Pinhooker's Guide to OBS Fall Yearlings

The OBS Fall Yearling sale is the venue chosen by many pinhookers seeking prospects which they hope to prepare for sale in the following year's 2-Year-Old In Training sales. They naturally give much of their attention to the get of stallions who have demonstrated the ability to get precocious runners, those which can win early, or at least, those which can turn in a fast work at the under tack shows.

With this in mind, let's have a look at some offerings from the Selected section of the upcoming sale. We will restrict our choices to yearlings by sires who appear at the top of the Juvenile Sire statistics lists. For this purpose, I selected the following stallions from BRISNET's Juvenile Sires lists, both the list by SPI (Sire Production Index) and the list by Earnings.

City Zip - 2nd by SPI, 6th by Earnings
Exchange Rate - 3rd, 2nd
Graeme Hall - 20th, 13th
Hennessy - 4th, 26th
Lion Heart - 5th, 1st
Macho Uno - 18th, 14th (Leading Juvenile Sires of FL Breds by Earnings)

Dixie Union, who is among the leading Juvenile sires, is not represented in the sale, nor is another from the Earnings list - Swiss Yodeler. Freud, another Juvy leader, has only one in the general section.

Recent sales performance by these stallions give an indication of why I chose them.

A colt by Macho Uno brought a winning bid of $250,000, to top the opening session of the Ocala Breeders' Sales Company's Spring Sale of Two-Year-Olds in Training. The youngster worked one furlong in :10 1/5 at the under tack show. He was purchased for $19,000 as a yearling at the 2007 Keeneland September sale. That represents an ROI of over 1300% for consigner Woodside Ranch, agent.

The February OBS Selected sale saw Pride, a filly by Lion Heart, knock down for $475,000 to Demi O'Byrne. She later won in her first start, at Keeneland on April 25th.

A top seller in the OBS June sale was a gray Exchange Rate filly, out of Infinity, which sold for $170,000 to Ramsey Farm in Kentucky.

Honey Graeme, a filly by Graeme Hall out of Dance Delight by Colonial Affair, was purchased for $260,000 by Ike & Dawn Thrash during day 2 of the OBS March Sale. The filly is a half-sister to multiple stakes placed winner Malandrina by Honor Glide. Honey Graeme was consigned by Southern Cypress Stable. She was bred by Helen Marie Napolitano.

At the Fasig-Tipton Calder selected 2-year-olds in training sale on February 26., a Lion Heart colt out of the Deputy Minister mare V V S Flawless, sold for $750,000, the seventh-highest price among colts at the sale.

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Here's a list of the hip numbers of yearlings which I think offer an above average opportunity for profit.
Click on the hip# to view their catalog page (in PDF format).

56 Exchange Rate colt
109 Graeme Hall colt
167 Exchange Rate colt
174 Macho Uno colt
179 filly by Lion Heart
193 Hennessy colt
206 filly by City Zip
221 Graeme Hall colt
226 Exchange Rate colt

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Pilgrimage With the Past

The central Florida day dawned clear, bright and slightly windy, with low humidity. It was the perfect day to take a ninety-minute drive from my home on Florida's east coast to Ocala, located nearly halfway across the state.

After reading Steve Haskin's book about Dr. Fager, I sensed a special connection with him, an unnamed bond that I had not felt when I read about Man O' War or Secretariat. A kind, loving temperament in an animal is important to me, and the description of Dr. Fager's personality was of a sensitive, caring equine. He was smart, responded quickly to training, and was well-liked at Tartan, where he was born. During his breeding years, there was a cat that had a litter of kittens in the Doc's stall. He kept watch over those kittens, nuzzling them before heading off for his morning oats. It was said that when Mama Cat removed her children, the Doc was very upset.

