The Ocala sale came to an end with prices back to just about 2019 levels. The median price was about $50,000. The sale is a nice mix of premium price horses and bargains. There is something for everyone. The buyback rate was low and there were fewer “mysterious withdrawals.” (horses that work, but do not come to the ring)
The top 100 horses sold for more than $200,000. The sale topper was $1,500,000 for a Quality Road, then came $1,000,000 for an Arrogate, and Eclipse was third paying $875,000 for an Into Mischief.
I think the story was freshman sires were average at best. Practical Joke’s were average at best, and Mastery’s were disappointing. There was only one big Gun Runner, but the rest were disappointing. There were two big Arroagte’s, and the rest were average. The story was two big prices for Midnight Storm’s and Connect’s. Nobody would have guessed two Connect’s for over $600,000.
I am modestly excited by the group of 20 horses I “selected” from the sale. It is a reasonable mix of conventional ideas and plodder/plodder horses. A few horses were bid to unreasonable prices, but for the most part prices were about what I expected. From my top 10 after the works, only one was too expensive (my top choice by Mr. Speaker was bid to $195,000 by Little Red Feather), and one other was a mysterious withdrawal.
In general there was nothing here that pushed me toward 2 year olds in training. I am still firmly in the yearling camp. It still seems too early to be working such young horses 3-4 furlongs (remember the run outs are carefully timed by unofficial timers) so even a work reported a 1 furlong is really a 3 furlong work).
The partnerships were fairly active with Myracehorse.com buying more than a dozen, I counted 14 different partnerships that bought 47 horses in total.
My hero Mark Schwartz bought a sprinter looking Adios Charlie for $11,000. Last year he bought Derby entrant Brooklyn Strong for $5,000 at this Ocala sale.
Buying A Race Horse 