‘A Market Mainstay:’ OBS Spring Sale Begins Tuesday

[Wandering Eyes]

The Ocala Breeders' Sales Company's Spring Sale of 2-Year-Olds in Training, the bellwether auction of the juvenile sales season, begins its four-day run Tuesday and continues through Friday with bidding beginning each day at 10:30 a.m.

“We are hoping to capitalize on the momentum that we had at our March sale,” said OBS Director of Sales Tod Wojciechowski. “There are an awful lot of good horses on the grounds. There is a lot of activity on the grounds right now. We are looking forward to a good sale.”

The 2024 renewal of the Spring sale set highwater marks for average and median, with 630 horses selling by the close of business on the auction's final day for a gross of $81,994,000, an average of $130,149 and median of $70,000. Both records improved on figures set just the year.

“We kind of keep our heads down and just try not to focus on records,” Wojciechowski said of the potential for new records in 2025. “But I do think the catalogue stacks up very well. I am always amazed at how the consignors outdo themselves every year with the quality of horses that they bring. We have a good representation of young sires, proven sires, so it's a very good catalogue.”

The juvenile sales season began last month with the OBS March sale, a longtime select sale which was making its 10th appearance on the calendar as an open sale. During its decade as an open sale, the March auction seemed at times to be eclipsed by its April counterpart, but this year's strong renewal produced seven million-dollar-plus juveniles, including an OBS record $3-million colt. The Spring sale, which had five seven-figure juveniles in 2022 and three in 2023, produced just one, a $1.9-million daughter of Tiz the Law, in 2024.

Rather than seeing the two sales as competitors, Wojciechowski sees them as complementary.

“The pendulum has swung a little bit back to March, but I don't think it's to the detriment of April,” he said. “This is the one sale that, if you are going to go to a 2-year-old sale, this is where everybody comes. I think April has really grown and evolved and matured into a market mainstay.”

As bidding opens at the April sale, consignors seem resigned to seeing a familiar polarity in the marketplace.

“More of the same,” consignor Tom McCrocklin said when asked for his expectations for the April market. “I might have guys lined up at my table wanting horses $200,000+, and I don't have one guy there asking if I have one for $40,000. They just aren't here. I didn't see them in March anyway. I don't know where they've gone, but they are not in numbers at the 2-year-old sales.”

Another concern for the middle market this coming week in Ocala is the volatility in the stock markets.

“Certainly you would rather not see all that stuff coming out,” Wojciechowski said of the uncertainty in the global economy. “I will tell you that there is a ton of international interest here looking at horses. And if you look back at March, the stock market wasn't at its peak and we had just had all of the decoupling stuff come out and there was certainly some not so nice things in the news during that sale. But people put their blinkers on and they bought horses.”

During last week's under-tack preview for the Spring sale, 27 juveniles shared the fastest furlong time of :9 4/5, while six posted the co-fastest quarter-mile time of :20 2/5.

“We got very fortunate with the weather last week,” Wojciechowski said. “Any bad weather seemed to hit us overnight. It didn't interrupt any of our days and conditions were fairly consistent. We had a pretty substantial wind on Monday and we caught a headwind yesterday starting about mid-morning and then gradually increasing during the day. It wasn't as brutal as what we experienced in March, but it certainly had an effect and I think the buyers recognize that.”

Hips one through 302 will be offered during Tuesday's first session of the auction, followed by hips 303 through 604 on Wednesday, hips 605 through 906 on Thursday and hips 907 through 1207 on Friday.

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