Midland Acres brings variety to Lexington with select group of yearlings
by Dave Briggs
Fresh off the Ohio Selected Jug Sale, where Midland Acres was the second leading consignor by gross with over $1 million in sales, the Ohio nursery will sell 12 yearlings in Lexington — seven of its own and five as an agent.
Midland’s Jay Mossbarger said the consignment features, “a little bit of everything… I think we’re going to do fine for what we’ve got in. We’ve got the sister to Papi Grad selling [Hip #850 Miki Grad], we’ve got some foreign-breds, we’ve got Sweet Lous and Muscle Masses. It’s going to be a variety, but I think we’ve got at least a chance at doing pretty well.
“The highlight, I’d say, is a Sweet Lou colt, Hip #431 [Slinky Dawg]. That’s a very nice colt. I’m very happy with that colt… I don’t know what he’ll bring, but he’s a very nice horse. He’s a very well-balanced horse, very strong. Not a very big horse, but plenty big enough.”
Mossbarger laughed when asked if he came up with Slinky Dawg’s name.
“Yeah, that kind of fits us,” he said, before pointing out how much he also likes Papi Rob Hanover filly Total Eclipseofart, Hip #432.
“I’ve also got a couple of foreign-breds. The family is so-so, the Ecurie D [DK] out of Caviart Whitney [Hip #634 Bonita Springs], but that’s a very good-looking filly.
“Probably as far as pedigree, I’ve got two of the better Ohio horses [sired by Monte Miki] in there for Friday with Hip #850 and Hip #901 [Lady Mae Miki]. That’s two pretty outstanding pedigrees to be selling them in Kentucky.”
This is Monte Miki’s first crop of yearlings. He stands at Midland Acres.
“We had quite a few Monte Mikis sell in Ohio and I don’t think you want to flood any market,” Mossbarger said. “We thought those two fillies’ pedigrees could stand up [in Lexington] there pretty well. I might have made a mistake and they might not sell as good there, I don’t know, but we wanted to spread things out a little bit.”
As for what he likes about the Monte Mikis, Mossbarger said, “They’ve got leg under them. I like the way they want to pace pretty quickly… They are up off the ground and strong horses. They sold well in Ohio.” There were 43 of them and they averaged $26,000.
“The Ohio stallions are just changing the world here pretty quickly and now we’ve got to get the mares to change the world,” he said. “That’s what we’ve got to do.”
