Smart purchases last year paid off handsomely for Jenny and Peter O'Callaghan's Woods Edge Farm during the last session of Fasig-Tipton's Kentucky October Yearlings Sale Oct. 22. A pair of colts bought last year as pinhook prospects resold for a combined $770,000. The lucrative double highlighted the O'Callaghan's sharp eye for horse flesh.
Hip 1498, a colt by Authentic , brought a hefty $400,000 from Chad Summers, bidding on behalf of Al Gold's Gold Square. The colt was purchased for $85,000 by the O'Callaghans at last year's November Breeding Stock Sale.
"He was a lovely foal out of a very good mare," Pete O'Callaghan said. "He was young (May foal). We specifically kept him for this sale. It was our intention when we bought him to bring him here.
"He was popular here. Well admired, well-vetted and several bidders, but we were lucky enough that we got two very strong bidders at the end."
O'Callaghan said he did not expect the colt to bring $400,000.
"We knew he'd make $150-160 (thousand) anyway, given the interest," he said. But we did not expect that at all. We are extremely grateful to Chad Summers and Gold Square."
Hip 1498 is out of the Street Sense mare Nora's Joy, who has produced two graded stakes winners from two horses to race, including Tirupati (Uncle Mo) and a full sister to Hip 1498, Brave Deb, winner of the 2025 Surfer Girl Stakes (G3T), who is entered in the Autumn Miss Stakes (G3T) Oct. 25 at Santa Anita Park.
O'Callaghan, who has had a very successful year with both pinhooks and homebreds, noted that a nice physical should not be overlooked, no matter the sire.
"We all get so sire snobbish that we want to buy the current hot sire. There's still a place for a good-looking horse that looks like a racehorse," he said.
"It's great that that can still be rewarded in the market because otherwise we just have to keep buying every new flash in the pan year on year, and it shouldn't have to be that way."
O'Callaghan said the two people vying for the colt were both trainers. The underbidder was Kenny McPeek.
"Two trainers bid on him. That's what we need at the sales," he said. "We need more trainers in there just buying good-looking horses that they'd like to train, and we love to see that.
"If he (Hip 1498) was by Into Mischief, he was a seven-figure animal. He was really that nice."
Summers campaigned this year's Preakness Stakes (G1) winner Napoleon Solo, who is pre-entered in the Breeders' Cup Classic (G1) and the Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile (G1) Oct. 31 at Keeneland.
"We thought he was the best horse in the sale," Summers said. "The mares had two foals and they're both graded stakes winners already.
"Peter raises a great horse and we're just happy to get him."
Summers praised fellow trainer Kenny McPeek's eye for a horse and said it led them to bid a little more aggressively than they had planned. He said coming off Napoleon Solo's great year, they hope to make the Kentucky Derby (G1) with this colt in two years.
Earlier in the session, Woods Edge Farm sold Hip 1270 for $370,000 to Bakster Farms. Hip 1270 was purchased by the O'Callaghans for $90,000 during Keeneland's November Breeding Stock Sale.
He is the second foal of the Not This Time mare Leah Forestiere, who has already produced a multiple stakes winner in Miss Fulton Gal (Rock Your World ).
"He was a lovely colt. Had a ton of action on him," O'Callaghan said. "That's a very good sire and he did have a nice pedigree as well. He was a very good Tiz the Law. That's a good sire and it would be difficult enough to find a horse as slick as that colt by the sire for as good as he is. The Not This Time mare is probably a nice influence.
"There were quite a few bidders on him about $275-300 (thousand), and it was just the two of them there, maybe for the last $60,000. He was a really lovely colt.
O'Callaghan praised both colts as being lovely types, but both very different in their own way. He said he wasn't at all worried about a lack of buying power, confident that this auction would match the buying power shown at last month's Keeneland September Yearling Sale and deliver strong returns.
"There's always money here and there's always money for nice horses," he said. "These horses got a ton of action. The Tiz the Law got vetted 17 times. Yesterday, the Forte filly (sold for $500,000) was vetted 20 times. So, they're (buyers) here. If you have the animal, they're here.
"We have no concerns coming here. It's a tremendous place to bring in horses that miss the slot in September or Saratoga and bring a freshman sire (offspring) or a young one like the Authentic (Hip 1498)."
Woods Edge Farm topped the first session of the sale, selling Hip 328, a colt by Constitution for $360,000 to Kaleen Shah's KSI. On Oct. 21, the farm sold its homebred filly (Hip 1030) by Forte to Mayberry Farm, who was bidding on behalf of Lee and Susan Searing's CRK Stables.
Woods Edge wrapped up the sale with a 100% clearance rate, selling all seven of its offerings for gross receipts of $2,035,000.
"I'm so grateful for everyone who vetted our horses and came and saw them and talked to us and bid on them," Jenny O'Callaghan said.
