Ocala Breeders' Sales Begins '25 With Winter Mixed Sale

The Florida sales season kicks off with the Ocala Breeders' Winter Mixed Sale Jan. 28 at 11 a.m. ET. The single-session auction has 342 horses cataloged, including supplemental entries. The sale features newly turned yearlings, broodmares, and broodmare prospects.

Contrary to last year's sale, 2-year-olds and horses of racing age will be offered through the OBSOnline January auction that began Jan. 23 and runs through Jan. 30 at 12 p.m. ET. Dream Concert , a multiple stakes-placed daughter of Jess's Dream, was supplemented to the online sale as Hip 425.

"The horses of racing age sale is quite different than the mixed sales," said OBS director of sales Tod Wojciechowski. "One thing we did that is unique to the digital sales, particularly this time of year in January: The horses of racing age and 2-year-olds, a lot of these horses haven't started yet, and we offered an under tack show to those horses so they can come in and have a video and a time on our racetrack."

He continued: "It seems to be well received, even so far as those horses were able to come in and breeze and go home. And we did have some of the horses that were cataloged in the area, we gave them the option of coming on the grounds during the mixed sale and being available for viewing here on the OBS grounds, even though they're being sold on the Horses of Racing Age Online Sale."

There are yearlings cataloged by a slew of top sires, such as leading juvenile sires from last year—McKinzie  , Vekoma  , and Tiz the Law  . Epicenter  , Drain the Clock  , Golden Pal  , Yaupon  , and many Florida-based sires such as Colonel Liam  , Gretzky the Great  , Leinster  , and Roadster  , are also well represented.

"We've got a good group of yearlings," said Wojciechowski. "That seems to be the strong suit of the mixed sale, or has been over the last few years. We've got a lot of people that are coming to Florida to get out of the cold weather and have a chance to see some good horses, and the yearlings always tend to do well."

OBS graduates had a great weekend, highlighted by White Abarrio  winning the Pegasus World Cup Invitational Stakes (G1) at Gulfstream Park Jan. 25. White Abarrio sold for $7,500 at the 2020 OBS Winter Mixed Sale to Jose Ordonez from Summerfield's consignment. The 2023 Breeders' Cup Classic (G1) winner has nine wins from 20 starts and a bankroll of $6,879,850.

Last year's sale spanned two days with three sessions, including a consignor-preferred session. A total of 282 head sold from 353 offered in 2024, grossing $4,491,800, with an average of $15,928 and a median of $8,000. Seventy-one horses failed to meet their reserve, resulting in a 20.1% RNA rate.

Ninety-one broodmares were offered, along with 25 racing or broodmare prospects, 10 racing or stallion prospects, eight racing prospects, four 2-year-olds, and 215 yearlings.

A filly by Omaha Beach   (Hip 409) out of the Curlin   mare Gardenista topped the sale at $100,000, selling to Discovery Bay Bloodstock from the Fly By consignment. The top-priced yearling colt was Hip 87, a son of Mitole   out of Wild Hickory, who sold to Calumet Farm for $95,000, from the Silver Oaks Farm consignment.

Latinos y mas led the buyers, purchasing two horses for $160,000. Summerfield led the consignors, selling 43 head for a total of $808,800.

"Your quality stuff is going to sell very well," said Francis Vanlangendonck of Summerfield. "The mares that haven't produced runners are going to be tough and the yearlings with vetting issues are going to be tough. But that's the case everywhere. What Ocala has is a built-in market. A lot of people show up because they live here and they're in the business, and that showed in October during the hurricane. A ton of people showed up to buy horses and we had a much better sale than we thought we were going to have. People poured in here even though we changed the time; we changed the date, and they still showed up. We're in a pretty good spot that way because we have people who will buy a lot of these horses who live here."

As of Monday evening, OBS reported 47 outs.

"The weather's warmed up a bit, and we've had two beautiful days of showing here in front of the sale," said Wojciechowski.