Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
Ollie’s Candy plain, but can fly
ARCADIA, Calif. – Perhaps if Ollie’s Candy had a little more physical appeal, her status as a legit contender in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff would be easier to accept. Based on looks, she is just ordinary.
Or if her owners bred more than one or two mares a year, it might be easier to believe they somehow ended up with one of the top fillies in California, a filly they initially tried to sell. No one wanted her.
On the other hand, if Ollie’s Candy’s fit the typical mold, her story would be routine. But a fairy tale unfolded this season at Santa Anita, where you could walk past Ollie’s Candy and not even notice her.
“If you walk down the shed row, she wouldn’t separate herself from any other horses,” trainer John Sadler said. “Horsemen would describe her as a plain brown box.”
Thankfully, looks are not everything, and the plain bay Ollie’s Candy seems to always end up in the right place, anyway. The winner’s circle of the Distaff would be a fitting spot for her.
Paul and Karen Eggert’s main business is San Francisco real estate and construction. They also dabble in bloodstock and racing, following Karen’s parents – longtime Bay Area owners Margaret O’Neill and late John O’Neill, whose first horse later became Del Mar turf sensation Wickerr.
Ollie’s Candy is the first Breeders’ Cup starter for the Eggerts, whose breeding operation is limited.
“We’re on a very small scale compared to most people,” Paul Eggert said.
They breed only one or two a year. Small scale provides leverage.
“We take everything to the sales in the hopes of selling them, really,” Eggert said. “If we don’t get what we want, we can have a little bit of racing stable as well.”
Shopping for a broodmare in January 2015, Eggert purchased Afternoon Stroll, a modestly bred Grade 3 winner. Her first two foals had not yet started, but she was carrying a foal by Candy Ride, whose stud fee had just jumped from $35,000 in 2014 to $60,000 for 2015.
Afternoon Stroll was purchased for $85,000, worth the risk.
“If I can get a graded stakes winner in foal to Candy Ride for less than $100,000, I thought she was worth taking a try on,” Eggert said.
He planned to flip the foal, a filly, at a 2016 yearling sale.
Sally Lockhart, farm manager at Ballyrankin Stud in Lexington, Ky., prepped Ollie’s Candy for the sale. She advised Eggert to not sell the filly for a small sum, even though she referred to her as a “brown paper bag.”
“She was a typical Candy Ride,” Lockhart recalled. “She wasn’t very big, but she was a lovely moving filly. And she had a great mind and a great work ethic, which is what I liked about her most.”
The sales reserve was low, just $50,000. Still, no takers.
“I thought we had set a pretty fair reserve,” Eggert said. “But she was just a kind of a plainlooking horse. Sometimes at sales, people are looking for something a little flashier.”
Eggert took Lockhart’s advice. He turned around and sold the dam in foal to Hard Spun, kept the Candy Ride filly, and named her after their daughter Olivia, youngest of three children.
Ollie’s Candy debuted for trainer Bill Morey in 2018 and raced five times. She won three, including the Grade 2 Summertime Oaks at Santa Anita, and after finishing second by a neck in the Grade 1 Del Mar Oaks, she needed a break.
Ollie’s Candy resumed training early this year in Northern California, but when Morey dispersed his stable, Ollie’s Candy needed a trainer.
Eggert checked the Santa Anita standings, sought outside input, and one morning gave Sadler a call.
“Cold call,” Sadler said. “I felt like this is right in my wheelhouse – horses that are good and you can maybe take up another notch. I knew who she was. And I knew that Candy
Rides can run on any surface.”
Ollie’s Candy relocated to Santa Anita, where Sadler’s assistant trainer and exercise rider Juan Leyva began getting on her. True to her looks, Ollie’s Candy trained in ordinary fashion.
“When we first got her, to be honest, she didn’t wow me,” Leyva said.
That soon changed in Sadler’s program. After Ollie’s Candy made two okay grass starts, the stable relocated to Del Mar and Leyva got reacquainted with Ollie’s Candy, whom he had not ridden for two months.
“I started getting back on her, and wow! This horse really changed,” Leyva recalled this week. “I think it was just her getting to the peak level of fitness she’s at now.”
Switching to dirt, Ollie’s Candy scored an impressive front-running victory in the Grade 1 Clement L. Hirsch at Del Mar, followed by a betterthan-looked third in the Grade 1 Zenyatta Stakes at Santa Anita.
The unpretentious Ollie’s Candy is a Distaff contender who might not look the part.
“She’s plain,” Sadler said, “but she’s got good insides.”