Best looks to continue momentum with young stallions at Fasig-Tipton Kentucky sale

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Since his emergence as a prominent buyer of young horses a little more than six years ago, Larry Best’s OXO Equine silks have become a familiar sight around the country. Best has campaigned Grade 1 winners Cambier Parc and Instilled Regard, both seven-figure auction purchases, along with graded stakes winners Center Aisle, Instagrand, and Travel Column.

Not content to merely select horses raised by other programs, he has expanded his plans to become a prominent breeder and major commercial operation. He has quickly found success in that regard and bred his first Grade 1 winner this year.

“The only unfortunate thing is, I sold him!” Best said with a laugh.

OXO Equine bred Geaux Rocket Ride and sold the colt to Jim and Dana Bernhard in 2021. This year, the colt won the Grade 1 Haskell and is a candidate for next month’s Breeders’ Cup Classic.

Best’s operation has hit a new phase this year as he stands three young stallions at Taylor Made Farm in Nicholasville, Ky. – Instagrand, Instilled Regard, and Rowayton – who all have their first-crop yearlings at public auction this year. The trio is well represented in this week’s final stop of the North American yearling market, the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky fall sale.

Fasig-Tipton has cataloged 1,605 yearlings for the four-session sale that begins on Monday. That includes 23 for Instagrand, eight for Instilled Regard, and two for Rowayton.

Instagrand, by leading sire and emerging sire of sires Into Mischief, was a $1.2 million 2-year-old purchase by Best. He won his first two starts by a combined 20 1/4 lengths, including a romp in the Grade 2 Best Pal. He was third in the Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby to Roadster and champion Game Winner as a 3-year-old.

Instagrand has been popular, and commercially well received. He covered 190 mares in his first season, according to The Jockey Club’s Report of Mares Bred. From that first book, he has been represented by 60 yearlings sold to date for an average of $44,988 – nearly six times his introductory stud fee of $6,500.

“He prints them,” Best said of the young stallion’s offspring. “He was extremely fast. He’s just a quality son of Into Mischief.”

Instilled Regard, a seven-figure juvenile by Arch from a deep Phipps family, was Grade 1-placed late in his juvenile season. He won the Grade 3 Lecomte in 2018 and was a creditable fourth in the Kentucky Derby behind Triple Crown winner Justify. Moved to turf later in his career, he was a multiple graded stakes winner, highlighted by the Grade 1 Manhattan in 2020.

Instilled Regard, who covered 67 mares in his first season, has been represented by 24 yearlings sold for an average of $27,298, against an introductory stud fee of $12,500.

Rowayton, also by Into Mischief, was second in the Grade 1 Del Mar Futurity and third in the Grade 1 American Pharoah, both behind Game Winner in his championship season. Rowayton was graded stakes-placed at 3.

The stallion stood his first season at Diamond B Farm in Pennsylvania, covering 46 mares at a fee of $5,000, before joining his stablemates in Kentucky. He is averaging $42,800, more than eight times that fee, from five yearlings sold.

“Rowayton never won a Grade 1, but he’s the real deal,” Best said. “At least, I can say I believe in him, and I put my money where my mouth is, for better or worse.”

Best has indeed put his money and his mares to work to support his stallions, making major purchases at mixed sales and then sending accomplished racemares to his young stallions. Instagrand’s first book included Breeders’ Cup Distaff winner Blue Prize, Broodmare of the Year Indian Miss, and Grade 1 winner Concrete Rose. Instilled Regard covered Cambier Parc in his first season, as well as multiple graded stakes winner Beau Recall.

“You have to believe in the horse and the pedigree,” Best said. “You have to believe in the horse, and you have to support the horse. Luckily, I have the resources to do that, and you have to be in it for the long term.”

The yearlings in the Fasig-Tipton October catalog will have to work hard to live up to the recent reputation of this sale, which, in the long term, has developed into a major stop on the calendar. Last year, 1,100 yearlings changed hands for a record $55,426,500, bettering the previous high-water mark established in 2021. Led by a $700,000 Gun Runner filly, the average price was $50,338, eclipsing by 10 percent the record set in 2021, while the median spiked 14 percent to a record $25,000, besting the benchmark set the year before.

“Kentucky October has developed into one of the most important yearling sales in the country,” Fasig-Tipton president Boyd Browning Jr. said in a press release. “Every major sire in North America is represented in this catalog, and the sale’s graduates continue to perform at the highest levels. October is a sale not to be missed.”

In addition to yearlings by his young sons, including Instagrand and Rowayton, four-time reigning leading sire Into Mischief, who is powerhousing through this commercial sales season, is represented by 13 yearlings in the catalog prior to outs. Those include a full sibling to his Grade 2 winner and leading freshman sire Maximus Mischief, half-siblings to Grade 1 winners Leofric and Volatile, and half-siblings to graded/group stakes winners Persian Dreamer and United.

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