New York-breds take center stage at Fasig-Tipton preferred sale

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Fasig-Tipton’s Humphrey S. Finney Pavilion and sale grounds, just down East Avenue from the main gate of Saratoga Race Course, see action again Sunday and Monday with the company’s New York-bred preferred yearling sale, showcasing what is widely acknowledged as one of the best regional programs in the nation. The grounds have already had a busy week-plus, with Fasig-Tipton’s crew working countless hours behind the scenes to manage the human and equine activity on the roughly six-acre complex.

Aug. 2, marked the first day of showing for yearlings in the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga selected yearling sale, held Aug. 5-6, with a catalog of 240 hips. However, Aug. 2 also was the day of the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame induction, held in the sale pavilion. After working with the Hall of Fame to facilitate that crowd and event, the Fasig-Tipton crew immediately began preparing the pavilion for equine activity, laying down a deep bed of safe, shredded footing in the auction ring for horses, marking the assigned seats for buyers, and other activities.

Overnight following that sale and well into Wednesday, the East Avenue loading ramps were a flurry of activity; conditions of sale state that purchased horses must be removed from the grounds no later than 48 hours after the hammer fall. The barns did not stay empty for long, however, as Fasig-Tipton quickly had to facilitate the moving-in of the 300 New York-bred yearlings cataloged to the next sale. The previously occupied stalls had to be stripped of all bedding and sanitized before new horses moved in, just one part of preparing the grounds for a new sale.

“Logistics are a challenge here, but thank goodness when you’ve got a team that is unbelievable,” Fasig-Tipton president and CEO Boyd Browning Jr. said. “They’re the unsung heroes – like the backside workers, they don’t get any damn credit. They’re there 4 in the morning, 5 in the morning. This crew will be starting [Wednesday] to strip these stalls, to have this place looking immaculate for the New York-bred sale, and it’s not easy.”

New York-bred yearlings were already showing to prospective buyers on Thursday, beating the rain that moved in in the afternoon. Sunday’s first sale session is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m., following the races at Saratoga Race Course. Bidders are now likely to be slower trickling in, as the card now ends at 6:49 p.m., with the move of a pair of Grade 1 turf stakes to that card. The Monday session, which includes the bulk of the catalog, begins at noon on a dark day at the track.

“I feel really good,” Browning said of the sale. “The New York-bred program is producing quality individuals and quality horses and quality runners, and that gives us a lot of optimism going in. There’s good things happening in the New York-bred program. We’re going to have purse parity coming up. If someone had said 15 years ago there was going to be purse parity in New York for New York-breds and open horses, I’d have said you’d lost your mind. That can’t do anything other than help the sale and continue to help the industry in New York.”

Last year’s New York-bred yearling sale finished with 220 yearlings sold for gross receipts of $20,929,000, including post-ring private sales. That established a record gross figure.

The average price was $95,132, good for third highest in sale history, behind $107,512 in 2018 and $107,314 in 2022. The median was $75,000, second best in the sale’s history behind the $76,000 established in 2018. The buyback rate was 27 percent.