Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
TRIPLE CROWN FEELING IS IN THE AIR
As the nascent North American yearling sales season travels to Saratoga Springs this month, the Thoroughbred industry finds itself in a position it has not been in for four decades. A Triple Crown winner graced the racetrack this spring, the culmination of racing’s biggest dreams – and meanwhile, the first yearlings by another Triple Crown winner are coming to the public auction ring, providing an opportunity to chase those dreams anew. The inspiration provided by Justify and the opportunity provided by American Pharoah could be a rising tide helping to further lift all ships in a yearling market that has reformed and seemingly recovered from the recession of a decade ago.
“I think things are really optimistic, with a Triple Crown winner, and the market’s been very solid in recent years for quality, so I would say within the industry, things are very positive,” Andrew Cary of consignor Select Sales said entering the yearling sale season. “There’s a lot of demand for good horses, which is all we can really ask for. Foal crops have come down in size, so it’s kind of helped keep numbers in check and helped keep averages up. I think it’s going to be a very strong year. There’s always a lot of noise and uncertainty, but in general, I think people seem very positive.”
Fasig-Tipton, which is set to play host to a pair of sales in Saratoga, began the majormarket yearling sale season in North America last month with its Kentucky July auction, which posted across-the-board gains in the major economic categories, and a fairly steady buyback rate in what has, for years, been a selective market – a solid start to the season.
“We saw a continuation of the market we’ve seen in recent years,” Fasig-Tipton president Boyd Browning said. “Tremendous competition for quality offerings. You have to be thrilled when the gross is up, the average is up, and the median is up. I’d characterize it as a very successful start to the 2018 yearling sale season.”
Off that start, Fasig-Tipton now conducts the first boutique yearling auction of the season, the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga selected yearling sale, on Aug. 6-7, almost immediately followed by its New York-bred yearling sale Aug. 11-12. The select sale features a catalog of 255 horses, including two halfsiblings to champions. Mean-
while, with the New York-bred program experiencing another strong year worldwide, thanks to Grade 1-winning sale graduates Audible and Mind Your Biscuits, the catalog for the statebred sale has grown to 327 horses, from 295 last year.
“Sire power, outstanding conformation, and depth of pedigree – it’s all at Saratoga this year,” Browning said of the select sale catalog. “Every current leading North American sire is represented in this year’s catalog. Thirtyeight yearlings cataloged are siblings to graded or group stakes winners, 16 of which are Grade 1 winners.”
Both sales take place at the Humphrey S. Finney Pavilion at the Fasig-Tipton sale grounds on East Avenue, virtually just across Union Avenue from the main gate of Saratoga Race Course. The stable area has been expanded, as this spring Fasig-Tipton broke ground on a new barn across George Street from the sale pavilion that will be used for the first time at the August sales.
American Pharoah, who broke the record 37-year Triple Crown drought in 2015, made a trip through the Humphrey S. Finney Pavilion himself as a youngster. The stallion attracted a star-studded book of mares in his first season at Coolmore’s Ashford Stud, and has a resulting 16 yearlings set to sell in Saratoga this month – 15 in the selected catalog, the most of any stallion in a strong class of firstcrop sires, and one in the New York-bred catalog. His offerings in the select sale include a filly out of multiple Grade 1 winner Life At Ten, a half-brother to Royal Ascot heroine Acapulco, a half-brother to Canadian classic winner Unspurned, and eight others out of stakes winners or stakes producers.
Other catalog highlights include a War Front filly who is a half-sister to two-time Eclipse Award champion turf mare Tepin; a half-sister to classicplaced champion juvenile Classic Empire; and a filly who is the first foal out of champion sprint mare La Verdad.
While star offerings such as these anchor the top of the catalog and will doubtlessly create fireworks on the bid board, a number of consignors have cautioned that behind those, the market is still disparate, particularly at this relatively early stage of the sale season.
“I think we’re in a very polarized market,” Craig Bandoroff of Denali Stud said at the July sale. “The 2-year-old market is polarized, and that makes [the yearling market] more polarized. I don’t think it’s necessarily the market now, but what’s to come. There’s 4,500 more coming in September, so [buyers] can afford to be selective, and they are.”
While Fred Mitchell, whose Clarkland Farm bred champion Beholder and consigned her $3 million half-brother Mendelssohn at the 2016 Keeneland September yearling sale, is expecting a polarized market, he also believes that the 2-yearold market could have a positive effect on yearling sales.
“I think [the yearling market] will be a lot like it has been the past few years,” Mitchell said. “The top end of things, they’ll pay a bundle for them, and then you’re life-and-death to make bills meet on the rest of them. That’s how it has been for the last several years. But [pinhookers] will be buying because most of them had a decent sale this year, and that ought to help us out some. Some of them are starting to play different games. They want high-end [yearlings] so they can sell at 2-year-old sales on the high end and have a million-dollar-plus 2-year-old. If they can buy one for $400,000 or $500,000 and get a million, they make a nice profit.”
Both Fasig-Tipton Saratoga sales last year posted record figures that bode well for this year’s strong catalogs. The select sale saw 156 horses sold for revenues of $52,995,000, a gain of 16 percent. The group was led by a pair of $1 million colts by Curlin and Orb. The average sale price rose 16 percent to $339,712, while the median rose 26 percent to a record $300,000. Later in the week, the New York-bred sale posted a record gross of $16,214,000, with 182 yearlings sold led by the auction’s highest-priced offering of all-time – a $500,000 Cairo Prince colt. The average sale price hit a new high-water mark of $89,088, up 15 percent, while the median finished at a record $69,500, marking a 16 percent gain. Both sales posted an improved buyback rate.