Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
Best dives into deep end at Gulfstream auction
The Fasig-Tipton Gulfstream select sale of 2-year-olds in training is often the playground of established buyers who come to Florida to spend top dollar on prospects with the hopes of graded-stakes success in the near future.
That order was disrupted this year by Larry Best of OXO Equine, who purchased two of the sale’s three most expensive horses: the sale-topping Uncle Mo filly for $1.5 million and a $1.1 million More Than Ready colt.
The night marked a dive into the deep end for Best, who entered the Thoroughbred industry during last year’s Keeneland September yearling sale, where his two purchases didn’t equal the price of either of his two buys at Wednesday’s juvenile sale.
“I don’t buy that many horses,” he said. “When I see something special, I tend to buy it.”
Best, 67, is a Boston native who spent 15 years as chief financial officer and executive vice president of finance and administration for Boston Scientific, which manufactures and markets medical devices. He is the chairman and founder of OXO Capital, an investment firm he founded in 2007 centered on life-sciences and medical-device companies.
Entering the Thoroughbred business came late in life for Best, but he said he has long had industry participants in his social circle.
“Someone who I invited to be a guest in one of my homes in Florida got me hooked on the industry,” he said. “Someone that’s involved with some horses, somebody that I worked with over a number of years. He just intrigued me enough to look into it, and I love the industry, I love the horses, and I guess I got a little addicted.”
At the Keeneland September sale, Best bought a Medaglia d’Oro filly for $750,000 and a Super Saver colt for $150,000. He also owns a few young horses in partnerships. Best said most of his horses are sent to trainer Chad Brown.
Frommer knows Mo
If any doubt remained that Cary Frommer knows how to pick and condition an Uncle Mo yearling for a juvenile sale, it was shattered on Wednesday when she consigned a $1.5 million filly by the red-hot sire to top the Fasig-Tipton Gulfstream select sale of 2-year-olds in training.
Frommer, a South Carolina resident, sold a $1 million Uncle Mo colt at last year’s Gulfstream sale, then consigned a $1.3 million colt by the sire at the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Co. March sale of 2-year-olds in training.
On the heels of last year’s success, Frommer told partner Barry Berkelhammer that another year like 2016 would make taking all of her chips off the table an attractive prospect.
“I told Barry coming into this year, if we have another good year, I may get out of the business,” Frommer said. “I said, ‘You know, you’ve got to know when to quit things, and if we have another good year, I’m thinking I should just take my money and go lay on a beach somewhere.’
“After the first horse sold, he said, ‘Still want to get out of the business?’ and I said, ‘I’m already thinking about buying yearlings.’ ”
The sale-topper was the first of Frommer’s two seven-figure transactions on the night, followed near the end of trade by a $1.1 million More Than Ready colt. Both horses went to Larry Best of OXO Equine.
The transactions brought to fruition a plan set last year by Frommer to buy at a higher level at the yearling sales and aim the horses for elite markets as juveniles. Frommer bought the Uncle Mo filly for $250,000 and the More Than Ready colt for $235,000 last July.
Giant Oak euthanized at 11
Grade 1 winner Giant Oak was euthanized Wednesday due to complications from an acute onset of neurological disease.
The 11-year-old son of Giant’s Causeway had spent his entire stallion career at Millennium Farms in Lexington, Ky., and had not covered any mares during the 2017 breeding season.
He began to show mild signs of discomfort in mid-February and was put under watch by farm staff and veterinarians at Hagyard Equine Medical Associates, but his condition rapidly deteriorated in recent days. The horse will be buried at Millennium Farms.
“Giant Oak was what dreams are made of,” said J. Ted Neel, business manager at Millennium Farms. “He took his owner-breeders on the ride of a lifetime as a racehorse and continued to reward them, along with the breeders who supported him, during his alltoo-brief career at stud.”
Campaigned as an Illinois homebred by the Virginia H. Tarra Trust and trained by Chris Block, Giant Oak won 5 of 31 starts for earnings of $1,484,829.
Giant Oak debuted at Arlington Park, winning his first race on turf and then moving to the synthetic main track to win an allowance race by five lengths. He concluded that season with a runner-up effort, missing by just a neck, in the Grade 2 Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes at Churchill Downs.
He came back at 3 to test the Louisiana trail to the Kentucky Derby but ended up first hitting the board that season in the Grade 2 Illinois Derby, finishing second to Musket Man. He skipped the classics and instead raced in the Midwest, winning the listed Arlington Classic on turf and finishing second in the Grade 2 Indiana Derby.
Giant Oak saw his most lucrative run at ages 4 and 5, closing his 2010 season with a win in the Grade 1 Clark Handicap, where he was promoted to first via disqualification, followed by a score in the Grade 1 Donn Handicap in his 2011 debut.
Those two campaigns also saw him place in the 2011 Breeders’ Cup Marathon, Grade 1 Whitney Invitational Handicap, Grade 2 Hawthorne Gold Cup, Grade 2 New Orleans Handicap, and Grade 3 Washington Park Handicap.
Retired to Millennium Farms in 2012, Giant Oak is the sire of 17 winners from three crops of racing age, for progeny earnings of more than $1.4 million. His top runners include Grade 2-placed stakes winner What everybody wants and stakes winners Sunny Oak, Giant Cruiser, and Bucket Beat.