By Jessica Martini
A day after horses worked into a significant headwind, times picked up noticeably Tuesday at the second session of the under-tack preview of the Ocala Breeders' Sales Company's April Sale of 2-Year-Olds in Training, with four horses sharing the bullet furlong time of :9 4/5 and a pair of juveniles working a quarter-mile in :20 1/5.
Torie and Jim Gladwell's Top Line Sales sent out two of the bullet furlong workers. A son of Sky Mesa (hip 242) covered the distance in :9 4/5. The bay is out of Lady Lavery (Elusive Quality), a half-sister to multiple graded stakes winner Skylighter (Sky Mesa). Top Line consigns the youngster on behalf of Zayat Stables, which purchased him for $75,000 at last year's Fasig-Tipton October sale.
“When he came off the trailer after the October sale, I fell in love with him immediately,” Torie Gladwell said of the colt. “He is a beautiful horse and has always done everything right. We almost sent him a quarter today. He galloped out really good.”
Top Line also sent out hip 281, an English-bred filly from the first crop of multiple Group 1 winner Make Believe (Makfi {GB}), to work in :9 4/5. The dark bay is out of stakes winner Lisselan Diva (Ire) (Barathea {Ire}) and sold for 27,000gns ($37,379) at last year's Tattersalls October sale.
“We traveled over to Newmarket to the Tattersalls sale last year and [bloodstock agent] Justin Casse showed us around and helped us short list horses a little bit,” Gladwell explained. “We ended up buying two with the goal in mind to bring them back to breeze at the April sale. We tried to buy horses that we thought were kind of turf families that we thought would breeze really well here at OBS on the synthetic track.”
Also from its Tattersalls shopping spree, Top Line will offer hip 883, a son of Pivotal (GB) who was purchased for 65,000gns ($89,756) last October.
“We went over there to focus on fillies because I think there is a demand for European-pedigreed fillies here for broodmares to cross with the American stallions,” Gladwell said. “But we fell in love with the Pivotal colt over there as well. He's just a beautiful colt altogether.”
Make Believe, who stands at Ballylinch Stud in Ireland for €12,000, won the 2015 G1 Prix Le Parisien and G1 Prix de la Foret before concluding his racing career with a fifth-place effort in that year's GI Breeders' Cup Mile.
His first-crop daughter has impressed Gladwell.
“She is a really compact filly,” Gladwell said. “She is smart and laid back and does everything right. She actually surprised us–we didn't know she was going to go that fast today. That was a pleasant surprise.”
Due to quarantine restrictions, the two European imports got a later start in their training than their American counterparts.
“These horses were all a little bit behind the eight ball just because the quarantine process took so long to get them over here,” Gladwell explained. “We didn't actually start breaking them until November and the other horses get broke pretty soon after the yearling sales. That's why they are a little behind everybody else. That was reflected in [hip 281's] gallop-out. She went fast, but then she kind of got tired on the gallop-out and that's probably because she's a month behind everybody else that we have. She's a May foal, so we tried to go pretty easy on her getting her ready for the sale. She does everything right and does it easy, so we didn't have to over-train her.”
Hip 319 also worked the furlong in the co-fastest :9 4/5. Consigned by Crupi's New Castle Farm, the bay colt is by Blame out of Marie Antoinette (Stormy Atlantic), a half-sister to stakes winner Crimson China (Giant's Causeway) and from the family of Elusive City.
Completing the :9 4/5 bullet furlong workers was hip 386, a filly by The Factor out of multiple stakes winner My Redbyrd (Royal Academy). The 2-year-old is consigned by Nice and Easy Thoroughbreds.
A filly from the first crop of multiple graded stakes winner Commissioner (A.P. Indy) (hip 365) shared the quarter-mile bullet breeze time of :20 1/5 Tuesday. She is out of Money Madness (Rahy), a half-sister to stakes placed Feminine Girl (Kingmambo) and Payday Peril (Officer), and is consigned to the April sale by Jenn and Quincy Adams's Q Bar J Thoroughbreds. The Adamses purchased her for $40,000 at last year's Fasig-Tipton July Sale.
“We believed she was very fast and she'd prepped very well,” Quincy Adams said of the filly. “She has been a rock star all year.”
Of the youngster's appeal as a yearling, Adams said, “She had all the pieces she just needed to grow and come into herself. And she has. She has filled in in all the right places and is just a beautiful filly to look at on the shank.”
Also working in :20 1/5 was hip 240, a colt from the first crop of multiple graded stakes winner Amira's Prince (Ire) (Teofilo {Ire}). Consigned by Blue River Bloodstock, the dark bay is out of Lady Halite (Medaglia d'Oro).
Adams said conditions had improved for the preview's second session Tuesday.
“The headwind was a little tough to fight through Monday, but I thought it was pretty even all day today,” Adams said. “No headwind today made all the difference in the world. When that headwind blows in the babies faces, it's hard on them.”
Gladwell agreed the wind had a major effect on Monday's works.
“People were talking about the track surface, but I think it was mostly about the headwind,” she said. “Today there was a tailwind all day and yesterday the headwind was just brutal. Horses that are immature, they really haven't experienced anything like that on the farm before. I think it shocked a lot of horses and it rattled them.”
The under-tack show for the April sale continues through Saturday with sessions beginning daily at 8 a.m. Hips 407 through 608 are scheduled to breeze Wednesday. The four-day auction will be held next Tuesday through Friday with bidding beginning each day at 10:30 a.m.
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