OBS Wins Race Against Weather

Ocala Breeders' Sales Co. management won its race against Mother Nature June 6, completing the second under tack show workout session for the June 2-year-olds in training and horses of racing age sale before heavy rainfall and thunderstorms associated with Tropical Storm Colin were scheduled to roll through the area.

Though the workouts were halted briefly due to a downpour during the morning, OBS was able to have all the scheduled horses go through their pre-sale breezes without incident. The weather didn't have a detrimental effect on OBS's all-weather Safetrack, but the precipitation and cloudy skies resulted in a cooler track surface that was playing faster than Sunday's first of six under tack shows in preparation for the June 14-17 auction.

"The temperature is one variable of synthetics, and the thunderstorms overnight and heavy cloud cover today affected the surface temperature," OBS sales director Tod Wojciechowski said. "The good thing is we don't have to worry about having a track that is muddy."

OBS thought it would be close in completing the session before the weather turned, but Wojciechowski said little could be done to speed up the workout protocol.

"We're efficient at it already so there is not a lot of wasted action," he said. "You have to give each horse an opportunity to perform its best and each consignor an opportunity to display its ability."

Midway through the Monday session, a Gemologist   colt consigned as Hip 215 by Top Line Sales became the first sub-:10 clocking for an eighth of a mile when he covered the distance in :09 4/5. The colt, bred in Kentucky by Millennium Farms and the Gemologist Syndicate, is out of the winning Storm Cat mare Distant Storm and from the female family of champion Outstandingly and grade I winner and sire Sky Mesa, among many other graded stakes winners.

He was purchased by Julio Rada for $47,000 from the Millennium Farms consignment to last year's Keeneland September yearling sale.

"We knew he would go in :10 flat, but that if we got lucky with the weather he would do it in :09 4/5," said Top Line's Torie Gladwell. "He did everything right. The rain has definitely cooled the track down a little bit. It was a tick slower yesterday."

Two juveniles—a Harlan's Holiday colt and a Dominus   filly—shared the day's fastest quarter-mile time of :21, which is co-second fastest of the under tack show so far. Consigned by Thoroughbred Champions Training Center as Hip 204, the Harlan's Holiday colt is a half brother to grade I winner Marylebone and was bought from Dromoland for $30,000 at last year's Keeneland September sale before being RNA'd on a final bid of $48,000 at this year's OBS March sale.

From the first crop of multiple grade II winner Dominus, the filly consigned as Hip 221 by Greg and Karen Dodd's Southern Chase Farm is out of the stakes-placed Dixieland Heat mare Dixieland Baby and was bred in Louisiana by Inside Move. Consigned by Gainesway to last year's F-T Kentucky October yearling sale, the filly went unsold on a final bid of $32,000.