OBS April Sale Nearly Even With 2015

Topped by a Quality Road   filly sold for $775,000, the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Co.’s spring sale of 2-year-olds in training concluded April 22 with a slight decline overall in gross, and record average and median prices.

For the four days, OBS reported 660 horses grossed $52,279,500, compared with $53,291,900 for 674 horses sold a year ago. The sale averaged a record $79,211, up slightly from $79,068 a year ago, with a record $47,000 median, up from $45,000. This year’s RNA rate was 22.6%, compared with 22.2% a year ago.

The overall sale-topper was a Broken Vow   colt purchased by Breeze Easy for $1.2 million from the consignment of Tom McCrocklin during the April 21 session.

MITCHELL: $1.2 Million Broken Vow Colt Tops OBS Session

"We’ve set a pretty high bar in April over last few years, and to be virtually in a deadheat with last year, we feel good about that," OBS sales director Tod Wojciechowski said. "It’s obvious April has become the go-to sale for 2-year-olds and also an international stop. We sell more 2-year-olds than any other sales company in the world and this is our biggest sale."

OBS reported 163 head sold Friday for a gross of $13,999,000, compared with the $13,871,000 total for 160 sold during the fourth session a year ago. The session average of $85,883 was down slightly from the $86,694 figure last year and the median rose to $50,000 from $43,000. The final session RNA rate was 17.3%, compared with 21.2% in 2015.

The April 22 session topper was bought by trainer Linda Rice from the Q Bar J Thoroughbreds, as agent, consignment. Produced from the War Chant mare Over Andover, the filly sold three hips from the end of the sale.

Rice declined to identify who she was buying for, but did say she liked the horse enough to miss her flight back to New York.

"She's pretty exceptional," Rice said.

Bred in Kentucky by South American Thoroughbred and Racing, the filly was previously purchased out of the 2014 Keeneland November breeding stock sale for $112,000 by Machmer Hall. She was offered as a yearling but failed to sell, bringing a fall-of-the-hammer price of $130,000.

The closing day’s second-highest price of $720,000 was paid by Susan Chu’s Baoma Corporation for a Ghostzapper   filly produced from the stakes-winning Freud   mare Mighty Eros. The Florida-bred filly consigned by Off the Hook breezed a quarter mile in :20 2/5 at the final under tack session April 16, equaling sale's fastest time at the distance.

Donato Lanni, who signed the ticket, said the filly will be trained by Hall of Famer Bob Baffert.

The four-day sale mirrored trends seen in North American auctions in recent years, with strength and stiff competition for the better horses but not much demand in the lower and middle price ranges.

"I think for an April sale the top of the market is strong," said consignor Barry Eisaman, of Eisman Equine. "There is not as much diversity at the bottom and middle."

Eisaman echoed the sentiment of other consignors, that buyers are likely having a difficult time adjusting to OBS’s decision to begin having a repository, in which radiographs of sale horses are maintained in a central location for review. Previous to the repository, new to OBS sales in 2016, the sales company offered a "bone warranty," in which buyers could have their purchases X-rayed before leaving the sale grounds and seek to return the horse should any bone defects turn up.

The most noticeable effect, Eisaman said, is a lack of buyers this year in the lower and middle price ranges. In the past, buyers watched and bought from the back walking ring without having first X-rayed them, because they did not want to incur the cost of the exams and also because they could do a post-sale exam under conditions of the bone warranty.

"It affects the impromptu bidding you used to have," Eisaman said. "I was initially in favor of the repository, but am not now based on what I’m hearing as the sale takes place. Hopefully, people will get used to it."

There is no consensus that the repository is to blame for weak demand at the lower end of the marketplace.

"I’m hesitant to blame it on the repository. I think it is a convenient excuse for why we’re not doing better right now," said consignor Brent Fernung of Journeyman Bloodstock, adding that historically the equine auction markets have not performed as well during presidential election years. "I am more inclined to say it is market conditions."

Tom McCrocklin, who sold the sale-topper, said the repository and how it and reports generated from the radiographs are used by buyers is creating a negative environment for the sale.

"They are very selective and not forgiving," McCrocklin said. "I was a fan of the repository going in, but my perspective after two sales with the repository is (buyers) have more time and opportunity to pick them apart. We’re gravitating more and more toward the perfect horse. I think it is dependent upon an intelligent buyer and veterinarian deciding what they can and can’t live with."