Buyers have every reason to be skeptical of young sires when looking for a racing prospect, because it's hard to predict whether a sire will succeed. But that does not prevent buyers from gravitating toward young sires. There's nothing more exciting to a potential racehorse owner than an unproven sire, a blank canvas of potential limited only by the imagination.
Following the Fasig-Tipton New York-bred yearling sale, here's a closer look ahead at some of the other major regional or statebred yearling sales held throughout North America.
Returns in the first half of the year can help forecast the health of both the juvenile and pinhooking markets. With that in mind, there is an air of trepidation when buyers and sellers discuss the pinhook-buying market during the 2016 yearling season.
Following are horses to watch at the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga select yearling sale based on their pedigrees and the past auction performance of notable family members. Physical conformation, veterinarian records, and late pedigree updates were not taken into consideration.
A solid and sizeable group of first-year yearling sires in North America includes three classic winners – one an Eclipse Award champion – a juvenile champion, a sprint champion, a Breeders' Cup Classic winner, and a Breeders' Cup Juvenile winner. The ontrack earnings of these seven horses alone total more than $21.2 million. And that's not even factoring in about two dozen other Grade/Group 1 winners who will be represented nationwide in the next three months.
The sales in Saratoga are the latest stops on the major North American yearling auction calendar, which hits both coasts and rolls through late October. Here is a look at North America's major yearling sales of 2016, in chronological order, following the Fasig-Tipton New York-bred sale.
“Five years ago, if you bought a New York-bred, you maybe thought, ‘I didn't have any expectations of him or her competing on a national level,' ” Fasig-Tipton president Boyd Browning says. “They'd almost exclusively be pointed toward the New York-bred races and stakes.” Oh, how times have changed.
The catalog for the Canadian Thoroughbred Horse Society Ontario Division’s Canadian premier yearling sale is now online, with 278 horses on offer.
The catalog for the 2016 Texas Thoroughbred Association summer yearling and mixed sale is now available online, with 128 combined offerings.
California Diamond, the undefeated winner of the Santa Anita Juvenile earlier this month, sold for $125,000 at Saturday’s Paddock Sale at Del Mar of horses of racing age, the most expensive hip of an evening sale with a small catalog and a low number of purchased horses.
