OBS winter mixed sale has Breeders' Cup ties

The sale season continues this week with the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Co.’s winter mixed sale, which now can boast Breeders’ Cup Classic winner White Abarrio among its list of graduates.

The OBS sale takes place Tuesday and Wednesday starting at noon with a total of 476 horses cataloged, including current supplements, across its various segments. The Tuesday session is designated as the preferred session, with a total of 137 broodmares and prospects and newly turned yearlings cataloged. Horses of racing age will be offered that evening, with 76 lots cataloged.

On Wednesday, the open session of the sale has 263 horses cataloged.

There will be an optional under-tack preview show for the racing age entries on Monday morning over the Ocala Training Center’s all-weather Safetrack.

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This sale falls less than three months after White Abarrio scored his third career Grade 1 win, taking the Breeders’ Cup Classic by a length at Santa Anita to stamp himself as an Eclipse Award finalist. White Abarrio is a two-time OBS graduate, first going through the pavilion when he was a $7,500 short yearling purchase by Jose Ordonez at the 2020 sale. The following year, he was a $40,000 purchase by Carlos Perez at the OBS March 2-year-olds in training sale.

Those looking for another Classic winner in the group of short yearlings will be able to parse through a group of more than 200 cataloged, with stallions represented including perennial leading sire Candy Ride; internationally prominent More Than Ready, with his final crop; and rising young star Not This Time, a top 10 sire in 2023.

Also represented among yearling sires are four-time reigning leading Florida sire Khozan; Grade 1 winner Girvin, with his final crop of Florida-sired yearlings before his early success earned him a move to Kentucky for the 2023 season; and first-crop sires including the nationally popular Charlatan and Yaupon, as well as Florida newcomers Leinster and Uncle Chuck.

This will be the first of just two crops by Uncle Chuck, who died late last year. The half-brother to Maclean’s Music also has mares in foal from his second and final crop in the catalog.

First-year stallions with mares in foal in this catalog include Grade 1 winners Colonel Liam, Gretzky the Great, and Roadster, all of whom debuted in 2023 in Florida. Other first-year stallions of 2023 with mares in foal cataloged include Eclipse champion Corniche, Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint and Turf Sprint winner Golden Pal, BC Sprint winner Aloha West, BC Juvenile Turf winner Fire At Will, and Preakness Stakes winner Early Voting.

Last year’s OBS January sale was led by a $225,000 yearling colt by Tapit. The sale posted an average of $16,864, a gain of 5 percent from the prior year, while the median jumped 18 percent to $10,000. The buyback rate was 12 percent, compared to 11 percent in 2022.

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