Matty G, Harbor the Gold well represented in Washington Thoroughbred Breeders and Owners Association sale

AUBURN, Wash. – Leading Northwest stallions Matty G and Harbor the Gold will be heavily represented Tuesday at the Washington Thoroughbred Breeders and Owners Association’s annual summer sale. The two have combined to sire 42 of the 117 select yearlings in the catalog, with Hip No. 1, a Matty G colt, the first to enter the ring when the auction begins at 2 p.m. Pacific in the Morris J. Alhadeff Sales Pavilion adjacent to Emerald Downs.

Dana Halvorson, the WTBOA president and one of the region’s leading bloodstock agents, said he anticipates a sale much like the one in 2011, when 75 of the 116 cataloged yearlings sold for an average price of $12,447, an increase of nearly 20 percent from the previous year. The median sales price of $5,700 was off about 1 percent from 2010.

“I think it’s pretty similar to last year,” Halvorson said. “It’s a really good catalog, with a similar number of horses. We’ve got a lot of nice pedigrees. It’s a real positive approach, and we’re optimistic.”

While promising stallions such as Nationhood will be represented by their first crop, much of the attention will be focused on the progeny of Matty G, who won the Grade 1 Hollywood Futurity in 1995 and has been the leading sire in Washington four times, and Harbor the Gold, a half-brother to Eclipse Award-winning 2-year-old champion Boston Harbor and the sire of two-time Washington horse of the year Noosa Beach. Matty G stands at El Dorado Farms in Enumclaw, Wash., and Harbor the Gold resides at Bar C Racing Stables in Hermiston, Ore.

The sale topper could be Hip No. 112, a full brother to Noosa Beach and two other stakes-placed runners. A year ago, a full brother to Noosa Beach sold for $82,000, while the sale topper, a colt by Candy Ride from Emerald Downs stakes-winning mare Sudden Departure, went for $105,000.

“It’s hard to say who might be the sales topper this year,” Halvorson said. “You don’t know what they look like until they show up. You’d have to think the Noosa Beach brother would have to be a possibility. But there are a lot of nice pedigrees in here. There’s an Officer colt, No. 89, who’s a half-brother to a $792,000 stakes winner. And No. 100 is a really nice filly, by Kodiak Kowboy, a champion sprinter, from his first crop of yearlings. There are a couple by Dunkirk; this is his first crop, and he ran second in the Belmont and the Florida Derby.”