The second session of the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Co. March sale of 2-year-olds in training got off to a quick start when a muscular, well-balanced More Than Ready filly brought $525,000 during the first hour. Steve Young, a New York-based bloodstock agent and former trainer, signed the sale ticket for the chestnut juvenile March 17 in Central Florida, but declined to reveal who would own her.
“They said, “Don’t say nothing,’ and I don’t know who is going to train her,” Young said. “For these people, I tried to find them a good filly in Miami (at the Fasig-Tipton Florida select juvenile auction), and we fell on a bunch of colts that we got outbid on. I came up here, and I thought she was the nicest filly in the sale.”
Patrice Miller of the equine consulting firm EQB was the immediate underbidder.
The filly, which is the highest-priced horse sold so far in the OBS auction, is a half-sister to 2006 Indian Derby (gr. II) winner Star Dabbler, who finished second in the same year’s King Bishop Stakes (gr. I); Run Production, who captured the 2002 Comet Stake at the Meadowlands; and the winner Bay Head King, who finished second in the Gallant Bob Handicap at Philadelphia Park and third in the Fred “Cappy” Capossela Stakes at Aqueduct in 2001. All three were sired by Saint Ballado. Their dam, Meadow Silk (by Meadowlake), scored in the 1992 Cottonwood Stakes at the Woodlands.
“She’s a very special horse,” Young said. “I hope’s she’s brave and lucky and that she’ll do well. She trained good on the dirt track at the farm, and then she came here and trained as fast on a synthetic track as any horse in the sale. She’s got grass possibilites, and she’s out of a Meadowlake mare that has already thrown three horses that could run.”
Jerry Bailey Sales Agency, agent, consigned the filly. Florida horseman Jerry Bailey and Utah horseman Lance Robinson are the principals involved in Gulf Coast Farm, which bred her in Kentucky.
“She brought a little bit more than we thought she might bring in this day and age, but we knew she was going to sell well,” Bailey said. “She had numerous full vets (veterinary exams)—like a dozen—and it seemed like all the right people were on her. They kept telling us she was probably the best filly in the sale with some pedigree. She’s a real classy filly. She handled the whole deal really well and had an excellent breeze. We’re pleased.”
The filly worked an eighth of a mile in :10 1/5.