O'Farrell a Stalwart of Florida Breeding and Sales

Originally from Maryland, J. Michael O'Farrell Jr. (74) moved to Florida as a kid with his family, seeing his father shape the Florida Thoroughbred sales scene from a grassroots effort with the original Florida Breeders' Sales Company, which evolved into today's Ocala Breeders' Sales Company. What started as one of four farms in the area, Ocala Stud has become the oldest active working Thoroughbred farm in Florida. The family business has been a group effort from the jump and a labor of love, seeing parts of the original farm sell but keeping in the family's best interest. The O'Farrells are not wealthy, but like most people in the industry, they have been successful by working hard and hoping for a little luck along the way.

Michael O'Farrell sat down with BloodHorse MarketWatch during the OBS March Sale of 2-Year-Olds in Training to look back at the success of Ocala Stud and OBS.

MarketWatch: Being a lifelong horseman born into a horseman's family, what lessons were passed down to you from your father?

Michael O'Farrell: I learned a lot from my father; he was a worker, a horseman, and a go-get-er. He was a salesman, which is where we are a bit different, I'm a low-key salesman, and he was a bit louder and a promoter. I learned an awful lot from the horse and operations standpoint, and I certainly haven't raised my two boys to be in the horse business. I wanted them to go do something else because truthfully, the horse business is a challenging way to make a living.

If the horse business shut down tomorrow, a lot of people in Kentucky would be alright, but here in Florida, we wouldn't necessarily be in trouble, but it would definitely alter our lives. The main thing I have stressed to my boys when they came back from college to work on the farm is they were going to start at the bottom and do the grunt work. David was the first to start on the farm, and he loved it and got along really great with all of the guys he worked with. Be it a groom or a foreman, they all got along great and he mixed right in with them. My other son Joe went to work as a banker for a few years before he came to work on the farm, and it just so happened the farm accountant was retiring, so he stepped in for her, which worked out great.

If you are going to have your whole family tied up in the farm, it puts little pressure on you to do your best. Because if things go south, it's not just you; it's your whole family. It's also like that with our employees; most of them have been with us for 20-30 years.

MW: What is the Ocala Stud philosophy on raising horses and getting them to the 2-year-old sales?

MO: When we moved here in 1956, our main farm had a three-quarter-mile track and 160 stalls next to the track. My father went to work filling those stalls and training for other people. There weren't many horses sold through sales. Most of the big operations and racing stables had their own farms in Kentucky and bred their own like Darby Dan, Elmendorf, and Greentree. At that time, it was beneath people to go and buy somebody else's horse to race. They bred and raced their own and most of the bigger farms stood their own stallions.

When we moved to Florida, my father had sold some yearlings in Maryland but not on a large scale. We had this racetrack and all these stalls and yearlings that weren't Kentucky-caliber horses. My father would say they were bred like billy goats down here. He got the idea of training these horses and selling them as racehorses, and that is how he got the idea for the 2-year-old sales. I was raised with that mentality; it's what I know, what I am comfortable with, and it's what we do. We are raising racehorses. We aren't raising or selling the future top sire, which is what most people are doing today.

The year we moved to Florida, Needles  won the Kentucky Derby, and we had our first crop born here on the farm, which produced My Dear Girl , who went on to be the champion 2-year-old. Originally there were only four farms in Ocala, and each of them had a stallion barn and a training track, so they did the same thing we did at Ocala Stud. It quickly went from four farms to eight to 16 to 32 farms, and within 10 years, we had over 100 farms here in Ocala. It just kept growing. That is when the business changed in the Florida breeding industry.

Interestingly enough, if you go back to the '50s, '60s, and '70s and look at the leading racing stables in the country, at least six or seven of them had operations in Ocala. Racing stables, not stallion farms … outfits like Dan Lasater, Fred Hooper, John Franks, Tartan Farms … racing stables. In the mid-80s, when the business changed from racing to selling, it became a commercial business, which happened to the regional markets. Breeding for racing is very different than breeding commercially, and it is tough for us (Florida) to compete with Kentucky. But if you are looking to buy a racehorse, come see us, chances are we have what you want.

MW: Growing up, you were part of the grassroots effort to get OBS running. What is a lasting memory for you and your most significant achievement?

