If history is any indication, then several future stars will walk through the sales ring today and tomorrow at the OBS March sale of selected 2-year-olds in training.
Graduates of past OBS March sales include Eclipse champions Stardom Bound, the top juvenile filly of 2008, and Forever Together, the best female turf horse of 2008. They’re joined by Homeboykris, the winner of last year’s Champagne Stakes (G1) at Belmont Park; Game Face, who captured the Princess Rooney Handicap (G1) at Calder Race Course last year; and Odysseus, who stamped himself as a Kentucky Derby contender by winning the Tampa Bay Derby (G3) at Tampa Bay Downs on Saturday.
From Jan. 1, 2009, through Feb. 15 this year, 81 graduates of the OBS March sale ran in a stakes race, including 30 in graded stakes.
A total of 340 horses have been cataloged for the sale, which begins at 2 p.m. today, with a second session scheduled for Wednesday at 11 a.m. Last year, there were 183 more horses in the sale. Tom Ventura, OBS’s general manager and director of sales, said that although the catalog this year is thinner, it’s still rich in talent.
“There were fewer horses that were bought last year by pinhookers, so we looked at probably 200 fewer horses (this year),” Ventura said. “But we didn’t want to force the issue and loosen our standards just to have more horses. We just stuck to our criteria and didn’t want to expand the catalog just to have extra horses in it. The market is tough right now, and we felt that we needed to hold our standards. I think as a result, it will help in terms of people being able to sell their horses, because if you put horses in that don’t really fit, those are the ones that get penalized the most.”
Wet weather and a tightened schedule haven’t been enough to dampen the cautious optimism among horsemen at the OBS March sale. After two days of rain forced the under-tack shows to be moved back two days to Saturday and Sunday, prospective buyers had less time than usual to inspect the juveniles. To give consignors more time to show off their horses, the starting time for today’s session was pushed back three hours.
“We had to consolidate everything, so people are having to work hard to get their horses seen, which is one of the reasons why we backed up the start of the sale,” Ventura said. “It gives everybody a chance to do their homework and gives the consignors every opportunity to sell their horses.”
On Monday, several notable trainers were seen inspecting horses at OBS, including two-time Eclipse Award winner Steve Asmussen, who trains such star runners as 2009 Horse of the Year Rachel Alexandra. The other trainers on the grounds included Terri Pompay, whose Florida-bred Mannington won the $75,000 Sunshine State Stakes at Gulfstream Park on Sunday.
Ventura said it looks like a solid group of buyers are in town for the sale.
“We have the right people here,” he said. “There’s a lot of activity (Monday), and I think by the end of Wednesday, we’ll have a good idea of where the market is. Credit requests are good, and hotel reservations, things that you can monitor and see, and we had some pretty good representation at the tack shows. This will be a good test of the market, especially the upper-middle part of the market, and I’m hoping for some solid results.”
At last year’s OBS March sale, 206 horses brought a total of $19.97 million, an average of $96,947. That total was down 40 percent from 2008, when 233 horses brought $33.38 million, an average of $143,262.
But recent sales have suggested that the worst of the economic downturn might be behind the industry. At the preferred session of the OBS winter mixed sale in January, the average price climbed to $9,773 from $8,632 in 2009. And at the March 2 Fasig-Tipton sale of juveniles at Calder, the average price rose 9 percent to $257,473 and the median climbed 33 percent to $200,000.
“Our first sale was good at the top end, and they had some highlights down there,” Ventura said, referring to the Miami sale. “Because of the size of both sales, it’s hard to really use it as a gauge of what’s going to happen here, but we’ve got good activity.”
At Saturday’s under-tack show, hip No. 102, Atlantic Bull, a colt by Stormy Atlantic consigned by Derby Dreams as agent, sped a quarter of a mile in 21 1⁄5 seconds to post the fastest time at the distance that day. On Sunday, hip No. 291, Noble Exchange, a Florida-bred colt by Exchange Rate consigned by Eisaman Equine as agent, worked a quarter in 21 flat for that day’s fastest time at the distance.
“It was windier on the first day than the second day, so I believe that affected the times, certainly as the day progressed on the first day,” Ventura said.
