NEWS
New owner Sandford buys sale topper
Posted: Tuesday, February 16, 2010 2:30 PM
TIZNOW COLT
PhotosByZ.com
by Pete Denk
Chuck Sandford made his first purchase at public auction a memorable one, buying the $475,000 sale-topping Tiznow colt during the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Co. February sale of selected two-year-olds in training.
“Nobody knows me; I just got in the horse business last June,” said Sandford, who said he previously bought three horses privately.
“We hope to be successful, but I’m smart enough to know we’re gonna have more lumps than successes. It’s a terrific industry. I’ve met some really nice people and today was probably the epitome, to sit there and go to toe-to-toe with I don’t know who.”
Sandford’s horses are with trainer Patrick Byrne. Sandford lives in Marengo, Illinois, and owns a company called Bag Makers with his wife, Maribeth.
“Maribeth decorated bags and started the company 30 years ago in a barn,” Sandford said. “What we’re really popular with right now is the non-woven bags that are popular at the grocery stores. We’re probably the biggest in the country at that. We do paper, we do plastic. We do several types of imprint.
“When we were building our business, we were working 100 hours a week. One day I asked her, ‘When are we going to retire?’ And she said I couldn’t retire until I got a hobby. In other words, she wasn’t going to put up with me at home. That was my four hours out of the day off. Saturday afternoon, I go to my local OTB. To get into it at this level is just like a dream come true.”
The Tiznow colt is out of the stakes-placed Tale of the Cat mare Six Pack Sally and was bred in Kentucky by Ian Banwell’s St. George Farm.
Sandford’s first starter was Jambonied, a three-year-old Distorted Humor colt out of the Storm Cat mare Catinca that ran on January 23. Jambonied finished second, beaten five lengths by Savemyspotimbeting in one of the fastest maiden races of the meeting.
“We had some bad news this week. He just came up lame and we’re going to have to give him about 90 days off,” Sandford said. “We caught the colt that ran 1:08.78 down there one day. If you’re really lucky, things like that happen to you.”
Sandford said he wants to build a small stable of colts. He also owns Kildare Cat (Ire), an unraced Storm Cat out of the Easy Goer mare Retrospective.
Pete Denk is sales editor of Thoroughbred Times
