Tapit Filly Lights Out at OBS…
by Jessica Martini
A filly by leading sire Tapit lived up to all the pre-sale hype, selling for an OBS record $1.9 million to bloodstock agents Alex Solis and Jason Litt, who were bidding on hip 439 on behalf of the ownership group LNJ Foxwoods and fended off a bidder on the phone. It was the second big-ticket purchase of the spring for the group, which purchased a filly by Bellamy Road for $800,000 at the OBS March Sale.
“At the beginning of the year, we talked about buying the best fillies we could at the 2-year-old sales and we feel like we bought the best two fillies at the 2-year-old sales,” Solis said after signing the ticket out back.
Among the underbidders on the filly were bloodstock agent Steve Young and trainer Simon Callaghan.
Hip 439, consigned by Woodford Thoroughbreds, is out of the unraced Silver Wolf (Silver Deputy). The mare is a half-sister to Grade I winner Corinthian (Pulpit), and to graded stakes winner Desert Hero (Sea Hero). Bred by Stonestreet Thoroughbred Holdings, she was purchased by Dennis Farkas for $335,000 at last year's Keeneland September sale.
“There is not a knock on that filly,” Solis said. “You've got pedigree–it goes back to an unbelievable family. The mother cost $530,000 [at Keeneland September in 2007] and is a half to Corinthian and we know how good he was.”
The filly worked a furlong during last week's under-tack preview show in :10 1/5.
“If you watch the breeze, it was unbelievable,” Solis continued. “She galloped out like a freak. Steve Asmussen is going to get the filly. He went right back after the breeze show and he said she still had bounce in her step. He said she was unbelievable.”
Litt agreed the filly was the complete package and the duo expected to have to stretch for her.
“She's a beautiful filly,” Litt said. “I think I went back to see her seven times and every time she looked the same, not a care in the world. She has a lot of class, breezed great, galloped out great. At these sales, you're looking for them to check all the boxes and she did. We knew we would have to pay. Everyone could see it.”
Solis added, “You don't get a better stallion in the whole world than Tapit. So when you get a chance like this at public auction, when you have one you know can run, and they are by the right stallion with the right pedigree, it might cost a lot of money, but to get to this point and have all this information is really valuable. It's the best filly of the sale and it wasn't even close to the next one.”
While Solis has declined to name the principals in LNJ Foxwoods, the relatively new group has already campaigned stakes-placed runners Fleet of Gold (Medaglia d'Oro), third in last year's Busanda S., and Welcome Guest (Rock Hard Ten), second in the 2012 GIII Comely S.
Despite the purchase of two high-priced fillies this spring, Solis said, “They'll buy anything, but we've been focused on fillies because they are putting together a broodmare band and this filly checked every box. She was the star of the show from the moment we saw her.”
Big Score for Farkas…
by Jessica Martini
Dennis Farkas, who was pinhooking for the first time at the OBS Spring sale, appeared remarkably calm after watching the Tapit filly he purchased for $335,000 at last year's Keeneland September sale sell for $1.9 million in Ocala Wednesday.
“I think I'm kind of in shock,” he smiled. “That was unbelievable. I was not at all expecting that.”
Farkas, who has owned racehorses for some 25 years, is president of Trico Surveying and Mapping. Prior to the OBS sale, he admitted of the filly's yearling price tag, “I don't buy in that range usually.” He added his wife had given him a figure over which he would have to sell the filly.
He admitted Wednesday, “I think her figure was $700,000. The [$1.9 million] was way beyond I think what anybody expected. That was about three or five minutes of pure excitement for me.”
Farkas already has plans for the profit.
“It's my son Derek's birthday today,” Farkas said. “He turned 13. I am going to call him and tell him that college is not out of the picture just yet. He'll probably want a lap top or something like that, but for me to know that he can go to college now is a good feeling.”
Click here for a feature on Farkas.
'Mo' for Repole at OBS…
by Jessica Martini
Mike Repole, who purchased a colt by Tapit for a sale-topping $725,000 at last year's OBS Spring Sale, acquired a colt from the first crop of his champion Uncle Mo for $325,000 during Wednesday's second session of this year's sale. Repole's racing manager Jim Martin, sitting alongside Jonathon Thomas, signed for the youngster, who was consigned by Eddie Woods.
