OXO Equine Makes its Presence Known at Keeneland’s November Breeding Stock Sale

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Keeneland’s November Breeding Stock Sale saw steady economic indicators and a number of familiar faces at the top of the results sheet. As usual, buyers like locally based Hill ‘n’ Dale, Summer Wind and Stonestreet took some of the most expensive mares, as did Japan’s Shadai Farm and Katsumi Yoshida, China Horse Club, and Don Alberto Corp of Chile.

The purchaser of the most expensive weanling of the auction—a $775,000 filly by Curlin—is also a frequent big spender, but is something of a one-man operation. OXO Equine, founded and chaired by Larry Best, came onto the Thoroughbred scene in 2016.

Best spent 15 years as CFO and vice president of finance and administration for Boston Scientific, which manufacturers medical devices. He is also the founder of OXO Investments, which focuses on medical and scientific projects.

Best did not enter the Thoroughbred world quietly. At the 2016 Keeneland September auction, he spent $900,000 on two yearlings and the next year lit up the boards with purchases of seven different horses costing $1 million or more, highlighted by a $1.6 million War Front yearling at Keeneland September.

Other top buyers rely heavily on their bloodstock agents—agents typically scour the sale grounds, filtering through hundreds of horses in multiple rounds of cuts based on their pedigree, physical build and veterinary reports to create a “short list” for each buyer. It’s also common for agents to do all bidding for those buyers, or at least to sit by them while they bid on the horses the agent has helped them select. Best works a little more independently. While he does consult with bloodstock agent John Dowd as an advisor, he is often seen scouting horses for himself and bidding alone.

Best has told reporters he doesn’t intend to grow a big operation. That, presumably combined with a healthy budget, gives him the luxury of showing up to a sale and buying the horses he really wants.

So far, Best has spent $19.76 million on 22 horses in 2019, including $5 million for broodmare Blue Prize at the Fasig-Tipton November sale. Best said he came to the sale with no intention of buying a broodmare, but saw Blue Prize step off the van at the sale grounds and was immediately struck by her physical presence. As his first racehorses have gotten old enough to retire and enter the breeding population, having a broodmare on his hands isn’t a totally new experience.

Best is getting results on the racetrack, too. He won his first two Grade 1 races this year in the Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup at Keeneland and the Del Mar Oaks with Cambier Parc, and picked up his first graded wins last year with Instagrand and Instilled Regard. His relatively small stable also houses graded stakes runners Brill and Rowayton. So far, he has 19 wins from 91 starts as an owner, with stable earnings of $2.4 million.

Several of the sale’s top prices came from a dispersal of Elevage, a partnership between owner Craig Bernick and Hill ‘n’ Dale Farm’s John Sikura. Hill ‘n’ Dale consigned the horses, and Sikura purchased two of three of the most expensive—Take Charge Brandi at $3.2 million, Callback at $2 million and Mei Ling at $1.5 million. Bernick and Sikura dissolved their partnership in order to focus more heavily on stallion investment. It’s not unusual for horses to go through the ring while owned in partnership, only to be bought by one of the partners. This enables the departing partners to get a fair market price for their shares, and gives the new owner an updated sense of the horse’s value.

The auction saw 2,667 horses sold for $200,139,400, up 1.2 percent from last year. Keeneland exceeded last year’s total sales on the sale’s tenth day. Average price of $75,043 was steady from last year’s $74,830, while median of $25,000 was unchanged.

The next public Thoroughbred auction in Central Kentucky will be Keeneland’s January Horses of All Ages Sale, Jan. 13-17, 2020.

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