Entries up for Fasig-Tipton Midlantic

Thoroughbred auctions are typically once-a-year events, each holding its own specific place and purpose on the calendar. The Fasig-Tipton Midlantic December mixed sale does not buck that trend by name, but it does in spirit.

The Timonium, Md.-based auction moves back to its previous home on the calendar after holding its past two editions in January. Because of the schedule adjustment, the sale’s most recent renewal took place during the first month of this year as the Midlantic winter mixed sale, and the auctions will serve as bookends to FasigTipton’s 2017 calendar.

The sale will take place Tuesday, Dec. 5 at Fasig-Tipton’s Midlantic base on the Maryland State Fairgrounds, beginning at 11 a.m. Eastern.

Paget Bennett, Fasig-Tipton’s Midlantic sales director, said the date change came at the request of busy horsemen during the mixed sale season.

“A lot of our consignors not only consign horses at the sales, but they also manage breeding farms, so they’ve got mares foaling and mares under lights,” Bennett said. “It came to be too much for them in that time period to try to juggle all of that. A lot of their stalls were filled with those types, and they just didn’t have the room to be getting the babies in and getting them prepped for a sale.

“A lot of people said, ‘We’ll support it with more horses if you go back to December, because it just works best for us. Based on what they asked for, they did. Our numbers are better, so that’s encouraging. If we can transfer that into sold horses and dollars, it’ll be good.”

Sellers indeed responded positively to the schedule change, putting 307 entries in the catalog, an increase of 35 percent from the 228 horses that filled the book in January.

Crane Thoroughbreds will offer 34 of those entries as agent for the dispersal of Pennsylvania-based Harry Weisleder, who died unexpectedly in November. Though it was a late addition to the catalog, Bennett said the diverse selection likely helped draw in other sellers, as well.

“When people saw that group of horses was in, I think it made other people think, ‘Well, if that group’s there, we can send some down and really put together a group,’ Bennett said. “I’m pleased with what we were able to put together.”

The sale’s previous renewal moved 141 horses for revenues of $906,400, up 3 percent from the previous year’s gross. However, the average sale price fell 24 percent to $6,428 and the median dropped 20 percent to $3,500. The buyback rate finished at 29 percent.

A yearling Dialed In colt topped the sale, going to Machmer Hall for $70,000. The Pennsylvania-bred chestnut colt was out of the winning Lord Carson mare Her Lady Grace, and hailed from the family of Grade 2 winner Halory Leigh. Bill Reightler consigned the colt, as agent.

The most expensive broodmare, and the second-mostexpensive offering of the sale, was Lady Chesley, a broodmare prospect by Speightstown who sold to Taylor Made Sales Agency, as agent, for $35,000. The unraced filly was a halfsister to Grade 1-placed Danzig Moon and Canadian classicplaced Leavem In Malibu. She was consigned by Northview Stallion Station, as agent.