Midlantic juvenile sale looks to build on recent success

TIMONIUM, Md. – Kentucky Derby winner Justify has a sizeable ownership group consisting of WinStar Farm, the China Horse Club, Head of Plains Partners, and Starlight Racing. Of those, it was just Jack Wolf of Starlight representing the owners Thursday at Pimlico’s annual Alibi Breakfast, but the others had a good alibi.

WinStar’s Elliott Walden was “over at Timonium,” Wolf said, “trying to see if he can find the next one.”

Finding a horse like the unbeaten Derby winner might be a tall order, but the FasigTipton Midlantic sale of 2-yearolds in training has risen in prominence in recent years, with its graduates – including one who was set to challenge Keeneland September graduate Justify in the Preakness Stakes – proving it out on the racetrack.

The sale, set for Monday and Tuesday at the Maryland State Fairgrounds here, has long been the primary regional marketplace for juveniles, pulling in high numbers of horses bred in Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, West Virginia, and New Jersey and showcasing their stallions.

But the sale, which gets an attendance boost from horsemen thanks to the Preakness, has steadily risen on the national level as well. Last year’s renewal saw gains across the board in the major categories, including a 12 percent spike in average and an improved buyback rate. The sale was led by a record-priced horse, the $1.5 million Curlin’s Honor, who has now won three of four starts for trainer Mark Casse, including the Woodstock Stakes on May 5 at Woodbine.

Last year’s Midlantic sale graduates also include Lady Ivanka ($80,000), who provided a swift return on investment by winning both her starts last summer, including the Grade 1 Spinaway Stakes, and Diamond King ($235,000), who has won two stakes this year, including the Federico Tesio Stakes to earn a spot in the Preakness.

“The story goes that we got this horse at the sale last May, and as soon as I saw him train, I never said he’s a Derby horse,” owner Chuck Zacney of Cash Is King Stable said. “I always said this is a Preakness horse.”

This year, Fasig-Tipton cataloged 600 horses for the sale prior to outs. The group represented major sire power, including four horses by perennial leading sire Tapit and one filly by commercial powerhouse War Front.

“We’re very excited about the catalog,” Fasig-Tipton Midlantic sales director Paget Bennett said. “We’ve got some new consignors here that have been seeing the results that this sale brings, how popular it is with sellers and buyers, so we’re happy to have them come up and test the waters. We’re looking forward to a good sale.”

With heavy rain in the Baltimore area leading up to the sale, Fasig-Tipton made some late changes to its schedule to protect the safety of horses and riders and to accommodate buyers. Two of the three sessions of the presale undertack show on the dirt track at the Fairgrounds were held Tuesday and Wednesday before the heaviest rain to that point rolled into the area overnight and into Thursday morning. As a result, that day’s scheduled final session of the breeze show was postponed to Sunday.

In a domino effect, both sessions of the sale itself were pushed back three hours to a 2 p.m. Eastern start time to allow additional time for prospective buyers, who may have viewed horses on the “dark” day Sunday, to complete presale inspections.

The buyers may need that extra time to sort out the quality offerings. Through the first two days of the breeze show, 17 juveniles by 16 different sires were tied for the fastest onefurlong time of 10 1/5 seconds. The group included a pair of colts by Maclean’s Music, who was represented by 2017 Preakness winner Cloud Computing in his first crop.

Other stallions represented include classic sires Pioneerof the Nile and Uncle Mo; Tapizar, the sire of this year’s Kentucky Oaks winner, Monomoy Girl; leading juvenile sire Into Mischief; freshman sires Fed Biz and Will Take Charge; and Flatter, Flat Out, Hard Spun, Honorable Dillon, Justin Phillip, More Than Ready, Stormy Atlantic, Tritap, and Twirling Candy.

A colt from the first crop of Mucho Macho Man held the fastest quarter-mile time through the first two days of the breeze show at 21 1/5 seconds. The colt is from the family of Canadian Horse of the Year Peaks and Valleys and Eclipse Award champion Forever Together. Another colt by Mucho Macho Man breezed three furlongs in 37 seconds flat as the only horse to work that distance Tuesday or Wednesday.