by Sarah Mace
A day after a New York-bred juvenile topped the filly offerings in the opening session The Ocala Breeders’ Sales Co. spring sale of 2-year-olds in training, a filly from the family of Affirmed Success emerged as the state-bred standout of day two, hammered down to Gary Contessa, agent, for $390,000. The filly’s price tag made her the fourth top-seller in the second session, and fifth highest-priced juvenile through the first half of the four-day sale.
Contessa, the leading buyer of the session, signed for Hip 384 (named Amerindian) on behalf of Chip McEwen’s Wounded Warrior Stables, owner of Kentucky Derby-bound and Indian Charlie-sired Uncle Sigh.
Said Contessa, “I just loved the way she moved. What a coincidence that Uncle Sigh is an Indian Charlie New York-bred, believe me that had nothing to do with it. When she ran past me, I said, ‘I’ve got to have this filly.’ And it was an easy sell. Now if Sigh wins the Derby, we’ll be in good shape.”
Contessa said of the filly’s price, “That was our top dollar. We really wanted to get her for $300,000, but you know how it happens when you get to a sale. She’s got a stellar pedigree, she could be any kind of broodmare. She’s got residual value, she’s a big good-looking filly. She had everything going for her.”
The dark bay / brown filly failed to meet her reserve at the Fasig-Tipton New York-bred preferred sale in Saratoga last summer when bid up to $90,000. At OBS, she worked a sharp :10 flat furlong in the under tack show for consigner James Layden (Agent I).
Bred by Jonathan Davis’s Milfer Farm, Inc., the filly is out of My Success, a multiple winner by A.P. Indy bred by Albert Fried Jr. and campaigned by Lawana and Robert Low ($94,980). My Success, who was purchased in foal by Milfer Farm for $85,000 at the 2011 Keeneland November sale, has produced five winners, led by Kentucky-bred stakes winner Southern Success (Dixieland Band) and multiple graded stakes placed California runner Taste Like Candy, a 3-year-old daughter of Candy Ride.
The dam of My Success is Towering Success, a half-sister to Grade 1 winners Exbourne and Expelled, and to graded winner Top Socialite, dam of $2.2 million-earner Affirmed Success, winner of the Grade 1 Carter Handicap, Cigar Mile Handicap and Vosburgh Stakes.
On day two of the OBS sale 28 of 34 New York-breds offered changed hands (18 percent buy-back rate), for an average price of $70,679 and median of $55,000.
Cumulatively through the first half of the sale, the average price for an Empire-bred is $68,241 and median price is $48,500. Eleven New York-breds so far have sold for $100,000 or more.
The New York-bred indicators are on a par with the robust numbers posted by general population of the sale, which has a cumulative average of $72,483 (up 21 percent from 2013), and cumulative median of $47,000 (up 27 percent from last year).
The spring sale resumes with its third session on Wednesday, April 23 at 10:30 a.m.
