The drive from Weatherford, Texas, to Ocala, Fla., constitutes about 1,100 miles, one way. It’s a healthy road trip for Lane Richardson to consign at the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Co. spring 2-year-olds in training sale, but it’s a drop in the bucket toward the 12,000 miles he’ll cover to buy and sell horses this year. By the end of the juvenile sale season, Richardson, 31, estimates he’ll have put in about 8,000 miles driving to and from auctions at OBS, as well as the Fasig-Tipton Gulfstream sale in South Florida, and the Midlantic sale in Timonium, Md. Once the horses are sold, he expects to put another 4,000 miles into going to yearling sales to restock for next year. Fortunately, Richardson is confident in his help back home. “Everything is in Weatherford, Texas,” he said. “Me and my dad” – trainer Mike Neatherlin – “have a farm out there that we work out of, and my little sister” – Jaylan Neatherlin – “takes care of all the stuff when I’m away. My mom” – Dee Neatherlin – “runs all of our books. If we didn’t have her, we would be in shambles. She’s kind of the brains behind the scenes that takes care of all our stuff to take care of our paperwork and all that. “You don’t have to worry about too much stuff when it’s like that,” he continued. “If you’re gone from home, you don’t have to worry about if your horses are doing all right because they have part ownership in them, too. It’s a family operation, so they’re going to do as much as they can and take as much good care of the horses as I would if I was there – they might do better than me.” :: Get breeding & sales news, Beyer info, and more delivered right to your email! Richardson is the fourth generation of horsemen in his family, and he took to the auction side of the business when his father began pinhooking horses in 1999 at the now-defunct Fasig-Tipton Texas 2-year-olds in training sale at Lone Star Park. His mother worked in the Texas office for the sale company, which provided an inroad to learn more about the business. “I worked with Fasig when I was in high school,” Richardson said. “In Saratoga, I’d go work on the muck crew and stuff like that, so I got to know a bunch of people, and I always knew that I wanted to be in sales. Back then I thought I wanted to be in [pinhooking] weanlings-to-yearlings because I always saw Taylor Made do so good every year. Dad started getting into the 2-year-old aspect of pinhooking.” Richardson began selling under his own banner in 2015. The miles are long, for sure, but Richardson said the connections he has made over the years make the destinations worth it. “It’s a lot of time on the road, but Florida is like my second home,” he said. “I have a bunch of buddies down in Florida like Kevin McKathan and Tony Bowling, a bunch of friends that I spend time with, so it’s not like I’m away from home when I’m down here. It’s a good time, and I’ve had a lot of Florida-based people that have taken me in. I’m lucky in that aspect of it.” In a somewhat ironic twist, the one sale where the Richardson Bloodstock shingle hangs that he’s not there for in person is a figurative home game – the Texas Thoroughbred Association 2-year-olds in training sale, which took the place of Fasig-Tipton’s auction. By the time the horses went through the ring, he was already back in Ocala preparing for the OBS spring sale while his sister took the wheel. Richardson has already had a memorable sale season at OBS, selling a $575,000 colt from the first crop of Mucho Macho Man to Larry Best’s OXO Equine at the auction company’s March sale, his biggest sale to date. He bought the colt for $170,000 at last year’s Keeneland September yearling sale. While the transaction was memorable, Richardson said he gets the most pleasure out of seeing the horses he picked out fulfill their potential on the racetrack. “I just love when you take a baby, and you buy it, and you think it’s going to be good, and then you actually see it go and do good,” he said. “Just seeing what they become, seeing that development along the way, knowing that we were right on that one. I think that’s the coolest thing for me.”