SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Pinhookers, buyers seeking yearlings to later sell for a profit, probably outnumbered horsemen who were looking for horses to race at the two-day New York-bred sale last week at Saratoga. But there were several prominent New York trainers who were at the Fasig-Tipton sale, buying horses for clients.
Among the trainers who bought yearlings are Linda Rice, Bruce Levine, Barclay Tagg, Tom Bush, Angel Penna Jr., Mike Hushion, Stanley Hough, and Frank Alexander.
Jennifer Leuty spent the winter of 2003 watching her yearling colts by Whiskey Wisdom and Foxtrail race around her Walter's Falls, Ontario, paddock in the snow.
Fast-forward to Aug. 15, when Leuty traveled 2 1/2 hours to Woodbine Racetrack and watched those same fellows, Moonshine Justice and Handlebar Hank, now 2-year-olds, finish first and third in the $164,550 Vandal Stakes for Ontario-sired juveniles.
"I was really excited - it was pretty neat," said Leuty, 38, who sold both colts at last fall's Woodbine yearling sale. "That's just what they did all that winter."
A year ago, on the eve of the Ocala yearling sales, there was a steady buzz suggesting that the crops of Florida's 2003 freshman stallions were a cut above the norm. This opinion was confirmed in the marketplace, where many of these stallions had yearlings sell for multiples of their stud fees.
Exclusive Ribot, believed to be the last living direct offspring of the champion Ribot, died Aug. 8 at Dormello II Stud near Decatur, Texas, according to his owner, Brian Wallis.
Exclusive Ribot was 32 years old. On his final day, the stallion did "20 or 30 laps" around his paddock before collapsing of heart failure, Wallis said.
"He looked like a million bucks," said Wallis, who named his farm in honor of the stud farm owned by Ribot's Italian breeder, Federico Tesio. "You couldn't tell he was 32."
LAS VEGAS - The historic Spinaway and Hopeful stakes, both of which have showcased dozens of juvenile champions over the last century at Saratoga, will take center stage Friday and Saturday. Both stakes are at seven furlongs and are the first major stepping-stones to the Breeders' Cup Juvenile and Juvenile Fillies, which will be held at Lone Star Park on Oct. 30.
The Spinaway
Boosted by a colt and a filly who sold for over $200,000, the Del Mar yearling sale on Monday evening averaged a record $48,228. But it also had a buyback rate of nearly 50 percent of the 110 horses offered.
The sale average rose 39.8 percent from last year's average of $34,506. Monday's sale grossed $2,749,000 for 57 horses sold, a decline of 11.4 percent in gross price from last year. A total of 53 horses were bought back Monday.
The record average eclipsed the 2002 mark of $43,770. The median Monday was a record $33,000, slightly higher than $32,000 mark set in 2002.
Fasig-Tipton's New York-bred sale of yearlings concluded its second and final session in Saratoga on Monday with gains in gross, average, and median prices over the 2003 sale.
At the two-day sale, 112 horses sold for $5,596,500, for an average of $49,969, an increase of 20 percent over the 2003 average of $41,567.
The median jumped 27 percent to $40,500 from $32,000.
Last year at the two-day sale, 127 head sold for $5,279,000.
With the average and median up at the first session of Fasig-Tipton's New York-bred yearling sale in Saratoga Springs on Sunday, officials were satisfied with the results.
"It was a solid horse sale," said Boyd T. Browning Jr., Fasig-Tipton's executive vice president and chief operating officer. "[Monday], based on some of the comments from the consignors, may look a bit stronger across the board than tonight was."
One man's castoff is another man's treasure. How many times has George Harmening seen it happen that way during his 16 years as a veterinarian at Maryland racetracks? Often enough, apparently, to know a treasure when he finds one.
Harmening and his wife, Kim, have only two broodmares at their 15-acre farm in Carroll County, Md. Both were rejects from the racetrack, bought for nominal prices, and both are stakes producers. One is the dam of a current Maryland-bred star.