Steve Venosa
With the first major 2-year-old sale, OBS March, now in the books, and the next round, the OBS April sale, right around the corner, it's time for some predictions. We asked the experts who their pick is for leading freshman sire and also asked them for a "sleeper pick," or a stallion that will perform beyond expectations. Here's what they had to say: STEVE VENOSA Top Pick: Jackie's Warrior (Spendthrift Farm, $25,000) Training them this year, I think the obvious two horses are Jackie's Warrior and Drain the Clock. They...
by Jessica Martini & Christina Bossinakis OCALA, FL - With one more million-dollar juvenile bringing its three-day total to a record-tying seven, the Ocala Breeders' Sales Company's March Sale of 2-Year-Olds in Training concluded Thursday with its highest-ever gross and increases in both average and median from a year ago. "Gratified, pleased and happy for the consignors," OBS Director of Sales Tod Wojciechowski said of the auction's record-setting results. The consignors bring the horses and the quality of the horses that they bring is what brings the prices. So I...
Steve Venosa's SGV Thoroughbreds, a regular consignor on the 2-year-olds in training sales circuit, made its debut on the digital auction scene and came away with the sale-topper at the Fasig-Tipton October Digital Sale which closed Wednesday. Venosa and partners sold the broodmare Stifled Heiress (Munnings) (hip 242) for $470,000 to Bryant Prentice's Pursuit of Success, LLC. The 9-year-old mare, who sold in foal to Leinster, came into the virtual sales ring with a big update after her 3-year-old son Mad House (Vekoma) won the GII Gallant Bob Stakes at...
TIMONIUM, MD - The under-tack show for the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic May 2-Year-Olds in Training Sale, delayed a day and an hour by rain storms, opened under gray skies and an intermittent drizzle Wednesday at the Maryland State Fairgrounds as seven juveniles splashed down the lane in co-fastest :10 1/5 furlong breezes. First to hit the :10 1/5 time was a colt by Tiz the Law (hip 189), who worked early in the second of the day's seven sets. Consigned by Wavertree Stables, the bay is out of stakes-placed Janis's Joy...
by Jessica Martini & Stefanie Grimm OCALA, FL - It was mid-morning Wednesday when Kerri Radcliffe made the first seven-figure purchase of the day, going to $1.05 million for a son of Nyquist, and, by the time the bloodstock agent made a session-topping bid of $1.45 million for a colt by Gun Runner just three hips from the end of the day, a total of six juveniles had sold for seven figures during the second session of the Ocala Breeders' Sales Company's Spring Sale of 2-Year-Olds in Training Wednesday. Through...
Longtime New York breeder Sanford Bacon passed away Friday. He was 95. Bacon bred hard-knocking Say Florida Sandy (Personal Flag), a multiple graded stakes winner and earner of over $2 million, as well as his half-sister Dancin Renee (Distinctive Pro). Both were named New York-bred champions. Say Florida Sandy was New York Horse of the Year in 2001 and 2002 and a three-time champion sprinter in the state. Graded stakes winner Dancin Renee was named New York Horse of the Year, as well as champion sprinter and champion older female,...
TIMONIUM, MD - The three-day under-tack show ahead of the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic May 2-Year-Olds in Training Sale began on a picture-perfect day in Timonium Tuesday with a colt by Awesome Slew (hip 91) working the bullet furlong of :10 flat early in the first of the day's seven sets. The juvenile is consigned by Tom McCrocklin, who purchased him on behalf of Michael Sucher's Champion Equine for $150,000 at last year's Ocala Breeders' Sales Company's October Yearling Sale. "He's a very fast horse," McCrocklin said Tuesday. "I was not surprised...
by Jessica Martini & Christina Bossinakis OCALA, FL - The Ocala Breeders' Sales Company's Spring Sale of 2-Year-Olds in Training opened Tuesday with a session that produced figures nearly identical to the auction's 2022 opening session. "It was a good start to the sale," said OBS Director of Sales Tod Wojciechowski. "A lot of horses sold very well. And I'd like to think the strength will continue through the next three days. I feel pretty good about that. There are a lot of good horses left to sell." During Tuesday's...
A colt by No Nay Never (hip 332) turned in the fastest quarter-mile work of the second session of the under-tack show for the Ocala Breeders' Sales Company's Spring Sale of 2-Year-Olds in Training Monday in Central Florida, covering the distance in :20 4/5. The juvenile was the first of three from an initial pinhooking group owned by Houston Astros third-baseman Alex Bregman to hit the OBS track ahead of next week's auction. Bregman Family Racing made its debut on the racetrack a winning one just last May when the...
Cesar Loya, who was first introduced to Thoroughbreds as a kid when his father worked for Dr. Pug and Susie Hart, will offer his first consignment at the Ocala Breeders' Sales Company's March 2-Year-Olds in Training Sale next week and it seems fitting the star of his five-horse draft may well be a filly by Mitole (hip 738) that Loya and his wife Danielle Jones-Loya raised on behalf of the Harts on their Ocala farm. "My dad worked for Dr. Pug and Susie Hart. I grew up at their farm...
SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY - Fasig-Tipton will be looking to continue the momentum set by its record-setting select sale when bidding returns to the Humphrey S. Finney Pavilion Sunday evening for the first of two sessions of the New York-Bred Yearlings Sale. Bidding begins Sunday at 7 p.m. and Monday's session will begin at 12 p.m. With the end of the sweltering conditions which punctuated the last week in upstate New York, activity was high at the sales barns on a picture-perfect Saturday morning as a mixture of end-users, pinhookers and...
By Christie DeBernardis & Jessica Martini LEXINGTON, KY--Yearling sale season started with a bang Tuesday at Fasig-Tipton's July Selected Yearling Sale. The auction house saved the best for last with the final horse through the ring, a son of Curlin (Hip 302), topping the day on a $600,000 bid from the Green family's DJ Stable. Last year's leading freshman sire Gun Runner accounted for the day's second-highest seller, a $430,000 colt (Hip 153) sold to de Meric Sales. Both colts came from the Gainesway consignment, which was responsible for...