By Bloodhorse.com
DEL MAR, Calif. (Aug. 29, 2018) — A $250,000 California-bred colt from the final crop of Unusual Heat who looked very much like his sire topped the Aug. 28 Barretts Select Yearling Sale. It is the last select yearling auction that Barretts will hold at Del Mar.
Fairplex Park, which operates Barretts, does not have plans to conduct horse sales beyond 2018. The company has scheduled one more auction, a fall sale of yearlings and horses of racing age, slated for the Fairplex facility in Pomona, Calif., Oct. 16.
A total of 42 yearlings grossed $2,632,000 and averaged $62,667 at the select sale. The average climbed 53% over the 2017 figure of $41,075. Buy-backs rose to 48% compared to last year’s figure of 34%. The median was $50,000 in 2018 and $32,000 last year.
“It was a fantastic sale,” said Kim Lloyd, Barretts’ general manager. “It was a great way to end our tenure here at Del Mar. We wanted to finish with a bang, and mission accomplished on all fronts.”
Ryan Mahan, whose company served as the sale’s auctioneers, recalled nearly 30 years with Barretts, dating back to 1990, when Barretts conducted its first sales.
“It is very bittersweet to me,” said Mahan. “There was good, deep action at this sale. I remember coming out the year before the first sale and helping to design the auction stand (at Fairplex).”
Trainer Brian Koriner bought the sale topper for the Jay Em Ess Stable of Samantha Siegel. John Harris’ Harris Farms, where Unusual Heat stood in his later years, consigned the colt as Hip 11.
“He’s been a superstar since birth,” said Dave McGlothlin, general manager of Harris’ horse division. “We’ve been talking about him since he was 90 days old, what a standout he was. He’s continued to be that growing up. It’s really great to get one like that from the last crop to top the sale and remind everybody of the legacy of the big horse.”
The sale topper is out of the Capote mare Cinema Paradisa and is a half brother to stakes-placed Moving Desert and Sambamzajammin.
Koriner was involved in the purchase of four of the six yearlings to bring six figures, two of them from the consignment of Tom Bachman’s Fairview. Both of those cost $130,000 and were for Jay Em Ess: Hip 33, a Cal-bred son of Goldencents —Hard Way Ten, by Rock Hard Ten, and Hip 83, a Cal-bred daughter of Fed Biz —Two Punch Gal, by Two Punch.
Koriner also advised Scott Sherwood, who bid $140,000 for the sale’s top-priced filly in the name of Blinkers On Racing Stable. Terry Lovingier’s Lovacres Ranch consigned the Cal-bred daughter of Shackleford —Courting Elaine, by Doneraile Court.
“Brian does my work for me, and we both liked the filly,” said Sherwood. “I tend to like horses that are a little on the precocious side. She looks like the type—quick and light on her feet, a well-balanced little filly.”
Fairview consigned six to the sale and sold them all for a total of $660,000. Those included a Cal-bred son of Square Eddie —North Freeway, by Jump Start , who sold for $230,000 to trainer Simon Callaghan, agent. The colt is a half brother to Bachman-bred Take the One O One, a multiple stakes winner and graded 1 stakes-placed runner trained by Koriner for Jay Em Ess.