Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
SALES MARKET HOPING FOR RETURN TO NORMALCY
The North American 2-year-old sales season, formally running from March to June, is an anticipated precursor to the season’s juvenile races, including starmaking Grade 1 action at the boutique summer meetings at Del Mar and Saratoga.
This season will hopefully find some equilibrium without a cloud looming over it. Although the coronavirus pandemic continues, progress has been made in the fight against the virus and sales and bloodstock companies have learned to conduct business in the new world. Last year’s sale season grappled with the virus in a much more dramatic way, as the season coincided with the initial wave of COVID-19 cases in the United States.
Last year, the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Co. was already under way with a March 12-14 breeze show in advance of its March 17-18 season-opening 2-year-olds in training sale when the pandemic took serious hold in the United States. For reference, the pandemic was declared a national emergency on
March 13, the same day that the NCAA basketball tournament was canceled. On March 17, it was announced that the Kentucky Derby would be postponed from May until Sept. 5, the latest in its history.
As a wave of other cancellation and postponement announcements began to pour in from around the racing and sales world, OBS elected to continue to move forward with its event already in progress, finding a rocky marketplace. The company subsequently pushed its spring sale to June, resulting in its June sale being postponed to July. Ultimately, only four on-site sales dedicated to juveniles were held by the three major North American auction houses in 2020, compared to seven in 2019. The season’s cancellations included the Fasig-Tipton Gulfstream sale, a boutique auction that annually helps boost the overall average for the season with high-ticket juveniles, such as $3.65 million Cezanne at its most recent renewal in 2019.
The Thoroughbred bloodstock market typically proceeds with caution in response to economic uncertainty in the world at large, as seen following the market crash of fall 2008, which caused sale figures and stud fees to plummet. The pandemic resulted in stock market instability and a high unemployment rate, both discouraging signs for the 2020 juvenile marketplace.
Additionally, the 2020 juvenile sales market was fighting an uphill battle even without those external factors. The 2019 renewals of the OBS spring sale and FasigTipton Midlantic sale finished with record figures, and the OBS March sale was led by a record-priced horse, figures that last year’s sales were going to be hard-pressed to match even in a stable marketplace.
And indeed, the cumulative average price for all 1,760 juveniles sold between the four major-market sales last season finished at $72,014. The drop from an average of $97,789 in 2019 for 2,120 horses who changed hands suggested a ceiling on the market, with buyers restrained in how far they would stretch their spending. Several agents also indicated that their clients were
cutting their spending back due to the uncertainty of immediate racing opportunities for their purchases as calendars changed due to the pandemic.
“Somebody might say, ‘Yeah, I can go buy this horse, but where am I going to run it?’ ” bloodstock agent Jacob West explained at the time.
Last year’s cumulative buyback rate across the juvenile marketplace was an encouraging 31 percent, ticking upward only slightly from 29 percent in 2019. That figure suggested an urgency on both sides of the marketplace. With fewer sales, buyers were forced to compete strongly to fill their orders, and consignors were eager to move their stock due to limited available opportunities.
With sales companies now well versed in their biosecurity protocols, and online and remote bidding firmly established as part of the live auction scene, this year’s sales calendar has regained some semblance of normalcy. OBS remains in its pole position, hosting the first sale of the season on March 16-17 and tasked with establishing market momentum. The company offers the most total juveniles of any auction house across its three scheduled sales, and thus tests the marketplace at a number of levels.
“I like buying at the OBS 2-year-old sales because of the quality and quantity of horses in their sales,” agent Gary Young said in a press release for the company.
Last year, Young purchased the season’s most expensive juvenile, $1.35 million Princess Noor, on behalf of Zedan Racing at OBS spring. She went on to be a Grade 1 winner. Young also found a bargain in $35,000 Medina Spirit at OBS June for Zedan. The colt is a Grade 3 winner under Kentucky Derby consideration.
This year’s OBS March sale features a half-brother to Princess Noor, by the sire of Medina Spirit. He is one of 561 juveniles cataloged for the seasonopening sale. All three OBS juvenile sales are preceded by under-tack preview shows on the Ocala Training Center’s allweather Safetrack surface.
The Fasig-Tipton Gulfstream sale returns to the calendar, as does the Fasig-Tipton Santa Anita sale, both allowing juveniles to show their paces over elite racetracks. The FasigTipton Midlantic sale, at the Maryland State Fairgrounds, returns to its traditional place on the calendar following the mid-May Preakness Stakes. Last year, the sale was pushed to June when the Preakness concluded the reconstituted Triple Crown in October.
Keeneland, which discontinued its April 2-year-olds in training sale after the 2014 edition before attempting to revive it in 2019, will not hold a 2-year-old specific sale this year. The company will instead conduct a sale of horses of racing age – which some juveniles will certainly find their way into, at the beginning of Kentucky Derby week. The auction will be conducted as an integrated event, with horses presented for sale both physically at Keeneland as well as digitally at off-site locations.
Louisiana will not host a 2-year-old sale this season, but the neighboring Texas Thoroughbred Association will. Juveniles bred in the regional marketplace could thus find their way across state lines, either there or to Florida.
Two-time reigning leading sire Into Mischief was a leader in last season’s yearling marketplace fresh off siring Kentucky Derby winner Authentic, finishing as the top sire by gross at the bellwether Keeneland September yearling sale. With Horse of the Year Authentic joined on his résumé by Eclipse Award champions Covfefe (2019 3-year-old filly and female sprinter) and Gamine (2020 female sprinter), Into Mischief continues to rise in prominence, and the perennial leading juvenile sire is expected to be a standout in this year’s marketplace. His current 2-year-olds represent his first crop conceived on a six-figure stud fee, and the continued broodmare quality that goes along with that. His fee rose to $100,000 from $75,000 at Spendthrift Farm for 2018.
This year’s juveniles include the final crop for European Horse of the Year Giant’s Causeway, a three-time leading sire in the United States and the sire of champions around the globe. The son of Storm Cat covered just nine mares, according to The Jockey Club’s Report of Mares Bred, in the first half of the 2019 breeding season before an illness felled him that April at Coolmore’s Ashford Stud.
This year’s class of freshman sires with their first 2-year-olds is led by Eclipse Award champions and racetrack rivals Gun Runner and Arrogate. Others in the class include Into Mischief’s son Practical Joke, looking to continue to bolster the stallion’s stock as a sire of sires.