After substantial Internet research, I discovered that Dr. Fager was buried on Tartan Farms' property. I learned that the current Winding Oaks had previously been Mockingbird Farm and, beginning in the 1960s through the 1980s, Tartan Farms. William McKnight, founder of the "Scotch Tape" giant 3-M Corporation, had purchased hundreds of acres west of Ocala and started his Thoroughbred dream. Thanks to the mating of Tartan Farms' foundation broodmare, Aspidistra, to the stallion Rough 'N Tumble, a bay colt was foaled on April 6, 1964, and given the name Dr. Fager. "The Doc" had started in twenty-two races, posting eighteen wins, two seconds and one third. Unlike many horses today, The Doc started eight times as a four-year-old.




After checking in with Mary at the Winding Oaks' front office, she offered to escort me up the rolling hills on Graeme Hill Road to the patch of land used to inter a number of well-known champions. As she pointed me towards the graves, I thanked her for her kindness and courtesy. I was alone.

All the graves were marked by gray medium-sized tombstones. Despite some of those stones being erected over thirty-five years ago, they were clean and legible. The graves were laid in a semi-circle around a freshly painted gazebo. A jade-green and well-kept hedge covered all the graves.

Feeling an urgency to locate Dr. Fager's resting place, I found him nearly in the middle of the fourteen-horse plot. I turned to gaze out across the nearly-too-green, rolling hills. The seemingly unlimited view from the hilltop was fantastic, an endless view a horse would relish in life. I could almost see the Doc at the crest of this hill, wind blowing his mane, tail whipping and flowing behind him. Surveying the valley below, his mind's eye would calculate how fast could he fly without wings through the lowlands, his equine instincts reverting to their untamed, glorious past, when his ancestors roamed free.

I read the plaque on his grave: "Racing's Grand Slam: 1968 - Horse of the Year, Handicap Champion, Sprint Champion, Grass Champion. World record of one mile, 1:32 1/5 in 1968." Many consider his earning those four major championships the greatest single season in racing history. The plaque doesn't say that his world record of 1:32 1/5 still holds today, and he carried weight of 134 pounds.

Gifted with lightning speed and indomitable spirit, Dr. Fager was weighted with 139 pounds, nearly unheard of today, for the seven furlong Vosburgh Handicap. His final time of 1:20 1/5 broke the previous track record by a full second, and was only one fifth off the world record, a feat still unequaled. Retiring with over one million dollars in earnings, he is still the only horse to ever win all four of these honors in one year. In 1999, Blood Horse Magazine racing experts selected the top one hundred thoroughbreds of the twentieth century; Dr. Fager was ranked number six. Tragically, he died at the age of twelve from what has variously been called a "colon obstruction", "ruptured stomach" or "torsion to the large colon."

Breathing deeply, I felt a lump in my throat as I paused at each horse's grave; Dr. Patches, 1978 Champion co-sprinter, Ta Wee, the 1969-70 sprint champion, and the 1980 Preakness winner, Codex. Let's not forget these great and not-so-great horses-it is through our memories that they live on in our hearts and souls. As the tears burned my eyes, I hoped they were at least loved by someone. Their grace, athleticism and beauty deserve to be cherished and respected. Their individual struggles and victories form a tiny part of thoroughbred history. Through love and remembrance, these heroes of yesterday can thus be honored.

Equine photography 101

They shoot horses, don't they?

Sure they do, and you can too. Of course, we're talking about shooting pictures, not committing equicide!

A digital camera offers some advantages, not least of which is their ability to shoot picture after picture. Many allow instant review and deletion, so you can just erase any shot you don't like. There are lots of places to get a quality digital camera for less than retail price. I bought mine on eBay, but you may want to look at what Dell, Kodak, or HP have in refurbished cameras. Google can find their websites for you.

Single use digitals are another option, but they won't give you the erase what you don't like option. Many are available for about ten to fifteen dollars. Try CVS, Walgreen's or Ritz Camera for a good selection at a value price.

Now for the practical advice. First and foremost, have your subject looking his best. This may mean you'll need to bathe him, comb his mane, untangle his tail, and polish (oil) his hooves. If your horse gets surly or "out of sorts" by this much handling, you may find it a good idea to put him in a stall with a nice flake of hay, or a bucket of grain until his temperament improves. You'll want him relaxed and cooperative for the shoot.

"I'm ready for my closeup, Mr. DeMille".

