TDN Q & A: Khozan’s First-Crop Yearlings Sell At OBS

[Wandering Eyes]

With 24 yearlings entered in the OBS October Yearling Sale, and a $5,000 stud fee, Khozan will be one of the more closely watched first-crop yearling sires at the upcoming OBS sale. The $350,000 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga and $1-million Fasig-Tipton Florida Select two-year-old graduate certainly had precocity on his side. Lucas Marquardt headed over to Journeyman Stud to talk to Brent Fernung about the undefeated two-year-old-turned-Florida sire in advance of next week’s sale.

LM: You were telling me the other day he’s a horse that, really even before he stepped foot on the racetrack, everyone knew had a lot of potential. Talk about his pedigree, and talk about him at the 2-year-old sale.

BF: The pedigree jumped out at you right away. He’s a half-brother of Royal Delta, who was probably as good a race mare as we’ve seen in the last 50 years. And he was the son of Distorted Humor, who’s been a leading sire, started from nowhere and has become a perennial leading sire. The horse himself, of course, was a really fast horse, a precocious horse. He had the co-fastest work at the Fasig-Tipton February sale in 2014. He worked in nine and four there, and with that combination of pedigree and talent, he ended up bringing a million dollars. So he was the first-round draft pick right from the start.

LM: In his first race, he drew way outside. He kind of raised a lot of eyebrows that day.

BF: He broke from the 14 hole and didn’t have an easy trip going down the backside, and by the time they made the quarter pole and was turning for home, he was head and head for the lead and he just drew off and won by 3 1/2 lengths. It was about as facile a victory going seven-eighths as you could expect a horse to have. They ran :23 and change that day, and I think he got a 108 Beyer number, which was really impressive, considering the circumstances.

LM: He was made a ‘TDN Rising Star’ in that first start and people started to take notice. In his second start, he went off the heavy favorite. What did you see in that race?

BF: Actually, that was like a training race for him (video). You could see that when they broke there he could have easily made the lead, walking away from there, but Castellano reached and got him and kind of tucked him in behind horses and let him eat a little dirt early and I guess, with the idea that if they were going to move forward to the Florida Derby in his third start, he was going to have to rate and they wanted to see how he was going to handle that. He handled it just fine except the competition just couldn’t stay up with him when he turned for home, he was maybe I think about a half-length in front, he ended up winning by 12. He did it just about as easy as a horse could. It was really a classy effort. That race impressed me, in some ways, more than the first one. A lot of horses will show how fast they are, but when they start showing that they’ve got that kind of speed and then the ability to direct themselves and do what the rider wants, that’s really an impressive outing.

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LM: The chance of landing him as a stallion prospect, how did that come about? It must have been exciting to land such a well-bred son of Distorted Humor.

BF: After his second race, I’d watched both races just because of all the hype that was on him. I didn’t really anticipate having anything to do with him because I was assuming he’d be a Grade I winner after that second race; he was going to be probably even-money in the Florida Derby off his first two races. Unfortunately, for Al Shaqab’s stable and probably fortunately for myself, he didn’t make it to that third race. He came up with an injury that ended up requiring that he be retired. From my perspective, I learned that the horse was available that fall, his 3-year-old year. We ended up with a really good group of guys and it was very fortunate for somebody like me to be able to get their hands on a horse like Khozan. Al Shaqab kept a big percentage of the horse. Gil Campbell, over at Stonehedge Farm, took 25% interest. He’s bred a lot of good mares to this horse. As a matter of fact, I believe he bred the dam of Coco’s Wildcat to the horse and has a yearling by Khozan right now. Coco’s Wildcat, of course, was the dam of the sales topper at the Saratoga sale, the American Pharoah colt. So, he’s really been supportive. I do know that he’s got a weanling out of the young Medaglia d’Oro mare that produced Well Defined, who absolutely romped in the Florida Sire Stakes here this last Saturday.

LM: What did you see in his first foals and as we come up to the OBS Select Sale, what are you seeing in his yearlings? Is there a typical look to them? A Khozan yearling?

BF: He’s putting a lot of leg under his horses. They’re very well balanced. You’ve got to love them. They look fast and of course, down here, 2-year-old sales is going to make that a really marketable commodity, but I’ve been overly impressed with them. I think that they’re even better than what I anticipated they would be.

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