Fasig-Tipton Midlantic: Lookin At Lucky filly tops opener

The opening session of the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic fall yearling sale provided just a small sampling of the overall catalog on Monday, but the initial returns were positive, with average and median sale prices tracking ahead of last year’s final numbers and a $175,000 Lookin At Lucky filly leading the way.

Fasig-Tipton reported 81 horses sold at the close of Monday’s trade for revenues of $2,109,200. The session offered the auction’s first 150 hips, with the remainder of the 513-horse catalog to be offered Tuesday. Because the auction was split into two sessions for the first time since 2011, there are no comparable session-to-session gross figures.

The average sale price finished at $26,040, tracking 8 percent ahead of last year’s final average of $24,017. Monday’s median price finished at $15,000, up 50 percent from $10,000 last year, while the buyaback rate closed at 38 percent against a final figure of 17 percent in 2016.

Five horses changed hands for six-figure prices on Monday, 10 sold for $50,000 or more, and 26 yearlings sold for $25,000 or more.

Gabriel Duignan’s Springhouse Farm bought the session topper, a Lookin At Lucky filly, for $175,000.

The bay filly is out of the winning Malibu Moon mare Slow and Steady, whose six foals to race are all winners, including stakes winners Steady Warrior and Steady N Love, and stakes-placed runners Hanky Doodle and Who Dat Boy. She is a full sister to stakes-placed Lucky in Malibu.

Bred in Maryland by ZWP Stable and Non Stop Stable, the filly is from the family of stakes winners Salubria, Virginia Cracker, Roanoke Island, Go Mikey Go, Trooper Red, Jack on the Rocks, and Circus Music.

Monday’s session-topper was the first foal out of Slow and Steady to sell as a yearling at public auction, and the second overall following the Afleet Alex filly Pop Ditty’s Girl, who brought $11,000 as a racing or broodmare prospect at the 2014 Fasig-Tipton Midlantic December mixed sale.

The auction concludes Tuesday with a session beginning at 10 a.m. Eastern.