NEWS
OBS March sale gets late start
Posted: Monday, March 15, 2010 5:48 PM
by John P. Sparkman
Will the storm clouds that forced a two-day delay of the under-tack shows for the 2010 Ocala Breeders’ Sales Co. March sale of selected two-year-olds in training and a late start to the sale turn out to have a silver lining?
The delay, caused by torrential rainstorms on March 10, compressed the amount of time for buyers and veterinarians to look at horses, giving them less time to find fault with the 340 horses cataloged for the sale.
“We've condensed the whole process into two less days, so the activity in the barn area is certainly compressed,” said Tom Ventura, director of sales for OBS. “People are having to work harder to get it done. It's certainly a different pace for the buyers that do stride analysis and a lot of vet work.”
The March sale historically is not the place to shop for horses with marquee pedigrees, but this year's sale includes more horses by big name sires than usual, with attractive colts by 2009 leading sire Giant's Causeway and 2007-'08 leading sire Smart Strike expected to be among the most coveted offerings.
The catalog also includes half brothers to 2010 classics hopeful Conveyance, '09 Grade 1 winner Pure Clan, Irish highweight Heart Shaped, and Grade 1 winner Sand Springs, and half sisters to Canadian Horse of the Year Fatal Bullet and Grade 2 winner Skipping Around, the dam of Grade 1 winner Sugar Shake.
“Our pedigrees have been improving over the years since the sale took a jump up a few years ago and we had the horse bring $1.8-million,” Ventura said. “I don't think there are any concerns about what type of horse can sell here anymore.”
The catalog also includes multiple representatives of highly regarded freshman sires such as Badge of Silver, Bluegrass Cat, Congrats, First Samurai, Henny Hughes, and Rockport Harbor.
It would not be a two-year-old sale, however, without buyers zeroing in on horses who worked in fast times in impressive fashion. With conditions for the two-day breeze show favoring horses on the second day, a colt by Henny Hughes and a filly by Badge of Silver posted the fastest one-furlong time of :10, and a colt by Exchange Rate clocked the fastest quarter-mile in :21.
“It's been a rocky road this year until now,” Ventura continued. “There have been a couple of bright spots recently, though, and based on the activity in the barns there's a positive feel out there. Hopefully, that will transfer into people buying horses and not concentrating on just a few. The buyers group is broader than at the February sale, and having 180 less horses than last March should help the average and median. There are plenty of things to feel good about, but everybody is tentative about the current economic situation.
“I think that buyers at this stage with the market being down, the fact that there are some positive movements in purses like the bold moves at Monmouth, they should feel like they're getting good value for their dollar. I don't know if we had any Japanese buyers here last year, but there are two or three groups from Japan this year.”
The sale begins at 2 p.m. EDT, three hours later than usual to give buyers more time to inspect horses. The second session on Wednesday will begin at the normal 11 a.m. start time.
John P. Sparkman is bloodstock editor of Thoroughbred Times
