Columbiana Families Buzzing
by Jessica Martini
Bob Ochocki’s Columbiana Farm, which sold Big Trouble (Tiz Wonderful) at last year’s Keeneland September sale, will offer six yearlings, including a half-sister to this year’s GIII Sanford S. winner, during this weekend’s Book 2 of the September auction.
Originally located in Riverside, California, Columbiana was relocated to Kentucky in the 1990s and currently encompasses 400 acres in Paris. Among the graded stakes winners foaled and or raised on the farm include Tizdejavu, Papa Clem, Taste of Paradise, Miss Houdini and Snow Ridge.
Ochocki, a Southern California pharmacist, currently has a broodmare band of 13 head.
“[Ochocki] is a commercial breeder and he has a number of farm clients year round,” the farm’s bloodstock agent Kathy Berkey explained. “We don’t have any in training right now. We prefer to sell everything that we bring to the sales. Most years, we’ll sell 100%. We try to keep our buy-back rate really low. But every once in a while, especially if it’s a filly from one of our better families, he’ll race one.”
Coming into the 2013 September sale, Berkey knew Columbiana had something special with its Tiz Wonderful colt.
“I just loved him,” Berkey recalled. “He was one of those very easy horses that–I guess not everybody loved him because everyone has different types–but he was just a big, strong, scopey, balanced, correct beautiful horse who came out here and showed right every time and had a great mind on him. The kind you love to have. He just had so much class.”
Out of Silver Lullaby (Najran), the yearling sold for $230,000 to the bid of Team D. Named Big Trouble, he is now two-for-two after a determined victory in the Sanford in July.
Columbiana purchased Silver Lullaby for $52,000 at the 2008 Keeneland November sale. Her second foal, Silver Lining John (Tiz Wonderful), was a $140,000 September yearling in 2011 and was stakes placed on the racetrack.
Columbiana will offer the mare’s fourth foal, a filly from the first crop of Grade I winner Sidney’s Candy, as hip 910 during Saturday’s session of the September sale.
“She is a totally different physical type,” Berkey commented when asked to compare the two siblings. “Once you’ve had a mare for a while, you learn how to breed them. And we found with this mare that she tends to throw the stallion, so Big Trouble looked a lot like a Tiz Wonderful, Tiznow, big and scopey. We bred her to Sidney’s Candy and the filly looks a lot like Sidney’s Candy. She is a very nice walker, a very balanced filly, but she’s a lot smaller than Big Trouble was because Sidney’s Candy is a smaller horse. And the mare is a medium-sized horse.”
Silver Lullaby produced a colt by Cape Blanco (Ire) this spring. Berkey said breeding to young stallions can be just what the market wants.
“From a commercial standpoint, we’ve found over the years that the market almost forces you to breed to unproven stallions because there are people who are very interested in unproven stallions,” she said. “You have to balance what the market wants and what potentially you are doing to your broodmare’s production record. I know over the years, you see mares that are failed producers–when you look at their produce records–but when you look at it you go failure, failure, failure stallion wise. If you’re breeding to an unproven stallion every year and the stallion fails–and we know most stallions do fail–then it’s not necessarily her fault. It’s hard to know. Personally, I like to start our young mares out the first year or two, if I can, with a proven stallion, but we like to balance out proven with a few unproven and hope for the best. Sometimes you guess right and sometimes you guess wrong–like anything in this business.”
Big Trouble was just one stakes winner in a busy summer for Columbiana-breds at the track. Lockout (Limehouse) was recently second in the GII Play the King S. and half-sister A Wild Notion (Notional) was runner-up in the Prairie Gold Lassie S. at Prairie Meadows in July. A half-sister by Macho Uno sells Saturday as hip 815.
Hip 1142 could get an update of her own just prior to going through the sales ring at Keeneland Saturday when her half-sister Appeal to the Win (Successful Appeal) goes postward in Woodbine’s GII Natalma S. The filly is by Scat Daddy and, out of Grand Breeze (Grand Slam), she is already a half to stakes winner Cool Cowboy (Kodiak Kowboy).
Columbiana purchased Per Se (Deputy Commander) for $65,000 at the 2011 Keeneland November sale. The mare’s 3-year-old filly Oasis at Midnight (Midnight Lute) was recently second in the Lady’s Secret S. at Monmouth Park and her half-sister by Scat Daddy sells as hip 837.
“There is just a lot of activity going on in our families, which you love to see,” Berkey confirmed.
Berkey is hoping the strength of Book 1 carries into Book 2.
“You always want to see Book 1 being strong because people aren’t able to buy what they want and they have to keep looking,” Berkey said.
The Columbiana consignment has been bustling the past two days, according to Berkey.
“We have been very busy [Friday morning] and we were very busy Thursday–we had over 300 shows for six horses,” she commented. “So you have to feel very positive and hope the sales continues to be strong.”
The Keeneland September sale resumes Saturday morning at 10 a.m. and continues daily through Sept. 21.