First yearling sale yields declines, $440k topper
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Average declined by nearly 10 percent but median remained stable for the first yearling sale of 2019, the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky July yearling sale, held at Newtown Paddocks in Lexington on Tuesday.
Average of $92,183 for 202 horses sold was a drop of 8.6 percent compared to the average of $100,829 last year for 196 horses sold. This year, the sales topper, which brought $440,000, was sold for $80,000 less than the sales topper last year, and 10 horses sold for $250,000 or more, compared with 12 horses in that price range last year.
While the buyback rate climbed to 32.7 percent, up from 30.5 percent last year, median held steady with last year, coming in at $75,000 for both sales. There were 364 horses cataloged this year, compared to 349 in the catalog last year.
Boyd Browning, the chief executive of Fasig-Tipton, said after the sale that the results this year “were remarkably similar” to the 2018 sale, citing “bidding patterns” and the median, and said that the decline in average was not a large cause for concern given the influence of high-priced horses on that figure. He also noted that last year’s sale posted increases in both average and median, at 7.7 percent and 7.1 percent respectively.
“Statistically, it was remarkably similar to 2018 level, which had a pretty good jump from 2017, so all in all, a stable market, a consistent market, and kind of as everyone expected,” Browning said.
In answer to a question asking about the decline in average, Browning said that he would not consider it a sign of “weakness“ in the overall yearling market.
“You can have minor fluctuations,” Browning said. “If you’re up 7 percent, I don’t think you’re jumping up and down, and if you’re down 7 percent, I don’t think you’re terribly concerned about it. A couple of big horses can influence that significantly.”
As the first yearling sale of the season, the Tuesday sale can serve as a signal for the strength of the yearling market going into Fasig-Tipton’s prestigious Saratoga Select sale in early August and the mammoth, market-making yearling sale at Keeneland in September. The overall auction market had some strength to it coming into the July sale, with the spring juvenile sales posting reasonably good results this year.
But the Fasig-Tipton July catalog has become notable over the past several editions for what it does not include, since many breeders tend to hold back their most prestigious offerings for the high-dollar sales in August and September. Instead, the catalog this year, as in years past, included a large number of yearlings from new stallions whose first foals hit the ground last year, sires such as Frosted, Nyquist, California Chrome, and Outwork. That reliance on fresh faces can make returns somewhat hard to predict.
Browning said after the sale that he thinks the results of the Tuesday sale augured well for the yearling auctions later this year.
“We’re off to a start in 2019 that look similar to the start of 2018,” Browning said. “We’ll expect the marketplace in 2019 later this year to be similar to last year.”
The $440,000 sale-topping colt was purchased by a partnership of racing and breeding interests that includes China Horse Club and Maverick Racing, the racing arm of WinStar Farm. The late-February colt is by Flatter, an established if workaday son of A.P. Indy, and is the third foal out of the Cherokee Run mare Ruth and Neva, who placed in several minor stakes as a runner.
Elliott Walden, the president of WinStar’s racing operations, said that the colt was an “obvious” physical star at the sale, and noted that the horse’s pedigree could serve him well down the line.
“We thought he was the best horse here, from a proven sire, and he ticked what we like as far as going forward,” Walden said. “He’d look good in a stud barn if he could win a Grade 1.”
The second-highest priced colt to sell was a $330,000 early February yearling by first-crop sire Nyquist out of the Storm Creek mare Murky Waters, making him a half-brother to stakes winner Red Vine. Ben McElroy signed the ticket on behalf of a partnership led by Ramon Tallaj. The filly will go to trainer Wesley Ward, who got Tallaj a win this year at Keeneland with the 2-year-old filly Nayibeth, also picked out by McElroy. Ward shipped Nayibeth to Ascot, where she was 13th in the Albany Stakes.
The highest-priced filly of the sale, and the co-second-highest priced horse overall, was by another first-crop sire, Frosted. The filly, out of the Street Sense mare Humble Street, brought $330,000 from Let’s Go Stables, a racing outfit associated with trainer Todd Pletcher. Danielle Bricker, Pletcher’s bloodstock assistant, signed the ticket, and afterward said she had been impressed with the Frosted weanlings she reviewed last year and that the Humble Street filly validated that first impression.
“She just looked very athletic, huge walk to her, good angles overall,” Bricker said. “I think she’s the perfect size. As soon as she grows up a little and fills out, she’s going to be what we want to see on the racetrack.”
Two horses sold for $300,000, a colt by first-crop sire Outwork and a colt by Empire Maker.
The Outwork colt, a late-March yearling out of Back Spin (by Successful Appeal), was bought by Scott Leeds, with trainer Ken McPeek representing Leeds in the bidding. After signing the ticket, McPeek said the Outwork colt reminded him strongly of the yearling’s grandsire, Uncle Mo, and that he had been drawn back to watch him repeatedly in the days leading up to the sale.
“There’s a lot of Uncle Mo in this colt,” McPeek said. “He might have been a better-looking horse than Uncle Mo himself.... He’s probably sore from me looking at him so much.”
Outwork had 10 yearlings sell for an average of $97,500, including two others for $160,000 each (five of the yearlings were sold privately after failing to reach their reserves, according to sales records). Outwork’s stud fee at WinStar was listed at $15,000 for this year.
McPeek was one of the most active buyers at the sale, purchasing 11 horses on behalf of a variety of clients.
The $300,000 Empire Maker colt, out of the Bernardini mare Miss Patchouli, was bought by Steve Young, acting as agent for an undisclosed client. Young said that he had picked out two horses at the sale that he “liked a real lot,” the other being the $440,000 Flatter sale topper.
“To me, they were a lot closer in value than the $140,000 difference,” Young said.
Frosted led all first-crop sires by average, with four yearlings selling for a total of $815,000, or $203,750 each. One of those yearlings was bought privately after exiting the ring, for $160,000. Frosted, a winner of nearly $4 million on the track and a three-time Grade 1 winner, had the highest North American stud fee for all stallions entering service in 2017, at $50,000.
Some other highlights from the sale:
* California Chrome had five yearlings in the sale, but only two sold, one for $20,000 and the other for $80,000. The others were RNAs at $195,000, $90,000, and $80,000, according to sales records.
* Brody’s Cause had four yearlings sell for gross proceeds of $445,000, including a $240,000 filly, for an average of $111,250.
* All three of the Nyquist yearlings on offer sold, with a $120,000 filly and a $10,000 filly added to the $330,000 colt.