De Merics cementing deep ties with Korea Racing Authority

The catalog for the FasigTipton Midlantic 2-year-olds in training sale is typically a melting pot of class and geography, but even in that setting, a Korean-bred designation is going to stand out.

A pair of colts born in South Korea are set to be offered by the de Meric Sales consignment at the Midlantic sale, continuing a long working relationship between the Ocala, Fla.-based Nick and Jaqui de Meric and the Korea Racing Authority.

While the colts come from a country whose Thoroughbred industry is unfamiliar to many observers, the pedigrees are distinctly American in flavor.

Hip 105 is by Hansen, the champion 2-year-old male of 2011 who stood one season at Ashford Stud in Versailles, Ky., before being sold overseas. The colt is out of the Include mare Biroesonata, who sold to Korean interests for $20,000 at the 2006 Fasig-Tipton Midlantic 2-year-old sale.

Hip 562 is a son of Menifee, a multiple Grade 1 winner and runner-up in the 1999 Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes. Menifee stood seven seasons at Stone Farm in Paris, Ky., before being moved to Korea, where he has been the country’s leading sire by earnings each year since 2012.

The Menifee colt is out of the Korean-bred stakes-winning Jump Start mare Tango Step, who arrived to the country in-utero with her own dam, the Woodman mare Jewell Dare, who sold for $12,000 at the 2006 Ocala Breeders’ Sales Co. fall mixed sale.

The colts were in a group of 10 horses that have been handled by the de Merics since last fall for the KRA, the national governing body for developing horse racing in Korea, with destinations varying between the sale ring and the racetrack.

Nick de Meric said the rela- tionship began strictly as buyer and seller, but as horses they sold to the KRA became successful, the group’s representatives proposed a partnership to help develop their young horses in the U.S.

“I think their mission is twofold,” de Meric said. “One is to try to see if Korean-breds can compete in North American racing as their gene pool improves, their stallion roster improves, and their husbandry improves. Also, they like to have a little skin in the game at the sales. They’ve done a bit of pinhooking on their own account, so they’re trying to see if they can prove a point with that, too.”

In addition to helping develop the KRA’s equine interests, the de Merics have become instrumental in helping develop the country’s horsemen.

“We’ve had groups of three come over and spend six or seven weeks with us in the breaking season,” de Meric said. “This year’s group, one was a KRA official and handson observer, one was a trainer who was a very active trainer and quick to hop on a horse, and one was a fellow who was an aspiring exercise rider who was learning some of the finer points of galloping young horses and breaking.

“Rather like the Japanese about three decades ago, if I’m not oversimplifying, without the same roots in horsemanship that we have in America and Europe, they’re embracing Thoroughbred racing in a huge way. They imported quite a bit of knowledge to help them get started.”

Jacqi de Meric has made a few trips to Korea to provide breaking and training clinics for the country’s horsemen. As a group that largely lacked the generational knowledge of Thoroughbred husbandry, as Nick de Meric expressed, the Korean horsemen were willing to make up for lost time.

However, that willingness to learn also presented Jaqui with some ground to make up in teaching her methods when she found out a rough-aroundthe-edges Australian group had preceded her in teaching breaking techniques to the Korean horsemen.

“What Jaqui discovered was the people that went over there taught them that the correct way to break these youngsters was to stuff their ears full of cotton, put blinkers on them – put every piece of equipment imaginable on them – and just ride them until they were exhausted,” Nick said. “It was a very brutal and sort of distressing introduction to the idea of cooperation with humans.

“It really incensed us, and that’s what led, I think, to Jaqui’s first trip over there. They really embraced a totally different approach, our approach of resistancefree breaking. We do all our breaking from horseback, and we actually educated three ponies, got them fitted out with tack, got them good to work with in a round pen which takes a little time, and sent them over to Korea.”

The Midlantic sale will be the second auction this year in which the de Merics will offer a Korean-bred as agent for the KRA. They sold a Tiz Wonderful colt to Michael Dubb for $63,000 at the OBS spring 2-year-olds in training sale.