MO: The initial sales company was Florida Breeders Sales Company, where seven people put up $500 apiece and rented a livestock pavilion. It was rough at best. The 2-year-old sales were held at Hialeah Park, and initially, we only had three barns, which were all you needed when there were 10 or so farms, but that quickly got maxed out. There was no more room. Once we got around 100 farms in the area, there were a lot more 2-year-olds to sell. At that time, all of the juvenile sales were only Florida-breds. Shortly after that, Fasig-Tipton organized a sale for all other state-breds that was about two to three weeks after the Florida-bred sale at Hialeah.

As the sales grew, my father made a deal with Gulfstream Park to build 10 barns, which are the barns still used down around the backside of the track today. Florida Breeders' Sales Company only had a 10-year lease with Gulfstream Park. They were given the land and built the barns, but they later belonged to Gulfstream. It was still a pain in the neck as horses were stabled and trained at Gulfstream, but they still sold at Hialeah Park, so on sales day, you had to load your horses up on the van and ship over to Hialeah and put them in a tent. The sale was at night, so you would finish about 10:30 and then have to load everything up and head back to Gulfstream. They were in portable stalls made of plywood, nothing like today's portables. They really weren't safe.

One night after a few drinks, a gentlemen came into the office at Hialeah and raised hell, it was very close to a fistfight, and that's what lit the fire for starting OBS. All the people who weren't shareholders of Florida Breeders were tired of the situation. My father was a shareholder with FBSC and saw that we needed a change. After the uprising, a group formed to break away and start OBS.

Roy Kennedy, who built the first mall here in town (Paddock Mall) and who bought a piece of our farm in 1971 when we almost went under, is the one who put up the money to start OBS. A group was formed, found a piece of land, and built the sales pavilion, six barns, and had their first sale within seven months. To have seen that all come together and where we are today is my greatest memory, and the success of OBS, its clients, and horses that passed through the ring is my greatest achievement. It is a nod of thanks to the excellent horsemen here in Ocala.

It took years to get what we have; we had to trade land to accommodate future expansion. The track was initially a three-quarter-mile, which wasn't big enough for what we were trying to do. I can tell you the founding fathers of OBS would never have dreamed it would be what it is today and have sold over $2 billion in horses. It was a tough sell in the beginning to get buyers to come to Ocala and spend money. We had two motels that were livable at best. To start OBS, you had to be brave and somewhat foolish, but thankfully it has all worked out.

MW: You have been OBS chairman for the past 16 years and have stepped down. What is on the horizon for you?

MO: The same old thing. I'm not going away. I'm not retiring. I do what I love and been doing it all my life. I can't stop tomorrow. I get up at 4:30 every morning. I can't help it. It's part of who I am and how I am programmed. I retired truly because if I were reelected, it's a three-year term, I would be 78-years-old, and I see other people at 78, and I think I can't be doing that. My memory may not be what I want, It's already not what it once was. I know one thing—at some point, I have to get out and now it's time. It's just time. I have to get out of the way and let the younger people come in.

MW: What invigorates you to get up and at it every morning?

MO: I really enjoy what I do, especially foaling and the babies. I go to the racetrack every day, and I enjoy watching horses mature and change from the day they enter training to the day they leave. They all change, some for the better and some for the worse, but most for the better. Just like kids, horses change as they move up through the grades and get more muscle and fitness and get better at their sport. I enjoy watching that change occur, and I enjoy the clientele/owners we have. I have met some extremely nice and smart people over the years.

MW: How has Ocala Stud made it through the highs and lows of the industry over the years?

MO: I am a competitor. I'm not out there beating drums, but I like to win. I have had some hardship in my family. I lost a sister, which was a harsh experience, but I don't want to retire. I don't want to settle and go off into the sunset. My boys enjoy the business, and if there is a business, they want to be a part of it, and I want to help them.

My father helped me, and I want to do the same for them. It hasn't been easy over the years, and it won't be easy going forward. I think the business will continue to contract. There will be fewer people involved in the Thoroughbred industry in the next 10 years than there are today. With that being said, I have preached to my kids that you have to work harder and smarter than other people, and if you do, you will succeed. My goal is always to get to Saratoga next year because, to me, that is the epitome if you're a horse person. I have been every year but two years, one of which my son was being born. If you don't see me in Saratoga, you know there's a problem.