McKinzie Filly Fastest at OBS Finale

A filly from the first crop of multiple Grade I winner McKinzie (hip 1143) equaled the fastest quarter-mile work of the seven-session under-tack show for the Ocala Breeders' Sales Company's Spring Sale of 2-Year-Olds in Training when covering the distance in :20 1/5 Sunday in Central Florida. The juvenile is consigned by Eddie Woods on behalf of breeders Brent and Beth Harris.

“We expected her to work well,” Woods said. “I'm not going to say I thought she would go in :20 1/5. That would be ridiculous. But she really stepped on it. She's a very honest filly.”

The bay filly is out of D'Fashion (D'Wildcat) and is a half-sister to stakes winner and graded-placed Strategic Dreams (Archarcharch). She RNA'd for $65,000 at last year's Keeneland September sale.

“She's done really well since we got her,” Woods said. “She was a inexpensive RNA for the most part in September, but she's changed significantly since then, from a physical point of view. It's like night and day. She belongs to the Harris brothers up in Kentucky and I got her through Padraig Campion of Blandford Stud.”

McKinzie's first crop of 2-year-olds have been working well at OBS this spring and, led by a $750,000 colt, were well-received at the March sale.

“They act like they are nice horses,” Woods said of the Gainesway stallion's first crop. “They are very professional. They all try really hard like he did. He ran for a long time himself and they look like they are going to do the same thing.”

A filly by Practical Joke (hip 1187) became the fourth juvenile of the week to work a furlong in :9 3/5 during Sunday's final session of the under-tack show. Out of Emerald Gal (Gilded Time), the bay is a half-sister to multiple graded-stakes winner Sarah Sis (Sharp Humor). She was purchased by Carlo Vaccarezza for $25,000 at Keeneland last September and is consigned by Top Line Sales.

While the under-tack show was interrupted by an unexpected off day due to severe weather Thursday, buyers and sellers were back on schedule Sunday.

“We usually have two show days between the breeze show and the sale, but it used to be one,” Woods said Sunday afternoon. “And the extra day was purposefully put in there for that reason. If we come up on a bad day, we have a swing day in there, so it worked well. A lot of people got a lot of horses looked at that morning before the rain got too bad. And there are people who are only starting to come in here anyway, so it didn't effect them at all. We were pretty steady showing today and hopefully we will be very busy tomorrow.”

The OBS Spring sale will be held Tuesday through Friday with bidding beginning each day at 10:30 a.m.

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American-Bred Lemon Pop Takes Derby Prep at Tokyo

The first of four races on the Japan Road to the Kentucky Derby, the 1600-meter Cattleya S. (allowance), took place Saturday on the eve of the G1 Japan Cup at Toyko Racecourse, with US-bred Lemon Pop (Lemon Drop Kid) running his record to two wins from as many starts with a convincing victory.

The 7-5 second choice, a debut winner in a 1300-meter newcomers’ event at Tokyo Nov. 7, broke without incident and was ridden positively from gate one by Keita Tosaki to sit in the wake of pacesetting Takeru Pegasus (Jpn) (Dunkirk), favored at 4-5 off a nine-length maiden victory over Saturday’s track and distance Nov. 7. Sitting the pocket into the long Tokyo straight, Lemon Pop rolled away from the fence to come after the front-runner and wore that one down to take it by a cozy 1 1/2 lengths (see below). It was a gap of 10 lengths back to Plus Ultra (Jpn) (Discreet Cat) in third.

Lemon Pop races for Godolphin and was purchased on behalf of Sheikh Mohammed’s operation by Harry Sweeney’s Paca Paca Farm for $70,000 at the 2019 Keeneland September sale out of Padraig Campion’s Blandford Stud consignment. The chestnut was bred by Olly Tait, who served as chief operating officer of Darley for 15 years prior to his departure in 2014, and his wife Amber.

Lemon Pop was produced by Unreachable (Giant’s Causeway), an unraced daughter of five-time GSW Harpia (Danzig), a full-sister to the legendary Danehill, MGSW Shibboleth and GSW Eagle Eyed. Another full-sister to Harpia–Family–bred European GSW, Hong Kong SW and UAE Group 3-placed Dundonnell (First Defence).

The Cattleya Sho offered Derby points on a 10-4-2-1 scale. The second leg of the series is the Zen-Nippon Nisai Yushun (1600m) at Kawasaki Dec. 16, followed by the Listed Hyacinth S. back at Tokyo in February and the Fukuryu S. (allowance) at Nakayama.

WATCH: Lemon Pop (1) wins the Cattleya S. (allowance) at Tokyo

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