Fasig-Tipton and Santa Anita team up for new sales in 2019

Fasig-Tipton and Santa Anita will conduct a new 2-year-olds in training sale at Santa Anita next June in an attempt to secure a late position on the juvenile auction calendar. The sale is tentatively scheduled for June 5.

Most 2-year-old sales are held earlier in the spring, with California’s sales typically held in March, April or May. Boyd Browning, the president and chief executive of Kentucky-based Fasig-Tipton, said in a phone interview Thursday that a late spring sale “will have its own niche” in an active market that usually begins in Florida in March.

“When you look at the sale calendar, it’s crowded in March, April and most of May,” Browning said. “We were looking for a spot that might make a little sense and might be a little different.”

Fasig-Tipton and Santa Anita recently formed a partnership to conduct the new 2-year-old sale as well as a yearling sale on Sept. 24-25, 2019. The auctions will replace events previously run by Barretts Sales, which is owned by the Los Angeles County Fair.

Barretts is scheduled to host two more sales this year – a select yearling sale in August at Del Mar and a yearling and horses of racing age sale in October in Pomona. Barretts is not expected to conduct sales in 2019.

For decades, Barretts hosted a March select sale and a May open sale of 2-year-olds in training. This year, Barretts held one sale in April. Those events were held at Del Mar.

At Barretts in April, 75 2-year-olds sold for $6,481,000, an average of $86,413.

For the June sale, Browning expects support from the California and Florida consignors who provided prospects at Barretts. The sale would be held prior to the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Co.’s June event, which typically is the final juvenile sale of the year.

The September yearling sale at Santa Anita will be geared toward the California market, and will be held shortly after the massive Keeneland September yearling sale earlier in the month. Browning said Fasig-Tipton and Santa Anita sought a late September date to avoid conflict with yearling sales in Florida, Kentucky, and Maryland in October.

“The vast majority of the yearling sale will be Cal-breds,” Browning said. “I think our expectation is that it’s probably most appropriately positioned after the Keeneland sale. We thought it would fit in there nicely.”

The event could produce results similar to the Barretts August sale, which last year saw 53 horses sell for $2,177,000, for an average of $41,075.

Browning said the companies have yet to determine where at Santa Anita the sale will be held and how the sale horses will be stabled.

“We’ve had plenty of experience of stabling in tents,” he said. “We can do it on a first-class basis that is good for horses and humans alike.

“I know Santa Anita’s goal is to build additional stalls on the property. We hope to take advantage of that.”

There are no plans to launch a winter mixed or breeding stock sale, Browning said. Such auctions have generated considerably lower revenue recently than yearling or 2-year-old sales. In January of this year, the Barretts mixed sale grossed $1,226,400 from the sale of 112 horses, an average of $10,950.