Embracing Digital Sales, Team Valor Has Two On Offer at Fasig-Tipton January Digital

[Wandering Eyes]

Barry Irwin is the first person to admit that he wasn't a fan of digital sales when they first came on the scene about a decade ago.

“I make my living buying and selling in the private marketplace, and when the digital sales first came around in Europe, I was very upset,” he said, adding that he thought that at the time, sales companies were promising owners unreasonable prices on their horses which made it harder to buy privately for an appropriate price. “I didn't like the fact that I had compete for horses,” he said.
But 10 years on, he has become a fan, and is offering two racing or broodmare prospects at the Fasig-Tipton January digital sale, which runs until January 21.

Hip number 6, Toeris (Tourist-Sutil {Brz}, by Redattore {Brz}), is bred and owned by Irwin in conjunction with Gary Barber. An earner of over $166,000, she was a winner at two and went on to be third in the GIII Jimmy Durante Stakes at Del Mar. Her dam, Sutil, was a Group 1 winner in Brazil going a mile and a quarter on the turf. “She hasn't had a top horse yet, but she's had three runners for us and they've all won, and earned well over $150,000 each. We have a five year-old named Juniperro Serra (Noble Mission {GB}) and he I think he will earn Black Type eventually. We have another half-sister named Jungle Cat (Animal Kingdom) who has won over $150,000. Toeris was given a break, but she's back in training so she's she can be a race horse or a broodmare.”

Hip 12, By Any Other Name (Aus), Mendelssohn-Alexandra Rose {SAf}, by Caesour (SAf), is a half-sister to Grade I winner Oleksandra (Aus), who Irwin said is the only Australian-bred to come to America and win a Grade I race, which she did when defeating males in the Jaipur Stakes at Belmont. She also won two other graded stakes in America.

By Any Other Name is a winner herself in Australia at three. “We started her off in Australia, let her break her maiden and then brought her here,” said Irwin. “She's had nothing but bad luck. We own the whole family, we have several sisters, and this filly doesn't really fit in our program right now. I think we're better off letting somebody else take a shot with her, and seeing if they could do better with us. She's sound, and Bill Mott likes her. We think she's got value as a broodmare. She probably can still run, but here it is the start of the breeding season. We don't want to breed her, but if somebody wants to buy her as a racehorse or breed her, here she is.”

Despite his early misgivings, Irwin is now an active user of the digital sales. He sold Nadette (Fr) for $420,000 last summer at the Fasig-Tipton July Digital Sale. “I think Fasig Tipton does the best job (among the digital sales companies),” he said. “They're responsible. They treat both buyer and seller in the same equitable manner. The $420,000 for Nadette was a fair price for us, and a fair price for the buyer. From the perspective of my operation alone, (brick-and-mortar) sales are fixed dates and they're few and far between. If you have a horse who blossoms at a particular time of year, you want to put it in the best possible light. Having a digital sale every month is a fantastic opportunity, because you can take advantage of the form right then and there.”

Team Valor has used digital sales as a way of reducing their overall numbers to fit with a somewhat revised model for their operation. At the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, he said, they had 165 horses, and they are now down to 75. He hired former attorney Fred Heyman, who previously managed Peter Angelos's racing operations, to one day take over the business.

“About three or four years ago, we decided that we were only going to buy horses that we thought could be a graded stakes horse,” he said. “Once we had improved it and had our fun, we want to sell it and move on. Most of our horses are sourced in Europe, and not the United States. We buy them with the idea of starting them off there. If we think they'll do well here we will bring them here if not, we'll keep them there.”

Irwin's daughter lives in Wales, and said his goal is to spend three to five months in Europe every year looking at horses. “When I'm trying to source horses, just trying to do it by video or digital or photographs or relying on somebody else's opinion is not what I want to do. I think I can do better if I'm there myself.”

“I have become disenchanted with too many aspects of racing in America,” he said. “Fred loves it here, and he's more enthusiastic about the domestic scene that I am, so my answer to him is `God bless you.' You can run the American division. I'll run the European division. I'll find the horses, you can find some here but we'll still get most of them over there and that's that's the plan for the future.”

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