Average price up at Ocala sale session

A Sultry Song mare carrying a Curlin foal commanded the $105,000 top price at Tuesday's first session of the Ocala Breeders' Sales Company's winter mixed auction.

The consignor-preferred session in Ocala, Fla., began the two-day auction with a decline in gross receipts but gains in average and median price. Tuesday's session sold 94 horses for $918,700, a drop of 37 percent from last year's opening day, when 168 horses sold in a larger catalog. But the average rose 13 percent, from last year's figure of $8,632 to $9,773. The median price climbed 24 percent, from $4,100 last year to $5,100. But buy-backs, which at OBS now include horses who do not receive a bid, also increased from last year's 28 percent (including no-bids) to 32 percent.

Sultry Song's 4-year-old daughter East Long Lake was the top seller Tuesday on that $105,000 bid from Mary K. Haire. Kaizen Sales, agent, consigned East Long Lake, a half-sister to five stakes performers, including Grade 3 winners OK By Me and D J's Rainbow, as well as to the stakes-producing mare Aesthete.

East Long Lake is unraced and is out of the Inverness Drive winner Antoinetta.

The auction was to continue Wednesday with its second and final day, an open session.