Rescheduled Fasig-Tipton Midlantic 2-year-old sale gets strong catalog

The Fasig-Tipton Midlantic 2-year-olds in training sale usually arrives in May riding a wave of momentum from the outside world. Typically the auction is held at the Maryland State Fairgrounds in Timonium with prominent players in attendance after the nearby Preakness Stakes. It is the fifth North American juvenile sale of the season, with market momentum well established.

This year, the setup is quite different. With the global COVID-19 pandemic upending the sale calendar, the Midlantic auction, shifted to Monday and Tuesday, is essentially the second sale of a relaunched juvenile season. It precedes the Preakness, rescheduled to October, by more than three months.

However, the pandemic hasn’t touched the sale’s growing reputation, and the momentum of its graduates has been unthrottled. The Midlantic auction has grown in numbers and popularity in recent years, evolving beyond a solid regional sale into a marketplace that has produced seven-figure horses in five consecutive years. Gamine, who sold for a sale-record $1.8 million to top last year’s renewal, set a stakes record while dominating the Grade 1 Acorn Stakes this month at Belmont Park, becoming the sale’s latest top-level graduate. Others sold at the Midlantic auction in recent years include Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile winner Spun to Run and Pegasus World Cup winner Mucho Gusto.

There are 563 horses in this year’s catalog, which gained added luster as some juveniles intended for other boutique auctions, such as the canceled Fasig-Tipton Gulfstream sale, were rerouted here.

With the pandemic ongoing, Fasig-Tipton has announced that, in accordance with current Maryland regulations, seating capacity in the sales pavilion will be limited to below 50 percent of its capacity in order to allow for distancing between individuals; cloth face coverings are required; and that valet parking will not be available. Screening measures, including temperature checks, will be in place to gain admittance to the sales grounds for all staff and participants, and increased cleaning and disinfection procedures will be implemented, with regular sanitation of high-touch surfaces at least every two hours. Fasig-Tipton also has converted to a cloud-based repository system, which will be utilized for the first time at this sale. The system allows attending veterinarians to review radiographs remotely, instead of on the sale grounds.

The sale also will mark the debut of Fasig-Tipton’s online bidding platform, which will be available at all future live auctions.

Led by Gamine, last year’s Midlantic sale closed with 326 horses sold for gross receipts of $29,374,000, marking an 18 percent gain in gross from the 2018 renewal and surpassing the previous record gross of $25,237,000 in 2017.

The sale’s average price finished at $90,104, soaring 21 percent from the previous year and eclipsing the high-water mark of $88,859 from 2015. The median was $43,000, up 13 percent from $38,000. That figure was the second-highest in sale history, finishing behind only the $45,000 figure from 2015. The cumulative buyback rate remained steady at 23 percent.