Candy Ride colt tops F-T sale

LEXINGTON, Ky. – A $560,000 Candy Ride colt topped the final session and the sale to push the Fasig-Tipton October yearling sale across the finish line on Thursday night with record gross and average figures, closing out the formal yearling sale season in North America with a bang.

Fasig-Tipton reported 1,007 horses sold during the fourday sale for gross revenues of $38,138,900, during what FasigTipton president Boyd Browning termed an “outstanding week.” Last year’s sale grossed $34,260,100 from 963 horses sold during four days. The cumulative average price finished at a record $37,874, and a gain of 6 percent from $35,576 last year.

The median finished at $13,000 compared to $15,000, a drop of 13 percent. The buyback rate finished at 25 percent, a moderate change from last year’s 23 percent in what has been a selective market since recovering from the recession of 2008.

“It was a very encouraging sale, a very good way to end the yearling season,” Browning said. “I was pleasantly surprised on the average. The gross, it is the biggest catalog we’ve ever had . . . . So we had hoped the gross would be able to increase. But to sustain the average in an overall marketplace this year that was similar to last year . . . I think realistically, if Vegas would have made the line, they would have said, you hope like heck you can get close to last year’s results. To exceed those is a pleasant surprise, and I think it’s another indication of the growth and maturity of this sale.”

Indeed, the Fasig October trend bucked this year’s majormarket trend of a slight decline in yearling averages. A total of 5,218 yearlings were sold at the major-market yearling auctions this season – Keeneland September, Fasig-Tipton’s July, Saratoga

selected, New York-bred, California selected, Midlantic, and October yearling sales. The bulk of those were sold at the marathon Keeneland September sale, which moved 2,855 horses to new homes, and Fasig October. The yearlings sold this year fetched gross revenues of $508,691,900, resulting in an average price of $97,488. That average price was a 4 percent drop from $101,687 in 2018. Last year’s major-market yearling sales had 5,231 horses sold for $531,922,450. The only change on the calendar from 2018 to 2019 was in California, where Fasig-Tipton conducted a yearling sale to take the place of the select August sale conducted by Barretts, which ceased operations.

Slight declines across the board were not unexpected, as several sales were coming off record renewals in 2018 after several years of growing figures since recovering from the recession, and the market may now be reaching a plateau. For example, the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga sale, the nation’s premier boutique sale, posted its second-highest average alltime in 2018, while Keeneland September, the bellwether for the North American market, recorded a record average.

Solid activity at the top of the market helped to fuel the gains in gross and average at Fasig October. The $560,000 Candy Ride colt who topped the action was the only horse to break the half-million price ceiling, and he eclipses the $500,000 paid for the 2018 sale topper, a Street Sense colt. However, while two horses sold for prices between $400,000 and $500,000 last year, five did this year, further illustrating the competitiveness of the buying bench for horses perceived as quality offerings.

Carlo Vaccarezza landed the Candy Ride colt, from the consignment of Eaton Sales, as agent.

The colt is out of the winning Empire Maker mare Vanquished, whose five winners from seven starters are led by Grade 2 winner Takeover Target and stakes winner Ladies’ Privilege. Vanquished is a half-sister to multiple Grade 1-winning millionaire Critical Eye.

The second highest-priced horse was a $410,000 colt by young classic sire Uncle Mo who topped Wednesday’s session, selling to bloodstock agent Mike Ryan. The colt was consigned by Indian Creek, as agent.

The colt is the second foal out of the unraced Stormy Atlantic mare Picardia, a half-sister to Grade 1 winners Lear’s Princess and Pretty City Dancer. Their dam, Pretty City, is a half-sister to Grade 1-winning millionaire My Big Boy and stakes winner and producer Forever Command.

Both of the top two lots had been entered in earlier sales and then scratched – Vanquished’s colt from the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga sale in August, and Picardia’s colt from last month’s Keeneland September yearling sale. Their success at the upper end of the market at the October sale showcases the sale’s importance as a target destination for later-developing horses, including some who may have been scratched from earlier-season sales due to typical young-horse growing pains, or to allow them more time to develop.

“I think sellers now know there’s a legitimate marketplace here to bring a quality animal, and if you have a situation where the additional time or a change of circumstance or a change in environment or whatever factor will improve the marketability of that horse, they have the confidence to do that,” Browning said. “This is a tough game we play, and sometimes a horse might get a little sick, come up with a cough, it might have a minor X-ray blemish that was unexpected. There’s all sorts of factors and circumstances that lead to horses moving from one sale to another sale. And a lot of horses, frankly, benefit from the additional time. You see horses blossom.”

Coolmore to stand Eight Rings

The breeding rights to Grade 1 winner Eight Rings, who is among the favorites for next week’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, have been acquired by the international Coolmore group. The outfit plans to stand the colt at its Ashford Stud in Kentucky upon his eventual retirement.

Eight Rings is from the first crop of 2-year-olds sired by Empire Maker after he was repatriated from Japan. His bloodline is already well represented at Ashford, which stands Triple Crown winner American Pharoah and Eclipse Award champion Classic Empire, both by Empire Maker’s son Pioneerof the Nile. Both of those runners, along with fellow Ashford stallions Lookin At Lucky and Uncle Mo, earned Eclipses as outstanding juveniles – a title Eight Rings would certainly lock up with a Breeders’ Cup win.

Eight Rings, who was bred by WinStar Farm, is campaigned by SF Racing, Starlight Racing, Madaket Stables, Fred Hertrich III, John Fielding, and Golconda Stables. He is trained by Bob Baffert.

Eight Rings has won two of his three career starts, with the only blemish coming in a bizarre incident when he ducked in and lost his rider in the Grade 1 Del Mar Futurity. He rebounded to win the Grade 1 American Pharoah Stakes by six lengths on Sept. 27 at Santa Anita, host site of the Breeders’ Cup.

“Eight Rings was awesome in the American Pharoah Stakes and looks to be a colt with a huge future,” Ashford manager Dermot Ryan said in a release. “We’re delighted he’s going to end up in Ashford.”