Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
F-T Midlantic riding a wave
TIMONIUM, Md. – Annually in May, the market comes to Maryland as a sense of urgency begins to be felt from the juvenile sales set. Only a pair of major-market 2-year-old sales remain after the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic auction – those being Fasig-Tipton’s new Santa Anita sale in early June and the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Co.’s final auction of the season later that month. As the calendar winds down, owners and consignors begin feeling the pressure to move horses, and buyers have limited remaining opportunities to stock their stables.
That timing is one factor that has helped the Fasig-Tipton sale build a strong presence in recent years, as it comes in off a series of strong recent renewals. The Midlantic sale will be held Monday and Tuesday at the Maryland State Fairgrounds in Timonium, following a threeday under-tack preview show that took place Preakness Stakes week. There are 600 hips in the catalog.
Last year’s Midlantic auction was led by a $1.2 million Medaglia d’Oro colt, marking the fourth year in a row this sale produced a seven-figure horse. The Midlantic sale finished with 333 horses sold over two days for total gross receipts of $24,868,500. The gross ticked down just 1 percent from a record renewal in 2017, when 330 horses brought $25,237,000. The average price finished at $74,680, declining 2 percent from $76,476 in the strong 2017 renewal. The median was $38,000, rising 9 percent from $35,000 the prior year.
“Consignors have gotten so confident in bringing [top horses] to this marketplace,” Fasig-Tipton Midlantic director of sales Paget Bennett has said. “They love the racetrack, they love the area, the timing all works.”
In addition to being able to turn supply-and-demand economics in their favor, the Midlantic sale is also attractive to consignors because it provides a better target for later-developing horses than March and April 2-year-old sales. In recent years, consignors Randy Hartley and Dean De Renzo have focused on the Midlantic sale specifically to give their higher-end pinhook prospects more time to develop. Last year, they sold the sale-topping Medaglia d’Oro colt, who had been a $475,000 Keeneland September yearling purchase. In 2017, the consignors sold Curlin’s Honor for $1.5 million, a Fasig-Tipton Midlantic record. The colt had been a $475,000 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky July yearling.
“For us to have a place to come later in the year and give these horses time to develop and stuff, it makes a big difference,” Hartley said.
This year, the Hartley/De Renzo consignment of 11 horses – accounting for outs through Thursday – includes a Medaglia d’Oro colt who was a $450,000 Keeneland September yearling, and a Bayern half-sister to Grade 1 winner American Gal who was a $600,000 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga yearling.
Bayern, whose multiple Grade 1 wins included the 2014 Breeders’ Cup Classic, is part of a strong class of freshman sires with their first 2-year-olds at the sales and races this season. That class is, of course, led by Triple Crown winner American Pharoah, who already has two winners as a sire, and who has three juveniles set to sell at the Midlantic auction after early outs. Freshman sires The Big Beast and Wicked Strong, both of whom were represented by their first winners in Kentucky, each had juveniles among the five tied for the fastest furlong at the breeze show; Bayern, Daredevil, and Wicked Strong each had workers in the group of eight tied for the fastest quarter-mile work.
There are five juveniles in the sale by perennial leading sire Tapit, led by a colt out of the stakes-winning Sadler’s Wells mare Visions of Clarity. That makes him a half-brother to multiple graded stakes winner and Preakness Stakes entrant War of Will; Group 1 winner Pathfork; stakes winner Tacticius; and multiple stakes producer Lotus Sutra. It is the immediate family of Irish 2000 Guineas and Breeders’ Cup Mile winner Spinning World, who was also a multiple Group 1 winner in France.
Perennial leading juvenile sire Into Mischief, the only stallion with workers in the bullet group for both a furlong and a quarter, has 13 horses cataloged with outs through Thursday. Other major sire power in the catalog comes from five juveniles by the late Pioneerof the Nile, sire of American Pharoah; three by consistent classic sire Curlin; two by Lookin At Lucky, in the midst of a career run with horses such as Breeders’ Cup Classic winner and Eclipse Award champion Accelerate and Kentucky Derby winner Country House; and one by Quality Road, currently the nation’s leading general sire by earnings with Grade 1 winners Bellafina, City of Light, and Roadster to his credit through the first quarter of the year.