By Brian DiDonato
Young Ocala Stud stallion Uncaptured (Lion Heart) has been plenty buzzed about since joining the historic nursery's stallion roster for the 2015 breeding season, and this week's breeze shows for the upcoming OBS March 2-Year-Olds in Training Sale are the first chances for his progeny to strut their stuff on the track for an audience.
During Thursday's first of three under-tack exhibitions, an Uncaptured colt (hip 59) went in a steady but co-quickest quarter of :21 1/5. Hip 117 covered the same distance in :21 3/5, while hip 9 got an eighth in :10 3/5. As of Thursday, there were eight Uncaptured juveniles set to sell at OBS next Tuesday and Wednesday.
If the yearling and weanling auction results and his book sizes are any indication, Uncaptured's progeny should prove pretty popular. He was ninth among North American freshman sires by yearling average in 2017 at $47,880 with only Kentucky-based stallions ahead of him, and one of his fillies topped the open yearling session of the OBS October Yearling Sale when she went for $170,000 to Uncaptured's former trainer Mark Casse on behalf of his owner John Oxley. Uncaptured stood for an introductory fee of $6,000 and remains at that level in 2018.
“He's a gorgeous individual as far as stallions go,” said Ocala Stud's David O'Farrell. “He's been really popular from day one, as evidenced by the size of his books. His first crop of foals were outstanding–he's definitely stamped them, and they have a lot of athleticism and quality. In my short time–I'm still relatively young–I've never been involved with a stallion who has had so much positive response this early. It's been incredible.”
O'Farrell continued, “It's unusual in that most stallions see a decline in mares bred in their third and fourth years, but he's actually seen the reverse–he's gotten even more popular. In his third year he bred 140 mares (the most among Florida stallions), which is huge, and he's going to do every bit of that again this year.”
Uncaptured's profile, of course, sounds an awful lot like a former Ocala Stud inmate: Kantharos. Both are by Lion Heart, and both were extremely precocious 2-year-olds. Uncaptured was a three-time stakes winner up at Woodbine as a juvenile, and later added the GIII Iroquois S. and GII Kentucky Jockey Club S. at Churchill Downs before being named Canada's Horse of the Year. At three, he annexed the second leg of Canada's Triple Crown, the Prince of Wales S., over 1 3/16 miles.
Kantharos, meanwhile, saw enough success with his early crops to be relocated to Kentucky's Hill 'n' Dale for the 2017 breeding season.
“It's hard to compare them at this point because Uncaptured has been more of a market darling early on,” O'Farrell said when asked about similarities between the two. “Obviously, Kantharos has proven to be a very good stallion who gets a lot of runners and lot of winners. He's a high-percentage sire… They're different in a lot of ways. Uncaptured is out of an Arch mare and you can see that in him. They're similar in that they're both by Lion Heart and were both very precocious 2-year-olds, but they're very different individually.”
While O'Farrell was quick to point out the differences between the two sons of Lion Heart, he acknowledged that Uncaptured has likely gotten some extra looks thanks to his predecessor.
“There's no question,” he said. “Kantharos was very popular in Florida and breeders had a lot of success with him, so it's natural for them to have confidence in another son of Lion Heart who was also a very good racehorse and is a nice horse to look at.”
Ocala Stud itself will offer just one Uncaptured at OBS March–the aforementioned hip 117. The chestnut filly is a half-sister to flashy Shane's Girlfriend (Adios Charlie), who turned heads with a romping 13 1/4-length score in the 2016 GIII Delta Downs Princess and took this past July's GIII Iowa Oaks. Ocala Stud sold a pair of babies from the first crop of Adios Charlie for $675,000 and $600,000, respectively, at the 2015 March sale.
“We really like her,” O'Farrell said of hip 117. “We think she's got a lot of ability.”
While Ocala Stud is best known as a seller of homebreds, O'Farrell is excited about the farm's consignment this March–notably those they're selling for others.
“We're not a big consignor–we mostly sell homebreds–but, ironically, at this sale, we're coming in strong with some horses for clients,” he said. “We have a really nice Tapit colt (hip 385) that we're offering, a nice More Than Ready filly (hip 420), a good City Zip colt (hip 2) who's a New York-bred. We've got some sire power and some horses who we think are really going to appeal to the top end of the market, we hope.”
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