Numbers dip at OBS auction

The Ocala Breeders Sales Company fall mixed sales open sessions ended Wednesday with sharply lower prices compared to last year. The 2008 auction featured two open sessions, as compared to three last year, and sold 277 horses for $1,486,200, averaging $5,365. The median was $3,000. The gross was down 50 percent in large measure to the smaller catalog; last year the open sessions sold 413 horses. But the 2008 average also was down, by 26 percent, and median plummeted 29 percent.

The buy-back rate for the open sessions was 35 percent as compared to 29 percent in 2007.

Wednesdays session-topper, and the top-priced horse overall at the open sessions, was the $55,000 broodmare New Real Deal, a graded-stakes-winning daughter of Roy who sold in foal to High Fly. Vicente Portaro, agent, purchased the 10-year-old daughter of Newhall Road, by Dixieland Band, from consignor Live Oak Stud.

The open sessions followed a consignor-preferred session that posted declines across the board and saw a 53-percent buy-back rate. The sale-topper was a $105,000 weanling Exchange Rate-Passionate Bird filly that Twin Peeks Racing bought from Horses of Course, agent.