OBS Spring Breeze Show Marches On

WOODS FILLIES EARN QUARTER BULLETS
by J.M. Severni 
Through four of six sessions of the OBS Spring under tack show, two juveniles turned in sub-:21 quarter-mile breezes and both fillies were consigned by Eddie Woods. First up was hip 572, an Any Given Saturday filly who breezed in :20 4/5Wednesday. She was just outdone Thursday by hip 608, a filly by Big Drama who went in :20 3/5. 

“They’ve been very precocious, they’re very shapely fillies with good dispositions,” Woods commented. “As with the rest of our consignment, good works were expected. I’m not going to tell you I thought that filly would work in :20 3/5, but I was expecting her to work very well.” 

The Any Given Saturday filly is out of stakes-winner and graded stakes placed Tequilas Dayjur (Dayjur). Bred by Dean Hayes and Darley, the juvenile sold for $57,000 at last year’s Fasig-Tipton Kentucky October sale. 

Hip 608, from the first crop of sprint champion Big Drama, is out of stakes-placed Twilight Mirage (Jeblar) and is a half-sister to stakes winner Determinato (Closing Argument). The dark bay filly, bred by Quarter Pole Enterprises, RNA’d for $47,000 at last year’s OBS August yearling sale. 

Thursday’s under-tack show also featured the first horse to shade :10 for a furlong breeze when hip 692, a filly by Lemon Drop Kid, worked in :9 4/5. Consigned by Bobby Dodd, agent, the youngster is out of stakes winner and Grade I placed Yonagucci (Yonaguska). 

As the breeze show marathon marches on, Woods said the track has played well throughout the week. 

“I think the track, for the most part, has been consistent for the last four days,” Woods said Thursday. “It’s a hair slower than what we saw at March, but that’s not a bad thing, and it’s been the same track for everyone. Being a hair slower, it’s been a better track than a really fast one.” 

Off such a strong OBS March sale, which offered an expanded format for the first time this year, Woods believes the OBS April sale will also post impressive results. 

“This will be a good sale,” he said. “What has affected this sale more than anything is Keeneland not having a sale. There are a lot of horses here who would have gone to Keeneland that are now in here, which puts a bit of quality into the thing. You can’t have it every way–the March sale was so overwhelmingly good, so if it affects this sale a little bit, it’s not the end of the world, you can’t have it all the time.” 

SIX BREEZE SHOWS KEEP CONSIGNORS BUSY 
by Jessica Martini 
With 1,203 horses catalogued for its Spring Sale of 2-Year-Olds in Training, the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Company is offering six breeze show sessions this week in Florida, with approximately 200 horses working each day. The extra sessions have gotten a generally positive review, but are not without their own drawbacks. 

“I think it is an excellent idea,” consignor Nick de Meric said after Thursday’s fourth under-tack session. “It’s much fairer on the horses. It’s fairer on the consignors. And to witness what I am looking at now, which is my courtyard full of people looking, I think it’s going to be good for buyers because they have 1 1/2 to two hours at the end of each day to look at horses they like on the track. 

He continued, “For us as consignors, we’re not out there in the heat of the day, the horses aren’t coming back to the barn at 5:30 in the afternoon and then coming out looking exhausted and hot. So I think there are lots of big pluses.” 

The sheer numbers of the Spring sale make it a logistically challenging proposition. 

“I don’t think there is any good way to get through 1,200 horses,” said consignor Ciaran Dunne. “They are trying to do the best they can. One of the hardest things about what we do is to have the buyers sit through six, seven, eight-hour breeze show sessions. I think for the horses, when it gets late in the afternoon and it gets hot, the track starts to get chewed up, the wind picks up–it’s unfair on the horses who maybe have to go later. So eliminating that fourth set is good from that point of view.” 

Both consignors agreed there is a downside to a six-day breeze show. 

“The one adjustment I would suggest, is that I think we need to condense it to five days, not six, because people like myself, Eddie Woods, Niall Brennan and Barry Eisaman, we have not seen our horses train at the farm in a week,” de Meric explained. “It would be really nice if we had Saturday when we did not have a breeze show, we could be at our own farms and do what training we need to do there. And then come back to the sale on Sunday or probably Saturday afternoon and conduct our business here. So to have six days in a row, that’s basically a week of training you are missing at home. And that is kind of difficult.” 

While the breeze sessions might be shorter, the days are still long. 

“It’s very hard on our help,” Dunne said. “Given the nature of what we do, they have to be here early in the morning. The horses have to train here all week while we are waiting for their turn to come in the breeze show. What we’ve been trying to do is leave the horses who have breezed open for buyers to come and see. As it has gotten later in the week and the numbers have started to build up, it’s 4:30-5:00 p.m. when we get to shut down for the evening. By the time guys get done doing up a bunch of horses and then we get to feed and then they clean up around the place, all of a sudden it’s 6-6:30 at night before they get to go home and they’ve worked a 13-14 hour day. And it’s not just one day, we’re looking at doing this for two weeks. It’s very, very hard. It’s not easy on anyone, but I’m not sure there is any good way around it.” 

The penultimate session of the Spring breeze show begins Friday at 8 a.m. and the show concludes Saturday. The Spring sale will be held next Tuesday through Friday with sessions beginning daily at 10:30 a.m.