Fasig-Tipton aims to continue New York-bred momentum
“Five years ago, if you bought a New York-bred, you maybe thought, ‘I didn’t have any expectations of him or her competing on a national level,’ ” Fasig-Tipton president Boyd Browning said. “They’d almost exclusively be pointed toward the New York-bred races and stakes.”
Oh, how times have changed.
New York-breds have won at least one Grade/Group 1 race every year since 2010, and the program has been represented by Eclipse Award champions in consecutive years with Dayatthespa and La Verdad. The program is having another strong year, with graded stakes wins by Effinex, Upstart, Fish Trappe Road, and Ancient Secret in the first seven months of 2016.
Likewise, sales of New York-bred prospects are on the upswing. The Fasig-Tipton New York-bred sale of preferred yearlings has posted gains in five consecutive years heading into this year’s edition, which is set for Aug. 13-14 in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.
“We’ve seen over the last 10 years pretty remarkable growth and gains in the New York-bred sale due to the growth in quality of the horses being offered for sale,” Browning said. “The pedigrees have improved, the physical conformation have improved, and the horsemanship has really improved. The stallions in New York and the female families have gotten better. It’s a great program. The New York breeding program is the preeminent statebred program in the United States.”
Last year’s New York-bred yearling sale finished with 182 horses sold, led by a $350,000 Tiznow filly, for gross receipts of $14,876,500. The average price was $81,739, and the median was $65,000. The gross and average figures were gains of 5.5 percent and 2 percent over 2014, while the median held steady.
This year’s sale has 306 yearlings cataloged, up from 283 last year. The catalog is led by 19 yearlings by the state’s perennial leading sire, Freud, including a colt from the immediate family of millionaire and multiple graded stakes winner Lubash, a full sister to his stakes winner Lovely Syn, and a colt from the family of champion and blue hen Serena’s Song. The catalog also includes 18 yearlings by Mission Impazible, who led the North American freshman sire list by earnings through the first half of 2016. Both stand at Sequel Stallions in Hudson, N.Y.
The catalog also brings foals by several Kentucky standouts to the New York market, including nine yearlings by last year’s record-setting freshman, Uncle Mo; three by young classic sire Curlin; and representatives by Giant’s Causeway, Bernardini, and the late Scat Daddy.
New York’s stallion population has grown in recent years as major operations invest in the market, and some of that new strength will be on display in the catalog. Grade 1 winner The Lumber Guy, New York’s Horse of the Year in 2012, now stands at Keane Stud for Spendthrift Farm, while Grade 1 winner Emcee stands at Sequel for Darley. Both have yearlings from their initial crops in the catalog, along with Grade 2 winner Forty Tales.
Kentucky first-crop stallions represented include Kentucky Derby winners Animal Kingdom and Orb; champion Shanghai Bobby; and Grade 1 winners Data Link, Flat Out, Graydar, Jimmy Creed, Liaison, Morning Line, Overanalyze, Paynter, Take Charge Indy, and Violence.