Formal Dinner, standing at Hidden Point Farm


The great head shots you see in stallion ads are generally taken by professionals with tons of experience (and often, a price to match). They know lots of tricks to make their work stand out, and you can employ some of them quite easily.
Trick one, get that shine by applying a light film of oil or even just water to his face. A moist towelette will do the trick, just be sure to avoid anything with a strong scent or lots of alcohol.
Trick two, shoot the headshot indoors, or in a small, confining paddock. You don't want Ole Dobbin plotting his escape while you're setting up the shot. If indoors, choose a location with lots of sunlight streaming in, but try to avoid placing your subject in direct sunlight. If you must resort to using a flash, rig some kind of deflector, so that the flash bounces off the ceiling, rather than off the horse's face.

Using a digital camera offers a few more advantages here. First, you can attach a lead to the halter and crop it out later, and second, you can zoom and cut to make the head fit more precisely in the finished photo. But even if you use a film camera, you can still do these things by having your film processed onto a digital form, usually a CD which you can input into a graphics program for fine tuning.

Conformation shots. These are what you generally see in catalogs, stallion registers, or for sale ads, and they can be a great help in getting your horse sold, or they can make him look like Barney Google's horse Sparky.

Colony Light, standing at Rising Hill Farm
These should always be taken outdoors, with a natural background, and on pavement or very short grass. Buyers want to see the horse's hooves, and may suspect that you're trying to hide something if long grass covers the hooves to the coronet band.

Sunlight can be the photographer's best friend, or her worst enemy. Bright sunlight is not what we want here, nor is it needed. Best times of day are about an hour or two after sunrise or before sunset. The light will add a "glow" at those times. Midday is all right if there is a light cloud cover, but be careful that the sun doesn't cause the legs or the face to be in shadow.

Morning or evening, it is best to have the sun behind the photographer's shoulder. Never, never shoot with the sun at right angles to the subject. And if the sun is directly at your back, you may have a long shadow of your own to deal with. Shooting into the sun will generally introduce you to the law of unexpected consequences.

Setting up the conformation shot. As I said before, it is best to have a natural background. Buildings and fences will only detract from the finished product, unless your location looks like one of the top Kentucky breeding farms, so try for a background which has distant hills or woods, but avoid any sharp delineation of dark/light, such as a dark thicket giving way to a bright sky half way up the horse. The area directly behind the horse should be more or less the came color or intensity throughout, extending to well above his ears.

Pick out the spot where you will set up the horse, and the place from which you'll shoot before even bringing him into the scene. It is best to have a knowledgeable horseperson handle the horse, and even better if it's someone whom he knows and feels comfortable with.

Lights, camera, action!

So now that everything is in place, the subject looks like a million dollars, your assistant has placed him where you want, and you have camera at the ready, it's time to start clicking away, right? WRONG!

If you've ever taken pictures to accompany registration applications, you are probably aware that they require that all four legs are visible in every shot. We want that here, as well. So be sure to set up the horse with both front legs straight and positioned with the off (right) leg just slightly behind the near leg, and the off hind leg slightly ahead of the other. You get both front legs in the picture by positioning yourself just back of midpoint of the horse's body, about parallel with his belly. If you are of average height, you will want to squat, kneel, or even sit in a chair, so as to avoid shooting from above the midpoint of the horse vertically. Shots taken from above this point result in a picture of a horse with shortened legs.

You will want his ears to be upright, and turned forward. Usually this is easy to accomplish simply by having the handler call his name, chirp to him, or swing the lead rope just a bit.

Once everything is just so, it's time to start shooting, and you should shoot like Butch and Sundance taking on the entire Bolivian army. Take at least three shots in rapid succession, reposition yourself and your subject, then start shooting again. Just like in body building, it's the repetitions which lead to success. Be patient, and take a few minutes between shooting sessions if you don't feel you have got just the right results.

"And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make."

Don't know what that has to do with anything, but it's one of my favorite Beatles lyrics. And in the end the quality of the picture you take will be equal to the effort you make to follow these recommendations.