Ciaran Dunne

by Jessica Martini & Stefanie Grimm OCALA, FL - Without a breakout horse and numerous outs, the Ocala Breeders' Sales Company's Spring Sale of 2-Year-Olds in Training dutifully marched through its paces Thursday, with a colt by Nyquist attracting the session's highest price of $550,000 late in the day. Bloodstock agent Donato Lanni, bidding on behalf of Zedan Racing Stable, signed the ticket on the session topper for the third straight day. From a catalogue of 302 horses, just 187 went through the ring Thursday and the session, which started...

Delayed a day due to severe weather in central Florida, the under-tack show for the Ocala Breeders' Sales Company's Spring Sale of 2-Year-Olds in Training got back underway Friday with a colt from the third crop of Spendthrift stallion Bolt d'Oro (hip 787) setting the high mark at :9 3/5. Consigned by Top Line Sales, which continued to be well-represented Friday after posting five of the top 18 fastest furlong works during Wednesday's session, the juvenile was purchased as a yearling by Cash Bloodstock at Keeneland September last year for...

by Jessica Martini & Christina Bossinakis OCALA, FL - With a pair of colts topping the seven-figure mark, the tempo picked up during the second session of the Ocala Breeders' Sales Company's March Sale of 2-Year-Olds in Training Wednesday. With 144 horses sold Wednesday for $25,488,000, the session average was $177,000--up 6.2% from last year's corresponding session--and the median of $87,500 declined 2.8% from a year ago. The buy-back rate was 31.8%. "I thought it was a very good session," said OBS Director of Sales Tod Wojciechowski. "It felt like...

Jon Dean grew up in Michigan, but moved to Central Florida as a high school senior, and now, as an Ocala-based attorney, his path seemed to inevitably lead to Thoroughbreds. But, after a series of lackluster results in the industry, he decided he needed to recalibrate his business plan three years ago. The result was two years of profitable pinhooks and Dean will be hoping to keep the momentum going when he sends a pair of juveniles through the sales ring next week at the Ocala Breeders' Sales Company's March...

Ciaran and Amy Dunne's Wavertree Stables is perennially one of the leading consignors of 2-year-olds in the country, but their process for buying pinhooking prospects at the yearling sales changed dramatically with the advent of the sales repository over two decades ago. "We started buying yearlings before the repository," Ciaran Dunne said. "Back in those days, you had to shorten down your vet list because of the costs involved. There was very little that we couldn't live with because we might vet, at the very most, four horses a day....

OCALA, FL - The Ocala Breeders' Sales Company's June Sale of 2-Year-Olds in Training continued its measured pace Wednesday with figures falling off the auction's record-setting 2022 renewal, while a colt by Blame brought the day's highest bid of $485,000 when selling to bloodstock agent Clay Scherer. The session-topping colt, who was consigned by Wavertree Stables, was one of four to sell for $200,000 or more during the day, bringing the total to reach that mark so far at the sale to seven. Eleven had reached that mark at the...

The Ocala Breeders' Sales Company's June Sale of 2-Year-Olds in Training--once an afterthought, but now a destination in its own right--begins its three-day run Tuesday in Ocala with bidding slated to get underway at 10 a.m. The June sale brings the curtain down on the OBS juvenile sales season, which featured a co-record sale topper in March and records for gross and average in April. "The sales calendar has migrated later [in the year], so I think there is still a demand for 2-year-olds out there for sure," OBS Director...

A colt by City of Light (hip 570) worked the week's co-fastest furlong of :9 4/5, while a son of First Samurai (hip 588) and a filly by Violence (hip 703) shared the day's fastest quarter-mile work of :21 flat during the fourth session of the under-tack show for the Ocala Breeders' Sales Company's June Sale of 2-Year-Olds in Training Thursday in Ocala. Headwinds increased throughout the session and all three bullet workers were on the track during the day's first set. Working shortly before 9 a.m. Thursday, hip 570...

The under-tack show for next week's Ocala Breeders' Sales Company's June Sale of 2-Year-Olds in Training reached its midway point Wednesday, with a colt by Blame (hip 430) and a filly by Bee Jersey (hip 495) sharing the session's quarter-mile bullet time of :20 3/5. Hip 495 was among the first horses to work Wednesday morning when she turned in her bullet quarter-mile drill. Consigned by Triple J Equine Sales, the chestnut filly is out of Tale of La Comete (Tale of Ekati). Her third dam is La Comete (Holy...

TIMONIUM, MD - The Fasig-Tipton Midlantic May 2-Year-Olds in Training Sale, whose graduates have been hitting on all cylinders on the racetrack recently, begins Monday morning at the Maryland State Fairgrounds. A total of 603 juveniles have been catalogue for the two-day auction and bidding begins at 11 a.m sessions Monday and Tuesday. "There has been a lot of interest and we have the right people here--either they have been here or their agents have been here to watch the horses breeze," Fasig-Tipton Midlantic Sales Director Paget Bennett said at...

When the market determines the value of something, they call it "the going rate." In the case of George Weaver's two juvenile winners at Gulfstream last Saturday, however, a recent pricing had meant that neither was going anywhere. No Nay Mets (Ire) (No Nay Never) was staying in the same ownership; and Crimson Advocate (Nyquist) was staying in the same barn. And now both, from going nowhere, are on their way to Royal Ascot next month. No Nay Mets, in particular, has had an extraordinary month. On Apr. 17, he...

A colt by Into Mischief became the third seven-figure juvenile of the week when selling for $1.3 million early in Friday's final session of the Ocala Breeders' Sales Company's Spring Sale of 2-Year-Olds in Training. Randy Hartley and Dean DeRenzo signed for the colt, who was consigned by Wavertree Stables, on behalf of a new partnership of owners led by Miami music mogul Rich Mendez. Hip 967 is out of Singing Kitty (Minister WIld Cat) and  worked a furlong last week in a co-fastest :9 3/5. He was purchased by...