New York-breds continue to shine on big stages

New York-breds have not only excelled in open company around the country in recent years – they have taken their show far, far on the road to continued success.

Mind Your Biscuits, a Grade 1 winner and second in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint last year, captured the Group 1, $2 million Dubai Golden Shaheen in March. The victory came a year after fellow statebred Moanin established a track record winning the prestigious Group 1 February Stakes in Japan. New York-breds have won at least one Grade 1/Group 1 race every year since 2010, and the program has been represented by Eclipse Award champions Dayatthespa and La Verdad.

“The New York-bred program is the finest statebred program in the United States,” Fasig-Tipton president Boyd Browning said. “Nothing even comes close to comparing to it.”

With statebreds a hot commodity for both national and regional buyers, the market rolls into the Fasig-Tipton New York-bred preferred yearling sale, set for Aug. 12 and 13 in Saratoga Springs.

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“We’ve seen dramatic improvement in the quality of horses being offered in that sale over the last decade, and we expect to see another strong group on display this year,” Browning said. “For many years, there was a perception that New York-breds were going to run only in the restricted races. Now we’re seeing an international superstar like Mind Your Biscuits and a Grade 1 winner like Haveyougoneaway. The whole landscape has changed in that these are horses that can compete at any level and also have the added benefit of being able to run in races exclusively for New York-breds with dramatic purses as well. It’s kind of the best of both worlds for buyers and breeders.”

There were 296 New York-bred yearlings cataloged for this year’s Fasig-Tipton sale, including 10 by Freud, New York’s perennial leading sire. The Sequel Stallions resident’s group includes full sisters to stakes winners Fourstar Crook and Dr. Shane. Prominent Kentucky stallions represented in the catalog include classic sires Awesome Again, Curlin, Distorted Humor, Malibu Moon, Pioneerof the Nile, and Uncle Mo.

New York’s first-crop yearling sires are led by Darley’s multiple Grade 1 winner Alpha, standing at Sequel. His quartet in this catalog is led by a half-brother to New York Derby winner Force. Other standouts in the catalog include half-siblings to Grade 1 winners Comma to the Top, Franny Freud, Haveyougoneaway, and Sean Avery; half-siblings to New York Derby winner Amberjack and Twisted Tom; yearlings out of Grade 1 winners Acey Deucey and Megahertz; a colt out of multiple stakes winner and producer Shesastonecoldfox; and the first foal out of popular stakes winner Lisa’s Booby Trap.

The 2016 renewal of the New York-bred yearling sale was a memorable one for the severe weather that dropped a tree on a barn – there were no injuries to horses or humans – and forced the cancellation of the first session of the sale, with the full catalog offered as a single session the following day. The sale was led by a $450,000 Uncle Mo colt sold to Cheyenne Stables. However, after posting gains in five consecutive years, last year’s sale posted an 8 percent decline in gross, a 5 percent decline in average, and an 8 percent drop in median compared to the record figures of 2015.