“Obviously we buy them all with the plan to get them to stakes races and the Breeders’ Cup,” Rivelli said. “Carolyn and I have had success in the last few years with horses from here, so we’re always happy to go back to this sale. Eddie Woods and Ciaran Dunne at Wavertree, those are good consignors and we have faith in them. It seems that the combination is working.”

Of Wellabled’s win Wednesday, Rivelli said, “He broke the track record. It was awesome. We’re hoping this could be the next one.”

Laoban Colt Pays for Ortiz

Victor Ortiz, a longtime showman for consignor Jesse Hoppel, was showing a colt by Laoban (hip 983) all week at OBS, but it wasn’t until after the juvenile sold to Steve Young for $255,000 Thursday that Hoppel revealed Ortiz, along with his mother Elizabeth Ortiz and father Luis Franco, owned the juvenile who had worked a furlong in a bullet :9 4/5 at the under-tack show. The family had purchased the colt for just $3,000 at last year’s Fasig-Tipton October sale.

“Victor works for me and has shown horses for me for years, he’s grown up in the industry,” Hoppel said. “He and his mother Elizabeth Ortiz, and his father Luis Franco, they all three owned a third of this horse.”

The colt originally was led out unsold at the Fasig October sale and Hoppel himself had plans to buy him until the 23-year-old Ortiz expressed interest.

“I vetted this horse out to buy,” Hoppel said. “I was on my way back to the barn to buy this horse after he RNA’d and Victor called me and said, ‘Hey boss, what do you think about number 980?’ I said, ‘I am walking back to the barn to look at that horse now.’ He said, ‘Never mind.’ I said ‘Victor, what’s going on? Talk to me.’ He said, ‘I was going to buy that horse.’ I told him I had vetted the horse out, he scoped good and vetted good. I told him everything was good to go. I said, ‘I have a bunch of horses bought already, why don’t you go look at him. If you like him, let me know and you can have him. But if you don’t like him, let me know and I’ll go buy him. Twenty minutes later, Victor called me and said, ‘I’m going to take him.'”

The bay colt is out of One Look (Henny Hughes), a half to graded-placed Before You Know It (Hard Spun) and Instant Reflex (Quality Road).

“He was a skinny little thing,” Hoppel said of his impressions of the May 2 colt as a yearling. “He just looked like he needed anything he could get and Victor gave him everything, along with Luis and his mother. They took care of him, they trained him themselves and he came out here looking like a million dollars. In this game, close doesn’t do it. So many times we are so close to having the right horse but the wrong vetting or the right vetting with the wrong horse. When it all comes together, it is a really good thing. And it couldn’t be for a better family. He is ecstatic. I think they are all on the verge of crying. If you’re going to do good things, do it for people like them.”

Hoppel continued laughingly, “I’m grateful he gave him to me to put in the consignment. But he does need to pay that vet bill. He has never reimbursed me.”

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