Fasig-Tipton Kentucky winter mixed sale last chance to restock

LEXINGTON, Ky. – The Fasig-Tipton Kentucky winter mixed sale offers one final chance to pick up a broodmare at public auction as breeding sheds in Kentucky open this week. It also offers the final chance, in a competitive market, to pick up a foal of 2019 as a pinhook prospect ahead of the formal yearling sale season, which opens in July.

There are 650 horses in the catalog, including supplemental entries, for this year’s Fasig-Tipton February sale, set for Monday and Tuesday at the auction house’s Newtown Paddocks facility in Lexington. The sale is coming off a solid 2019 renewal that posted gains from 2018 and also picked up some recent bragging rights from Storm the Court, crowned an Eclipse Award champion last month. Storm the Court, born in May 2017, was first sold as a short yearling at Fasig-Tipton February, going for $5,000 before being pinhooked to his current connections as a 2-year-old.

The young horse market at the February sale could continue to ride the wave of what has been a strong market for weanlings and yearlings. The wave started in November, through the major-market mixed auctions at Fasig-Tipton, Keeneland, and the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Co. Thanks to the strength of a yearling market that has rebuilt itself in the decade-plus since the recession, end users – those entities intending to race or eventually breed their young purchases themselves – have increasingly come into the November weanling market, traditionally the domain of pinhookers, looking to scoop up select offerings early. This has led to increased competition from pinhookers, still looking to fill their quotas for the formal yearling season as the mixed sale season nears its conclusion.

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Selecting a horse at this stage of development, when youngsters are not yet fully formed and may be in an awkward phase of growth, and being able to predict how they will continue to mature is considered an art form for bloodstock agents and skilled pinhookers.

“You have to have a gift,” bloodstock agent David Ingordo said. “You want to find an athlete. I will make an analogy – a foal’s like looking at a kid in junior high. They’re got some parts there, and you hope they turn into the next great thing. Yearlings, you get to see them in high school, and 2-year-olds, you’re looking at them in college. Whatever stage you’re at, you’re taking a gamble, but if you can pick a foal well, that’s quite a feat, because you’re the furthest away from the goal, which is the winner’s circle.”

The Fasig-Tipton February sale will provide the chance for a variety of stallions to step up with their young stock, in the absence of some of the market’s heavy hitters. Last year’s leading living general sires in the United States were Into Mischief, Curlin, Tapit, Quality Road, and Hard Spun; only Hard Spun is represented by yearlings in the February catalog, with two. Uncle Mo, who sired the leading yearling of the Keeneland January sale, has one yearling in this catalog.

Additionally, champions Gun Runner and Arrogate, who have recorded strong commercial results with their first crop, are not represented in the February catalog based on outs and supplements through Feb. 6. That provides room for other first-year stallions to step in, including young sons of leading sires who were popular early. Cupid, whose sire Tapit had several sons in the top 20 on the 2019 freshman sire list, covered 223 mares in his first season at stud in 2018, trailing only Into Mischief as the busiest stallion in North America, according to The Jockey Club’s Report of Mares Bred. Just behind them came fellow first-year stallions Klimt, by Quality Road, with 222 mares, and Practical Joke, by Into Mischief, also the sire of young leading sire Goldencents, with 220. All three of those newcomers, who have multiple yearlings at Fasig-Tipton February, averaged at least three times their respective stud fees with their first weanlings sold last year. Practical Joke averaged $109,952 from 21 weanlings sold last year, who were conceived on a $30,000 stud fee, while Cupid averaged $44,060 from 25 sold, conceived on a $12,500 fee. Klimt actually more than quadrupled his $10,000 fee, with this 36 sold last fall averaging $47,533.

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Gun Runner is by perennial standout sire Candy Ride, who already has a successful son at stud in Kentucky in Twirling Candy. Absent Gun Runner, Candy Ride is still represented in the Fasig-Tipton February catalog by yearlings from the first crops of his sons Mastery and Unified.

“Unified, himself, is about as good-looking a son of Candy Ride as I’ve ever been around,” said Peter Sheehan, yearling manager at Lane’s End, which stands the stallion. “His offspring remind me a lot of him and of the Twirling Candys that I’ve been around. They’ve got strong, powerful hips, great shoulders, great-moving horses. They look like they’re supposed to look, like they’re by a son of Candy Ride out of a Dixie Union mare. They look like they’re going to be good, honest horses.”

Curlin, who was represented by top three freshman sire Palace Malice in 2019, has three sons with their first crops represented in the Fasig-Tipton February catalog in Connect, Keen Ice, and Union Jackson. Other first-crop sires with representatives in the catalog include American Freedom (by Pulpit), Astern (Medaglia d’Oro), Bal a Bali (Put It Back), Gormley (Malibu Moon), and Midnight Storm (Pioneerof the Nile).

Last year’s Fasig-Tipton February sale was topped by the $300,000 broodmare prospect Cheekaboo, sold to Japanese interests, with the top yearling a $200,000 Into Mischief filly sold to Irish Meadow Stable. A total of 327 horses sold for revenues of $9,659,400, resulting in an average of $29,539, a gain of 3 percent from 2018, and a median of $15,000, up 43 percent.