Barretts: $150K Bertrando colt tops strong October yearling sale

Topped by a $150,000 Bertrando colt bought by Arnold Zetcher, the Barretts October yearling auction enjoyed large gains Tuesday night.

The auction in Pomona, Calif., sold 20 more yearlings this year, 174 versus 154 a year ago, and saw gross soar by 54 percent to $4,006,600. Average also rose by 36 percent to $23,026, and median nearly doubled on an 85 percent increase, from $9,750 to $18,000. The buyback rate also remained relatively low at 19 percent, well down from last year’s 30 percent.

Willow Tree Farm consigned the sale-topping Bertrando colt, a Feb. 13 son of Telling Stories. The dam is an unraced 6-year-old Tale of the Cat mare out of stakes-placed Grapevine, by Sadler’s Wells. The English group winner Musicale is in the family.

One other yearling brought $150,000 on the price board but was a buyback. That was a Dixie Chatter colt out of the In Excess mare Never to Excess. That mare already has produced stakes winner Ismene and stakes-placed Oonga Boonga, both by Tribal Rule. Harris Farms, agent, consigned the Feb. 22 colt on behalf of Stephen Ferraro.

The highest-priced filly was an $85,000 daughter of first-crop sire Kodiak Kowboy bought by Bill Tomasic from the Havens Bloodstock Agency. The bay filly, foaled last Feb. 26, is a half-sister to graded-placed stakes winner Roi Charmant.