Malibu Moon Filly Goes to Peter Fluor for $700,000

A striking dark bay daughter of Malibu Moon  out of the family of champion and sire Boston Harbor sold for the co-second-highest price during the second day of the Ocala Breeders' Sales April 2-year-olds in training sale April 25 when owner Peter Fluor of Speedway Stables acquired her for $700,000.

Bloodstock agent Marette Farrell, sitting with Fluor in the sales pavilion, signed the ticket for the filly offered by de Meric Sales as agent. Consignor Nick de Meric bought the filly for $170,000 at last year's Fasig-Tipton Kentucky July yearling sale.

"We thought she was the queen. We looked at a number of fillies, and she was the one that consistently came out and did the same thing every time, showed a lot of class," Farrell said. "She has a lot of depth, a great mover, a lot of presence, and she's got a lovely family."

The filly worked in a brisk :21 in the under tack show, but it wasn't the final time that sold Farrell on the filly's athleticism.

"The work is a huge priority, but I don't get caught up in the time," she said. "We have a team of three people (at the under tack show) because you can see much more than on the videos. You can see the movement on the video, but it's also about their energy, how hard they hit the ground, or how lightly they hit the ground. I have someone on the back side to watch the gallop out. It is the way they gallop out, how they use themselves around the turn, and their rhythm."

De Meric bought the filly at the Fasig-Tipton July sale from Carrie Brogden, Andrew Cary, and Jay Goodwin's Select Sales consignment. The filly was co-bred by Brogden's Machmer Hall with Haymarket Farm. The Select Sales team liked the filly enough to stay in as partners.

"My son Tristan and (his wife) Valerie had the filly in their division, and they did a beautiful job," said Nick de Meric. "These kind are a pleasure to work with … for the first three months, you don't notice them because they don't do anything wrong, and then the last three months you notice them because they are doing everything right."

Fluor, the CEO of a private Texas oil and gas exploration company, races multi-millionaire and grade 1 winner Collected in his silks. While he bought the son of City Zip at the 2015 OBS March sale, he is shopping primarily for fillies at OBS this week.

"We are focusing on the fillies because of their residual value," Farrell said. "Peter always wants to make the smart decision and has really become a student of the game. He reads everything and asks great questions. It is like he's in some accelerated program, and he's the top student. We're lucky to have someone so passionate. We need more."