Willy North Returns to Sales Scene at Fasig-Tipton

Faced with the daunting task of running a training center and selling horses while also helping care for twin sons, Willy North made the decision to get off the sale circuit and put family first.

Now that his sons are older, the Florida horseman whose veterinarian wife, Dr. Emily North, operates the Midtown Animal Clinic of Ocala, Fla., has returned with his first consignment to the Fasig-Tipton Gulfstream sale March 1 under the Starting Point Thoroughbreds banner.

“I have twin boys that are now 8, and when they were young they were a handful,” said the affable North as he helped his staff move horses in and out of his sale barn at Gulfstream. “I just could not do it. My sons were more important to me than selling horses.

"Now that they are older and in school and my wife’s clinic is doing well, I can spend two weeks in Miami and two weeks in Ocala (for the Ocala Breeders' Sales Co.’s 2-year-olds in training sale).”

North said W. D. North will continue to serve as an investment vehicle, while Starting Point will be a sales agency that will consign on behalf of other clients.

Before he took a break from the auction scene, North's consignments included a $1.6 million colt at the OBS February sale. Despite Wood's lack of visible presence at the sales, his W.D. North Thoroughbreds continued to buy horses that were sold as yearlings through Stuart Morris and as 2-year-olds with Eddie Woods.

W. D. North pinhooks have included I Spent It  , bought by North for $65,000 as a yearling and re-sold for $600,000, and Danon Legend, who was purchased for $90,000 and sold for $385,000. To date Danon Legend, featured on the cover of the Barretts catalog for this year’s March sale of 2-year-olds in training, is a graded stakes winner in Japan.

North and Morris topped last year’s OBS August select yearling sale with a son of Flatter   sold for $210,000.

North is pleased with his success while teaming with Woods at juvenile sales, noting “He made a lot of money for me and I learned a lot from him.”

In his first Gulfstream sale, North has brought in Morris to serve as Starting Point’s sales director, a move that will enable the horseman to continue to prepare young horses for sales both for himself and others at Starting Point Training Center. Morris will continue to operate his own bloodstock agency.

“We have some extraordinary horses,” North said of his Gulfstream consignment that consists of fillies by Dialed In   and Bernardini   and colts sired by Pioneerof the Nile   and Shanghai Bobby   owned by different clients. “We brought them here to sell and not just to get an evaluation.”