OCALA, FL (352today.com) – The average price for horses sold at the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Company’s (OBS) June 2-year-olds in training sale was slightly down from 2023.
OBS says 582 two-year-olds sold for $21,386,800. That’s compared with 640 bringing $24,051,900 last year. The average was $36,747 this year, compared to 2023’s $37,581.
Session highlights
It was twice as nice for an Ocala-based 2-year-old consignor.
Trainer Tom McCrocklin had the horses that topped both the first and second sessions of the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Company’s June 2-year-olds in training sale.
Tiz the Law, who won the Runhappy Travers Stakes, Florida Derby and Champagne Stakes, while racing before moving onto his new career as a stallion, sired the first session’s sales topper. Hip 187, a dark bay filly, brought $400,000 and was purchased by Bill Childs. The Kentucky-bred was one of the stars of the under tack show, the week before the sale.
|WATCH: Hip 187
“It was the first crop for the Tiz the Law, 2-year-olds. He’s already had a maiden special weight winner at Churchill. She worked great,” said McCrocklin. “She had a beautiful breeze. She worked really fast, but it was a beautiful breeze also. She’s just a beautifully balanced filly, athletic, sound and classy. Her vetting was good and her breeze time and gallop times were stupid fast.”
However, McCrocklin was far from done as another filly from his program led the way the second day, a filly named Brown Sugar, a daughter of Twirling Candy who has a very famous sibling, and once again brought $400,000.
|WATCH: Brown Sugar
“She’s a full sister to a Preakness winner (Rombauer),” said McCrocklin. “She has everything, pedigree, conformation, sire power, clean vetting, a pretty horse on the end of the shank. She was bought by Resolute Racing, who’s John Stewart, who started buying horses last September at Keeneland. He bought the former Shadwell Farm. It’s very exciting for a new owner in the game, to buy a filly like that, and I think he made a really smart purchase.”
The final session’s sale topper came late in the auction. Hip 1021, a son of the top 2-year-old of 2010, Uncle Mo, was purchased for $375,000. Mark Tacher bought the racing prospect from Julie Davies. The colt was originally scheduled to sell in May at the Fasig-Tipton Timonium sale, but fate intervened altering the plans, and he had to stay in Ocala.
|WATCH: Hip 1021
‘We loved this horse since we bought him. He’s a very pretty horse, athletic, by a good sire and we were excited about him all year,” said Davies. “He was supposed to go to Maryland, and literally, two days before shipping, he cast overnight (a horse positioned on its side or back, and wedged against a wall, that it can’t get up) and cut his leg. We had to scratch him which was a huge disappointment because we were pointing him to that sale, and he was doing fantastic.”
However, the time off seemed to work wonders, as the colt healed remarkably well, but Davies made a decision in the best interest of the horse and didn’t breeze him during the under tack show.
“We decided the right thing to do was just gallop him here, rather than trying to breeze him after having that time off,” said Davies. “We thought he was a nice enough colt. He should get attention just by galloping. Brought him over here and hoped it would work and thankfully it did.”
The next OBS sale is yearlings and is scheduled for October 8 and October 9.