By Sarah Mace
A dark bay/brown New York-bred filly by Shackleford fetched $310,000 from Narvick International to emerge as the top-selling female and co-second top seller overall in the opening session of the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Company’s 2016 April sale of two-year-olds in training. Additionally, the eleven New York-breds who sold in Wednesday’s first session posted a strong performance, outperforming the general population of the sale in both average and median.
The filly topper, Hip 128, is an April 30 foal, who was bred by Peter Kazamias’ Kaz Hill Farm near Middletown. A graduate of Fasig-Tipton’s preferred New York-bred yearling sale last summer, she went to IBA for $125,000. At OBS she breezed a quarter in :20 4/5 in the under tack show.
The Shackleford filly is the second foal out of Royal Affection, a three-time winner by Vindication, whom Kazamias bought in foal for $30,000 from the 2014 Keeneland January sale. Out of Royal Tigress, a stakes winner in Ireland, Royal Affection is a half sister to graded winner Tiger Ride (Candy Ride) and stakes winner Ol Donyo by Curlin. Graded and stakes winner abound under the sale filly’s third and fourth dam.
The filly is headed to Japan. Steve Venosa of SGV Thoroughbreds, who consigned the 2-year-old on behalf of a pinhooking partnership, told the TDN, “Anytime you lead a horse up there and are able to sell it, you are very pleased, so we were very happy with the price. She is going to a great home. Given she is a New York-bred, you always want to see them perform at Saratoga, but I’m sure going over [to Japan], she will definitely show up and do well over there.”
Venosa continued, “She had a good overall frame and a very athletic walk [as a yearling]. She looked like she had a very good disposition on her and just the way she conducted herself for the sale–she showed the same in the afternoon as she did in the morning, so we liked that about her. She just had a really elegant walk, the way it flowed.”
As to her development over the winter, Venosa said, “She was one that was always a late bloomer, but she was always just doing everything right. So, we had felt being that she was an April foal, we would target her for this sale. She was peaking at the right time and it was evident by her performance here.”
Of the 16 New York-bred juveniles offered during the sale opener, 11 sold for an average of $84,000 and median $75,000, indicators which outperformed the sale stats, which were strong. The average overall for the session was $72,601 (up 27% from $57,189 in 2015) and the sale median price was $47,000 (up 17.5% from $40,000 a year ago to $47,000).
The OBS April sale continues daily through Friday, each of the remaining three sessions beginning at 10:30 a.m. Eastern.