“It was a team effort between Todd Pletcher, Mike Repole, Jim Martin and Eddie Rosen,” explained Thomas. “This horse will go to [Jim] Crupi and he's a huge part of the team, too. And this colt got a thumbs up from everybody. ”
Out of Grade I placed Rhiana (Runaway Groom), hip 330 is a half-brother to graded stakes winner Behindatthebar (Forest Wildcat). He worked a quarter in :21 2/5.
Repole campaigned juvenile champion Uncle Mo, but Thomas said that was only part of the colt's appeal.
“We're a big fan of Uncle Mo, but this horse stood out on his own merit,” Thomas said. “He's going to get every chance to succeed and hopefully he'll hold up his end of the bargain.”
The bay colt was purchased by Pete Bradley's Bradley Thoroughbreds for $60,000 at last year's Keeneland September sale.
Last year's OBS Spring topper, now named Overcontrol was tabbed a 'TDN Rising Star' after winning his debut at Gulfsream last December. The colt was well-beaten in a January allowance in his second outing.
“He is training well at Jim Crupi's and will be returning to Todd in the near future,” Repole confirmed via e-mail Wednesday.
Summer Bird Colt to Fletcher…
by J.M. Severni
Bloodstock agent Donato Lanni made his first purchase of the OBS Spring sale early Wednesday, and he did so in a big way, going to $500,000 to secure hip 395 on behalf of Frank Fletcher. The Summer Bird colt went in :10 flat, covering the distance in the co-fastest time during last Tuesday's under-tack show. He will go to trainer Bob Baffert.
“There's a common saying at the yearling sales that there are certain boxes that need to be checked,” Lanni explained. “At the 2-year-old sales, the boxes are bigger and there are more of them to check. It's hard for a 2-year-old to check every box and, to me and Bobby, he checked every box. He's the kind of horse we like and we just hope we get lucky. We liked the move on the track through the gallop-out. He came back to the barn and I liked that he carried a lot of flesh–I like horses that carry a lot of flesh after the breeze show and he did. Bob and I liked him and he's going to a really good owner.”
Bred by Fredericka Caldwell and Mitchel Skolnick, the chestnut was scooped up as a $60,000 yearling by Hartley/DeRenzo at the Fasig-Tipton July sale. He is the third foal out of dam See Rock City (Tapit), making him a half-sibling to GSP One More (Holy Bull) and Dynamic Dash (Pleasantly Perfect), who was named champion imported 2-year-old colt in the Republic of Korea last year. She produced a Broken Vow yearling.
This colt is from the second crop of champion Summer Bird, who stood at Pauls Mills in 2011 and WinStar Farm in 2012. The GI Belmont S. winner was then sold to Japan and died of colic at Paca Paca Farm in 2013.
“I knew how much [Donato and Baffert] love Summer Bird,” Randy Hartley said. “When I saw that colt out of a Tapit mare, I was like 'I'm going to buy one and try to sell him to Bob.' I knew he'd love him. [The colt] just did everything right. We planned on bringing him here when we bought him. We're happy Bob got him, so we're excited.”
Fletcher, a former manufacturer's representative for Walmart, founded Cheyenne/Silverwood Industries, which produces lamps, mirrors and framed art. The Arkansas native is also involved in a number of hotels, steakhouses and car dealerships. He currently has horses with Baffert, Al Stall, Jr., Al Cates and D.T. Howard. He purchased Wolf Man Rocket (Mineshaft) for $550,000 out of this sale last year. The Baffert trainee annexed Oaklawn's Northern Spur S. earlier this month.
Top-Prized Tizway 2yo Goes to Rice…
by J.M. Severni
A month after taking home a session-topping Broken Vow colt from the OBS March Sale, trainer Linda Rice was back in Marion County making another notable purchase when she went to $420,000 to secure hip 488. Rice, who sat alongside former model Sheila Rosenblum, did the bidding on behalf of a newly formed syndicate of female investors led by Rosenblum.
The filly became the highest-priced 2yo progeny of first-crop Spendthrift stallion Tizway to be sold at auction. Bred by the Alastar Thoroughbred Co., she is the first foal out of Spanish Empiress (Empire Maker). The filly was consigned by Randy Bradshaw and was clocked in :10 1/5 at the under-tack show.
