South Point handles Saratoga sales challenge

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Every consignment faces its challenges preparing for and executing its work at a Thoroughbred sale, but South Point Sales Agency faced a massive hurdle at this month’s sales in Saratoga. Agency co-founder Mike Recio was stricken with sudden and severe sepsis on July 24 and has had a lengthy stay in a Lexington, Ky., intensive-care unit as he continues to recover. The South Point yearling consignment shipped to the elite Fasig-Tipton Saratoga selected yearling sale and the company’s New York-bred yearling sale without the operation’s public face to interact with clients.

Leading the way for the operation in Saratoga were sales coordinator Justina Severni and longtime South Point associate John Fahey. The team sent seven yearlings through the ring at the Saratoga selected sale, with five changing hands for a gross of $1,705,000. That included a blockbuster offering, as a colt from the second crop of leading freshman sire Gun Runner sold for $550,000 to Lael Stable, with Michael Hernon as agent, making him the most expensive yearling ever sold by South Point.

“It means a lot,” an emotional Severni said. “It means a lot that the owners trusted us to take care of this horse and sell her well. Hopefully, we make Mike proud.”

Later in the sale, South Point sent out a filly from the first crop of Bolt d’Oro, who sold for $500,000 to Frank Brothers, via bloodstock agents Alex Solis II and Jason Litt.

At the New York-bred sale the following week, the South Point consignment traded six of its eight yearlings through the ring for a total of $239,000, led by a $130,000 Flatter colt to McKenzie Bloodstock.

The Thoroughbred industry has rallied around Recio, who founded South Point Sales with Arika Everatt-Meeuse in 2014, raising hundreds of thousands of dollars via a GoFundMe established for his family, a trust set up by Stoll Keenon Ogden, earnings pledges from various trainers and owners, and more. The giving spirit was evident at Fasig-Tipton. Consignor Archie St. George of St. George Sales, which shared a barn with South Point this month, sought to raise $3,000 for the family, and made a wager to shave his head if the money could be raised that week. By the end of the evening, St. George was bald.