At midway point, average price up at Fasig-Tipton October yearling sale

LEXINGTON, Ky. – A $325,000 filly from the first crop of Nyquist led the way as the Fasig-Tipton October yearling sale reached its midway point with continued gains in average price.

Fasig-Tipton reported 256 horses sold during Tuesday's session for gross revenues of $9,530,200 - finishing ahead of $9,068,000 from the same number of yearlings sold in the comparable session last year. The session-to-session average price was up 5 percent, to $37,227 from $35,422. The median was unchanged at $15,000, while the session's buyback rate finished at 23 percent, compared to 18 percent in 2018.

"A significant majority of horses are getting sold," Fasig-Tipton present Boyd Browning said. "[The price is] not always where we hope it would be, but there's certainly a marketplace ranging from a thousand dollars to several hundred thousand dollars."

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The October sale, which wraps up the yearling sale season in North America, is Fasig's largest sale of the year in terms of catalog size. The auction is an open sale, with the catalog arranged alphabetically by dams' names, rather than by the perceived quality of the offerings, meaning that high-priced lots may come at any point.

For example, the final session of the 2018 sale posted the highest average of that week. Therefore, the year-to-year, session-to-session averages may fluctuate, meaning the most meaningful statistical comparisons will be those made at the end of the sale. The 2018 sale finished with an average of $35,576 and median of $15,000. To this point of this year's sale, the cumulative average price is $38,398, and the median sits at $15,000.

Calvin Nguyen, with Meah/Lloyd Bloodstock as agent, went to $325,000 late in the day for the Nyquist filly. Nyquist was the Eclipse Award champion juvenile of 2015 and won the following year's Kentucky Derby. The son of Uncle Mo has now emerged as one of his class's commercial leaders. Nyquist stands for Darley, which now has both session toppers at this sale, as Monday's opening session was led by a $400,000 Medaglia d'Oro filly.

The Nyquist filly, who was consigned by Gerry Dilger's Dromoland Farm, as agent, is the second foal out of the Grade 3-placed Dixie Union mare Ketel Twist and a half-sister to stakes winner Catrageous and stakes-placed Cool. Group 1 winners Peristaltica and Sinfonia Fantastica appear on the catalog page, as do graded stakes winners Banned, Forty Tales, Green Mask, Masseuse, and Royal Artillery.

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