“I think Tizway is a good sire, I'm excited about the Tizways I've seen this year,” Rice offered. “She has a lot of strength in the female family, so I think that she could really turn into a very nice filly in the long run. Her breeze was very nice, she galloped out well. I liked her action on the racetrack–she has a long reach. With the combination of her track performance and her pedigree, she was on our list.”
Of her increased participation in the 2-year-old sales, Rice said, “This year [with the partnership] our intent was to buy quality young horses, and we've been working hard at that. We don't always get the one we want, but we're trying.”
Scat Daddy Colt Vindicates Frommer's Faith…
by Jessica Martini
Cary Frommer and Barry Berkelhammer were sitting in the back row of the Saratoga sales pavilion during the Fasig-Tipton New York-bred sale last August bidding on a colt by Scat Daddy for part of their pinhooking partnership. Bidding had stalled at $160,000 and Berkelhammer seemed happy to let the colt go, but Frommer shook him off and made an additional bid to secure the youngster for $162,000. The colt returned to the sale's ring Wednesday at OBS as hip 536 and rewarded Frommer's faith when selling for $300,000 to Team D, but it wasn't all smooth sailing.
“Ask her how she sold a horse who worked in :11 flat for $300,000,” Berkelhammer beamed at the barn after the colt sold.
“Don't think we weren't worried when he worked in :11 flat,” Frommer admitted. “The key was he got going midway through the breeze and people could see that on the tape and then he just kept going. He galloped out as good as any horse at the sale that day and a lot of the other days, too (click here for ThoroStride gallop out video). He had a beautiful video and he kept going and he wouldn't have blown out a match when he was done. He just walked home flat footed, nice and not even breathing heavy.”
Asked what made her want to keep bidding last summer at Saratoga, Frommer said, “When I saw him as a yearling, I just felt like he was the real deal. He just caught my imagination and I just loved him and I told the people that were with me as a group and they all agreed and they bought him.”
The colt is out of Sunny (Dixieland Band), a half-sister to multiple stakes winner Wake Up Kiss, who is the dam of Japanese Group 1 winner A Shin Forward.
Frommer was confident the colt would acquit himself well in Ocala.
“We liked him a lot at the farm, but he wasn't bunny rabbit fast and we knew he wasn't going to work in :10 flat, but we also knew he was a nice horse and he'd been training great and he has a good mind,” she said.
Frommer's list of 2-year-old graduates includes graded stakes winner Trappe Shot (Tapit), who sold for $850,000 at the 2009 Fasig-Tipton May sale. She thinks buyers might be more willing to accept slower works from her consignments.
“I know they are more forgiving of [slower works] from me than from other people because I tend to have slower times,” she said. “So they know that I'll never have a bullet work. My horses don't work that fast because I'm not willing to push that extra bit you have to that's either going to make it the fastest work or a hurt horse. I'm not willing to make that last work count.”
Frommer and Berkelhammer generally team up for five to six pinhooking prospects a year and have learned to trust in their teamwork.
“We usually agree, but when we don't agree we have learned to listen to the other one's gut feelings,” Frommer said. “We've been working together for a while now and and we pretty much have it figured out. My weaknesses are his strengths and vice versa. Between Barry and I, we'll usually pinhook between five and six. And we've had some major runners come out of that small number of runners. And I think that's a combination of his work at the farm [Abracadabra Farm in Ocala] and my work at the farm [in Aiken] and his believing in the horses and backing them up with his clients. But the end result, we have wonderful statistics. With a small number of horses we just keep putting out nice horses.”
Berkelhammer will have the chance to prove his instincts at Saratoga were just as good as his partner's during Thursday's session of the Spring sale when hip 605 goes through the ring.
“She is a Curlin filly and it was the same up in Saratoga,” Frommer said. “But the reverse, with me going 'Well…maybe that's enough' and him saying, 'No, no, no.' She is another one who has jumped through every hoop. She came here,she worked exactly how I thought she was going to work. She was fast [:10 1/5], galloped out beautifully, vetted perfectly. She just checks all the boxes.”
Out of Trust N Intuition (Trust N Luck), the Curlin filly was an $80,000 Saratoga New York-bred yearling.
Small Batch Selling at 'Mauk' Speed…
by J.M. Severni
Small Batch, a premium bourbon that's been aged in a limited number of barrels, is well-regarded for its quality, craftsmanship and rarity. It's also a fitting name for Fletcher Mauk's Thoroughbred investment agency. The Lexington native created Small Batch Thoroughbreds, which races, pinhooks and breeds, with the understanding that limited numbers of quality horses can be sound financial investments. So far, that theory has paid off during the OBS Spring sale.
