NEWS
Juvenile sale season shifts west to Barretts
Posted: Sunday, May 10, 2009 7:54 PM
by Lisa Groothedde
Citing cautious optimism, officials with Barretts Equine Ltd. are making last-minute preparations to host the West Coast’s second major juvenile sale of the year, while hoping a quality catalog will attract buyers to the one-day sale on Monday.
With 263 horses cataloged, including 13 supplemental entries, the 2009 Barretts May sale of two-year-olds in training will begin at 1 p.m. PDT in the Hinds Pavilion at Fairplex Park in Pomona, California. Through May 6, Barretts reported 73 juveniles had already been withdrawn.
Despite the turbulent economy and significant financial losses endured at other Thoroughbred sales nationwide this year, Barretts Vice President Bill Baker hopes the tide may be turning entering the May sale.
“The recent [Ocala Breeders’ Sales Co. spring sale of two-year-olds in training] was fairly strong in that a lot of horses were being sold, showing that people still want to be in the game,” Baker said. “This [Barretts] May sale has horses for buyers in all price categories and probably more top-end horses than we have ever had in this sale.”
Many of this year’s offerings were purchased for significant amounts at prior public auctions, including a colt in the Hartley/De Renzo Thoroughbreds consignment who carries distinction as the sale’s only offspring by Storm Cat, the world’s leading commercial sire in recent years who was pensioned in May 2008.
Bought for $550,000 by Randy Hartley and Dean De Renzo’s pinhooking operation at the 2008 Keeneland September yearling sale, the second foal out of the stakes-winning Saint Ballado mare Lights On worked an eighth of a mile in :10 during the first of two under-tack previews held at Fairplex Park on May 7-8.
Sharing the sale’s fastest furlong time of :09.80 were a Sky Mesa colt out of the winning Silver Deputy mare Mettle from the Hartley/De Renzo consignment and a Five Star Day colt out of the winning Geiger Counter mare Play Date consigned by McKee Bloodstock.
For its 2008 May sale, Barretts reported 147 horses were sold for total receipts of $7,816,400, an average price of $53,173, and median price of $24,000. Topping the sale at $700,000, a record May sale price for her gender, was Simonetta, a Harlan’s Holiday filly purchased by Jess Jackson’s Stonestreet Stables.
The Barretts May sale received a major public relations boost earlier this year when the most notable horse through the ring last year, I Want Revenge, won the $750,000 Wood Memorial Stakes (G1) and was subsequently installed as the morning-line favorite for the Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (G1). The Stephen Got Even colt failed to meet his reserve price on a final bid of $95,000. He was scratched the morning of the Derby due to a leg injury.
Lisa Groothedde is a California-based Thoroughbred Times correspondent
