Barretts Rolls the Dice With August Sale

It’s August in Southern California. The weather is good, the racing is better, and officials at Barretts are looking forward to their inaugural August Select Yearling Sale set for Saturday evening following the live racing program at Del Mar.

“We have a beautiful venue here at Del Mar, it’s covered and cool, and we see this as a tremendous opportunity to have a select sale during the race meet,” commented Kim Lloyd, the general manager of Barretts. “Our real thrust is to try and get new people involved. We had lots of people show up [Friday] to have a look at the horses, it’s been very strong and we expect a lot of participation.”

The vast majority of the 76 youngsters catalogued were bred in California, and given the current structure in the state, Lloyd sees this as a real selling point.

“The Cal-bred program is very strong right now,” he said. “There is a lot of money out there for California-breds, with the Golden State series, for both colts and fillies, and all the Cal-breds in this sale remain eligible for that series, as well as Barretts Juvenile S. and Barretts Debutante S.”

But these are not your everyday Cal-breds. In additions to established local sires such as Unusual Heat, Tribal Rule, Lucky Pulpit–sire of California Chrome–and a handful of offerings from the first crop of six-time Grade I winner and 2011 Eclipse Award-winning older horse Acclamation (Unusual Heat), there are several Kentucky-sired Cal-breds by stallions such as Harlan’s Holiday Midnight Lute, Warrior’s Reward, First Samurai, Creative Cause, Kitten’s Joy, Shackleford and Majesticperfection. The latter is the sire of hip 24, an H & E Ranch-consigned son of Princess Deelites (Afternoon Deelites), who counts the outstanding Avenue of Flags full-siblings California Flag and Cambiocorsa amongst his female family members. There are additionally horses bred in other states by sires like Bernardini, Colonel John, Hansen, Into Mischief, Lookin at Lucky, Munnings, Quality Road and Tapizar.

“Those Kentucky sired Cal-breds have been very popular at our sales,” Lloyd reported. “A lot of people are buying mares and bringing them to this state, foaling them out and breeding them back in California. It is definitely an attempt to upgrade the stock in California and we’re certainly hoping for the best.”

The sale begins Saturday evening at 7:30 p.m. PT. Due to its late start, the full results will appear in Monday’s TDN. For the full catalogue, please visit www.barretts.com.