Mauk, the son of bloodstock agent Bill Mauk, worked for his father in the summers during college, and decided to make a career of it after graduating.
“He started taking me to work every day where we were evaluating weanlings and yearlings,” Mauk explained. “That's the first time I realized I was a visual person, and I got hooked on it. I worked with him, kept going from there. I trained for a while, worked the sales and put a partnership together. This is the first year I've done 2-year-old sales. Before the economy went bad, I pinhooked anywhere between five to 10 horses a year–usually weanlings to yearlings or buy yearlings and try to resell them at the races. This is the first year there's an actual partnership structure taking yearlings to 2-year-old sales.”
In its inaugural year dipping into the 2-year-old sales, Small Batch Thoroughbreds brought three fillies to Ocala: hip 294 (Thorostride inspection video), hip 487 (Thorostride video) and hip 635 (Thorostride video). The trio were consigned by Top Line Sales. Mauk purchased hip 294, a filly by Ghostzapper, for $63,000; hip 487, a filly by Quality Road, for just $40,000; and hip 635, a filly by Hold Me Back, for $42,000 at the Keeneland September sale. Two of those savvy investments have already paid off, with hip 294 going to Christina Jelm for $115,000, while hip 487 was purchased by 1230 Partners for $250,000.
Hip 635 will go through the ring Thursday afternoon.
Although Mauk had hopes his modest string of horses would do well in the sale's ring, he has been more than pleased with the results so far.
“These fillies have been training well all year, but you never know until you get over here what kind of sale you're going to have,” Mauk offered. “Tuesday, we sold a filly I thought would sell a little bit better, but yesterday [the market] was slower and I think that affected the sale's price a little bit. Since I bought these fillies, I've being told by everyone who has had them how nice they are, so I was hoping to have a good sale, but I never expect it in this business.
Mauk, who also works as a performance analyst for Equix Biomechanics, selects all of the pinhooking prospects himself. He values pedigree and horses he can see maturing into solid racing prospects.
“First off, pedigree always sells, so the horse has to have a little bit of pedigree,” he remarked. “All three of my fillies have graded production in the first dam, which is highly important to me. As far as the physical, I like a really classy horse–the same thing that most other people like–a good mover who is attentive to their handler and looks like they have some sense of being trainable. I like horses where I can anticipate how they're going to grow into their muscle and how they're going to develop based on their structure.”
Mauk acknowledged that there are numerous components responsible for the success of Small Batch Thoroughbreds.
“I selected these horses myself at the sale, then there are a number of people that handle them,” he explained. “They were broke at Mill Iron Farm in Lexington where they learned the early stages of long lining and were jogged around the paddock with a rider. Then, I sent them to Web Carroll in South Carolina for about 10 weeks where he introduced them to the racetrack. Jimbo and Torie Gladwell of Top Line Sales had them since January and there they started focusing on speed. I'm a big believer that, as long as your horses are in good hands, it's good for them to be with a lot of people so they get to see a lot of different environments.”
As far as future aspirations go, Mauk said wants to continue selecting quality horses in the hopes that they are successful on the track.
“Small Batch Thoroughbreds is playing on the concept that we have limited numbers, a specialized procedure and superior results,” Mauk concluded. “If I can continue to sustain that through a career, I'll be happy.”
Miller Adds Another In Summation…
by J.M. Severni
California-based trainer Peter Miller ended the session with five purchases, amongst them hip 313, a colt by In Summation. Bred and consigned by Ocala Stud, the hammer dropped at $77,000 for the dark bay. Miller is hopeful the colt will be similar to another Ocala-consigned In Summation colt he purchased at this sale last year–Calculator. That Richard Pell colorbearer, who was purchased for $132,000, was second behind American Pharoah (Pioneerof the Nile) in both the GI Del Mar Futurity and GI FrontRunner S. before graduating in the GIII Sham S.
“They can run,” Miller said of the In Summations he has seen. “They're nice horses and they're fast.”
The trainer said he did see similarities between Calculator and hip 313.
“He's very athletic, correct and long-legged,” he said of the new purchase. “They have similar body types.”
As for Calculator, who has been sidelined with an injury since February, Miller added, “He's doing well, he'll be back to training in a couple of months.”
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