After two years of substantial growth, helped largely by interest in California-breds, prices fell substantially at Sunday's opening session of the California Thoroughbred Breeders Association's Del Mar yearling sale.
Of the 64 yearlings offered, 36 sold for $1,133,000, an average of $31,472, down 34 percent from the corresponding session in 2002, which averaged $47,676. The median price declined from $40,000 in 2002 to $30,000 Sunday.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Fasig-Tipton's Saratoga select yearling sale ended Thursday night with substantial gains over last year's edition and strong selling at every level of the market.
The three-day auction's top seller was a $2.7 million colt from Unbridled's last crop. Satish and Anne Sanan's Padua Stables bought the colt from breeders Arthur Hancock III and Stonerside Stable.
DEL MAR, Calif. - At various times of the year, Julie Adair can be found working as a movie stuntwoman, buying or selling racing prospects, or breaking yearlings.
Each August, her schedule is dedicated to the Del Mar yearling sale, where she has successfully offered a small consignment in recent years.
In 2000, Adair sold a Distinctive Cat filly for $150,000, the highest-priced female at the sale. Named Distinctive Wish, the filly won twice at Turf Paradise before suffering a career-ending injury. She was later bred to Benchmark.
DEL MAR, Calif. - A catalog that many consignors perceive to be the sale's strongest in history may push the California Thoroughbred Breeders Association's Del Mar yearling sale to record levels this week.
To be held Sunday and Monday at 7 p.m. at the Del Mar HorsePark, the sale will need to set records to surpass the average price of the past two years.
There's no shortage of stallions who have their first crop of Florida yearlings heading to the Ocala sales. The annual auction gets under way on Aug. 18 and continues daily through Aug. 21. The Ocala Breeders' Sales Company has cataloged 1,276 yearlings, with 202 designated as selected.
Slew Gin Fizz (by Relaunch) and Zamindar (Gone West) were graded or group winners. Both began their stud careers at foreign venues. Slew Gin Fizz still shuttles between Ocala Stud and Argentina, where he is a leading sire with several champions there.
Fasig-Tipton didn't have a difficult decision when it came to selecting the cover photograph for its preferred yearling sale of New York-breds at Saratoga.
The obvious choice was this year's Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner, Funny Cide, a graduate of the sale two years ago.
When the two-day sale begins Sunday evening, the buzz around the sales grounds probably will be focused on Funny Cide and the chances of finding another horse like him from the more than 220 yearlings in this year's catalog.
Maryland-breds often distinguish themselves at Saratoga, but rarely does it happen this way.
Two 2002 Maryland-bred champions - Willa on the Move and Shine Again, a daughter and granddaughter of Maryland sire Two Punch - crossed the wire one-two in the Grade 3 Honorable Miss Handicap on Aug. 1.
Bettors made last year's statebred champion older mare and sprinter, Shine Again, a multiple Grade 1-winning millionaire who traditionally has enjoyed her finest moments at the Spa, an 8-5 favorite.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - New Mexico racetrack owner Stanley Fulton paid $1.2 million to acquire the final session-topper .
ClassicStar sold the Storm Cat colt out of Grade 3 winner Broad Smile, by Broad Brush, through the Taylor Made Sales Agency.
Red Ransom, sire of the 2000 champion turf mare, Perfect Sting, and tRed Ransom going to U.K.
he 2003 Epsom Oaks winner, Casual Look, will relocate from central Kentucky to Dalham Hall in England for 2004.
Sheikh Mohammed al Maktoum's Darley operation, which owns Dalham Hall, announced Thursday that the stallion will leave Tom Simon's Vinery in Lexington, Ky. Vinery will, however, retain its majority interest in Red Ransom, a 16-year-old Roberto stallion.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Satish Sanan came to the Saratoga select yearling auction with one thing in mind: to buy a Kentucky Derby horse. Sanan is a serious market force who can bid millions on a horse he wants badly enough. But he also knows first-hand that racing's gods are whimsical.
Sanan has brushed against the Derby roses twice, first when he was underbidder on the $4 million yearling who became 2000 Derby winner Fusaichi Pegasus, and, more tantalizingly, with his 2002 juvenile champion Vindication, who fell off the 2003 Derby trail with a suspensory injury.