OBS spring sale: $900,000 Bernardini colt stars in second session

A $900,000 son of hot sire Bernardini and grandson of champion Princess Rooney lit up a buoyant sale session Tuesday as the Ocala Breeders’ spring 2-year-olds in training sale saw big increases that kept it on a sale-record pace.

The Ocala, Fla., auction, which set records last year, ended its second of four days’ selling this year with 208 juveniles bringing $13,091,500 (including private sales reported on the grounds by the session’s end) for an average price of $62,940 and a $40,000 median. Gross was up 48 percent compared with last year’s second-session aggregate of $8,855,000 for 207 horses, and the average and median soared up 47 percent and 33 percent, respectively. Last season’s sale records for the latter two figures were $42,778 for average and $30,000 for median.

The buyback rate was 14 percent, down slightly from last year’s 15 percent.

Betty Moran’s Brushwood Stable picked up Tuesday’s session-leading Bernardini colt, whose $900,000 sale price also was the auction’s highest with another two days left to go. The bay colt currently is named Prince Bernardini and is out of Princess Rooney’s daughter Rooneys Princess, by Deputy Minister.

The March 6 foal went to the sale as part of the Hartley/De Renzo Thoroughbreds consignment and had worked an eighth-mile in :10 seconds flat at the auction’s under-tack show on April 17. His consignors’ principals, Randy Hartley and Dean De Renzo, paid $225,000 for Prince Bernardini at last year’s Fasig-Tipton Saratoga select yearling sale in Saratoga Springs, N. Y., where the Gainesway agency sold him. He was withdrawn from OBS’s March 2-year-old auction earlier this year.

The session-topper is a half-brother to stakes-winner Prince Rooney and to stakes-placed V. I. P. Princess. His family also includes Grade 3 winner Kid Grindstone.

That single purchase made Brushwood Stable the session’s leading buyer. Eisaman Equine’s agency was the session’s leading consignor with 14 horses sold for $1,465,000.

Tuesday’s most expensive filly was a $290,000 Ghostzapper daughter whose second dam is Grade 1 winner Got Koko. The Feb. 21 filly is out of Got Koko’s unraced A. P. Indy daughter Koko Pop. Dominic Brennan, acting as agent for Highland Yard, bought the filly from Andro and Tracey Price’s Price Thoroughbreds agency.

The session continued a trend at the early-season select auctions, with heady prices at the upper level, as 26 juveniles brought six-figure prices this year, up from 17 last year. Between Tuesday’s top colt and filly were three other colts with big price tags: a $600,000 High Cotton-Keikik colt, a half-brother to stakes winner St. Louis City, that Ocala Stud sold to the St. Elias and West Point Thoroughbreds partnership; a $420,000 Two Step Salsa-Homesteader colt, from his sire’s first crop, that Eisaman Equine’s agency sold to Conquest Stables; and a $310,000 Henny Hughes-Impart colt from Wiseman’s Ferry’s family that the Grassroots Training and Sales agency sold to Bear Stables.

Through the first two sessions, OBS reported 405 hips sold at the spring sale for $24,841,000, a 52 increase compared with last year’s sale at the same point. The average price of $61,336 jumped 47 percent, and the median rose 27 percent to $38,000.

The OBS spring sale continues Wednesday, starting at 10:30 a.m. Eastern, and concludes on Thursday. Click here to watch a live feed of the sale.

For hip-by-hip results, click here.

OBS spring 2-year-olds in training sale, second session:

Year	Sold	Total	Average	Median	Buyback
2013	208 (0%)	$13,091,500 (+48%)	$62,940 (+47%)	$40,000 (+33%)	14%
2012	207	$8,855,000	$42,778	$30,000	15%