A Mizzen Mast colt became the highest-priced horse sold during the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Co. March select sale of 2-year-olds in training so far, bringing $350,000 early in the afternoon of the auction’s opening session in Central Florida March 15. New Jersey bloodstock agent Buzz Chace purchased the gray or roan juvenile for Richard Santulli of Jayeff B Stables.
“He was a horse that moved on the racetrack very easily,” Chace said. “When he went to switch leads, he accelerated. He had another gear. He was very good at the barn, acting relaxed. He’s kind of a happy horse. He’s also just a really nice individual.”
Chace was making his first ever purchase for Santulli.
“Alan Goldberg (Santulli’s trainer) and I have been friends for 35 or 40 years,” Chace said, “and he (Goldberg) came down to the sale and was here for the breeze (under tack) show. He loved the way this horse breezed and he asked me what I thought and if I was going to be here when the sale started. We had good notes on the horse. That’s how it worked out.”
Goldberg will train the colt, who worked an eighth of a mile in :10 before the auction. Consigned by Paul Sharp, agent, the $350,000 colt is the first foal out of the unraced Dixie Union mare Im Cruising Dixie. She is a half sister to two stakes winners, Patsyprospect (by Personal Flag) and Terreavigne (by Belong to Me), and to two stakes producers, Pierce Arrow (by Carr de Naskra) and Sherry Elizabeth (by Dixieland Band), who is the dam of grade III winner Toocleverforwords (by Arch ).
“I only bid once, so I think the price was fair,” Chace said. “I had Alan on the phone and he asked me what the horse was at and I said, ‘$325,000.’ He said, ‘Bid.’ That’s what happened.”
Sharp purchased the colt for $50,000 from Honeysuckle Farm, agent, at the 2010 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky October yearling sale. As a weanling, the colt had been an $8,500 buy-back at the 2009 Keeneland November breeding stock sale while being offered by Hunter Valley Farm, agent.
Janeen Oliver bred the colt in Kentucky.
