An early peek at offspring of 2 champs

Lambholm South Farm's Lido Palace and Adena Springs South's Macho Uno head a strong contingent of stallions whose first crops are selling at the Ocala Breeders' Sales Company's fall mixed sale. The OBS auction begins on Monday, Oct. 10, and continues through Friday, Oct. 14. The OBS has cataloged 1,519 lots for this sale and 624 of them are weanlings.

Macho Uno, the Eclipse champion 2-year-old male of 2000, won the Breeders' Cup Juvenile, the Grade 2 Massachusetts Handicap, the Grade 3 Pennsylvania Derby, and placed in four additional graded races from 14 lifetime starts. A gray son of Holy Bull, Macho Uno is a half-brother to Awesome Again, sire of the 2004 Horse of the Year Ghostzapper. The Jockey Club Registry lists Macho Uno as having been bred to 109 mares in 2004 who produced 75 registered weanlings. One of his colts and four of his fillies have been cataloged to this sale

Lido Palace won eight Grade 1 stakes. Five of those wins came in the horse's native Chile, where he was voted the 2-year-old male champion. A year later he won that country's horse of the year honors. Imported to the U.S. as a 4-year-old, Lido Palace, a grandson of Forty Niner, won the Grade 1 Whitney and Grade 1 Woodward. At 5, Lido Palace repeated in the Woodward and placed in Grade 1 Jockey Club Gold Cup and Grade 1 Whitney.

"Lido Palace has been a relatively easy sell," said S. Roy Lerman, owner of Lambholm South. "He's a beautifully made horse who retired sound. And he has a high-class international pedigree to go with his international racing record."

Lido Palace covered 150 mares in his first two seasons at stud, and there are 3 colts and 2 fillies from his first crop of 55 in the OBS auction.

In these day of enormous first books, stakes-placed Gulf Storm, an 8-year-old son of Storm Cat standing at Lou-Roe Farm, led all Florida stallions in 2004 with a book of 155 mares, and 32 of the resulting 102 foals have been cataloged to the fall mixed sale. Another who topped the 100-mare mark, coming in at 119, is the Grade 2 stakes-winning millionaire Repent. Cloverleaf Farms II is where this son of Louis Quatorze holds court. He has nine colts and nine fillies from his crop of 81 cataloged in the sale.

Lambholm sale in works

Lerman is in negotiation to sell Lambholm South. This is not an exit for Lerman, as he already owns Hobeau Farm, which was formerly owned by Jack Dreyfus Jr.

"It's not yet a done deal," said Lerman. "In any event, it will be business as usual for Lambholm's breeding and training business for the remainder of '05 and through the spring of '06."

Larry Roberts, the trucking magnate, is the one negotiating the purchase of Lambholm South. Roberts, whose residential estate borders on Lambholm, is the backer of Golden Ocala - perhaps the most luxurious golf club and gated community in north-central Florida. Roberts has interests in Quarter Horses, but the word is that he is moving into the Thoroughbred side of the horse business.

* Hobeau Farm's mile training track recently was reconditioned with a Polytrack surface, making it among the first in this area to install the type of footing employed at Turfway and the Keeneland training track. There are two facilities with synthetic racetracks in Marion County. One is at Town and Country Farm, which caters to Arabians, and the other is at Finish Line, which handles Thoroughbreds.