Yearling season kicks off with Fasig-Tipton July

LEXINGTON, Ky. – The traditional North American yearling sale season kicks off Tuesday with Fasig-Tipton’s July sale of selected yearlings. The company’s Newtown Paddocks headquarters will be crowded.

The 238 yearlings in the catalog, featuring precocious physical representatives from both new and proven sires, would be interesting enough, but Fasig-Tipton also pairs the yearling auction with its popular July horses of racing age sale, to immediately follow. The still-changing catalog, with supplemental entries reviewed up until sale time, currently features 61 hips. The dynamic environment provides one-stop shopping for racing stables building for both the present and future, but draws other buyers for the specific demographics to the grounds as well.

“The whole idea is to create synergy between the two,” Fasig-Tipton president Boyd Browning Jr. said. “There’s certainly a huge demand and a huge appetite for a ready-made racehorse right now. We’ve seen that trend over recent years, and it continues to be the case in 2026. The biggest challenge in the horses of racing age sale is finding horses, finding the really good horses that people are willing to sell. . . . People are buying yearlings hoping to have a really good racehorse, or they’re buying 2-year-olds hoping to have a good racehorse. So convincing them to sell that really good racehorse can be a little bit difficult at times. But it’s certainly been a very good marriage between the yearling sale and the horses of racing age sale, and I think it’s mutually beneficial to both sales to have them conducted on the same day.”

While the horses of racing age section has produced fireworks in recent years – the 2024 and 2025 editions were both led by seven-figure horses – bloodstock observers will be keenly watching this opener of the traditional yearling marketplace, which runs from the summer through October. The 2025 July sale tied its record median and posted an improved buyback rate, both encouraging signs of market health to kick off what was a generally solid yearling season. With that momentum from last year, pinhookers flush following a record-setting 2-year-old marketplace this spring and continued demand for racing stock, the outlook is good for this season.

“I think that we naturally are optimistic about the market,” Browning said. “We’ve seen the sales trends in recent years and continuing in 2026 are very positive. We think we’ve got a really good catalog of both pedigrees and physical individuals on the grounds. Seems to be plenty of interest from the buyers that we’ve talked to. Very optimistic and just looking forward to getting the yearling year started.”

Yearlings selected to the single-session July sale are traditionally chosen more for their physical conformation than for their pedigree. At this season opener, horses who are more mature, at this stage, than their classmates stand out.

“It’s really pretty simple in terms of what we’re looking for – it’s precocious, it’s athletic,” Browning said. “There’s got to be a certain level of maturity for July . . . the July sale is a great place for a mature, precocious individual. We’re fortunate we’ve got a team of outstanding people [on the inspection team] that have that understanding what the market wants. They understand what we can sell in July, and understand what we can sell in all of our sales. July is a selected sale, and our team works very, very, very hard to identify those right individuals.

“We’ll be a little forgiving on pedigree at times, because it’s not necessary. We’re not trying to sell the most expensive or the fanciest-pedigreed horse in July. But when somebody comes to July, buyers come to July, when they go to the barns, they expect to see a really good group of physical individuals, and that’s a standard that our inspection team is trying to apply.”

Concerning pedigree, the July sale showcases precocious yearlings from the first-crop sire class. Represented with offerings in the catalog are 2023 Horse of the Year Cody’s Wish; Kentucky Derby winner Mage; Preakness Stakes winner Rombauer; Belmont Stakes winner and Eclipse Award champion Arcangelo; additional Eclipse Award champions Forte and Up to the Mark; Grade/Group 1 winners Annapolis, Arabian Lion, Country Grammer, Dr. Schivel, Gunite, Proxy, Taiba, and Zandon; and Fulsome, Loggins, Pappacap, Two Phil’s, and Verifying.

“Hope springs eternal,” Browning said. “This is a really good group again this year, and I think one of the things that really we’ve been very pleased about with this group, not only with some really good racehorses, but their yearlings are really, really, really good as well. There’s a lot of really good physicals that are being cataloged by these first-year stallions, so I think that they’re going to be very well received, and we continue to see the young stallions produce great results, not only in the sales ring, but on the racetrack.”

Later, the evening will be capped by a well-accomplished group of horses of racing age. Accounting for supplemental entries as of Thursday, the catalog for the sale includes graded/group stakes winners Atlast, Aviator Gui, Getaway Car, Rodriguez, Venencia, and West Hollywood; graded stakes-placed Fire Pit, Gunmetal, Higgins Boat, Madaket Road, Make the Boys Wink, and White Palomino; stakes winners Celtic Dispute, Eff Thirty Five, Hedge Ratio, John Hancock, Moonlight, Spirit of New York, and Victory Music; and stakes-placed Gaelic Legacy, Halo Hottie, Taliesin, Timeout, and Without.