Parrish Farms brings standout Yaupon colt to OBS June Sale

Hip 78 arrived at OBS as the kind of colt that can tell buyers whether Yaupon’s commercial run has real staying power. Parrish Farms brought only four horses to the June sale, but George Parrish Jr. believes the bay colt is the one that can make the whole consignment matter.

Parrish bought the colt for $72,000 at the Keeneland September Sale, and the page has only gotten stronger from there. Hip 78 is out of Apple Martini, a graded stakes-placed, stakes-winning Giant’s Causeway mare who is a full sister to Grade 1 winner Giant Oak, giving the colt a female family with the kind of depth buyers pay for when the clock and the catalogue both matter.

The breeze backed up the pedigree. During the June 9 under-tack show, Hip 78 worked an eighth in :9 4/5, tying for the fastest time at the distance and putting him squarely on the short list of horses that can sell on action as much as on bloodlines. In a June market built around juveniles who can show speed without looking one-dimensional, that kind of work can turn a good page into a live bid.

OBS scheduled the 2026 June Two-Year-Olds in Training and Horses of Racing Age Sale for June 16-18, with under-tack shows held June 9-13. The auction originally listed 909 horses before supplements, and the field reached 981 by sale time. Last year’s June sale set a record when Feminism sold for $975,000, a reminder that buyers have been willing to push hard for the right individual. The June sale has also shown a taste for speed this season, after a Yaupon colt topped an earlier session for $300,000.

Yaupon’s rise gives Hip 78 another layer of appeal. The Spendthrift Farm stallion is a second-crop sire, and the farm said his 2026 sales included one colt that brought $1,000,000 at the OBS March sale and eight lots that averaged $347,500. Spendthrift also reported five stakes winners for Yaupon in 2026, numbers that matter to pinhookers looking for a sire who can produce both early runners and resale momentum.

Parrish’s decision to keep the barn small reflected a tougher, more selective market for pinhookers, but Hip 78 gave him a colt with enough speed, scope and family to attract immediate attention. In a sale designed to sort prospects from placeholders, he looked like a horse built to keep Yaupon near the center of the conversation.