Lows Pay $1.6 Million for Girvin Filly at OBS Sale Finale

Robert and Lawana Low made the last big swing of the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Spring 2-Year-Olds in Training Sale, paying $1.6 million for a Girvin filly that had already flashed enough speed to stop the market in its tracks. Jacob West signed the ticket as agent on hip 1221, the supplemental entry that became the final seven-figure horse of the four-day auction and the last of seven to top $1 million.

The money was about more than a fast work. It was a bet on what this filly can become once she gets away from the sales ring and into a training program built to stretch her out. She breezed an eighth-mile in :09 3/5 during the under-tack preview, and that kind of time gets attention fast. But the price says the Lows were not just buying raw acceleration. They were buying a filly with enough body and presence to make people think stakes horse, maybe more if the pedigree keeps opening up.

That pedigree gives the bid real weight. Bred in Kentucky by Jim and Donna Daniell and foaled Mar. 7, she is by Girvin out of Soma, the unraced Curlin mare who is a half sister to graded stakes winner Celestial City. Soma’s first foal, Miss Donna by Rushie, won a maiden race Jan. 23 at Santa Anita Park, another small but useful sign that the family can run. The filly was first purchased for $165,000 at the 2025 Keeneland September Yearling Sale by CMT Rentals before coming through Top Line Sales.

The sale context made the number even sharper. OBS catalogued 1,224 horses, including supplements, for the 2026 Spring Sale, which ran April 14-17 in Ocala, Florida. The 2025 edition produced a record average of $138,709 and nine seven-figure horses, so the bar for quality was already high. By the time Hip 1221 reached the ring, the auction had already shown that elite buyers were willing to keep pushing deep into the week.

Top Line Sales’ Jimbo Gladwell said the filly “exceeded every expectation” and “brought down the house at the end.” Torie Gladwell called her “a gorgeous, beautiful stretchy filly” and said she was “not just a little speed ball type.” That is the part that matters for the racetrack. Plenty of juveniles can work quick in the spring; far fewer keep developing into fillies who can handle more ground and more class when the races start to get serious.

West said she will go to Hall of Fame trainer Todd Pletcher, and he pointed to the broader strength at the sale, including the $10.5 million Flightline colt, as proof the market was still firing. For Robert and Lawana Low, who are already campaigning Arkansas Derby winner Renegade in partnership with Repole Stable, the purchase looked like a forward-looking play on a filly with enough speed to show up early and enough pedigree to stay relevant when the real tests arrive.