Fasig-Tipton July Yearling Sale ‘Gets the Ball Rolling’ Tuesday in Lexington

[Wandering Eyes]

LEXINGTON, KY – The Fasig-Tipton July Selected Yearling Sale kicks off, not just the yearling sales season, but also a bidding-packed day of action at Newtown Paddocks in Lexington Tuesday. The auction, with 261 head catalogued, begins at 10 a.m. and will be followed immediately by the Fasig-Tipton July Selected Horses of Racing Age Sale, with 70 catalogued ready-to-race offerings.

Buyers were out in force at the sales barns on a steamy day in the Bluegrass Monday, with temperatures inching over the 90- degree mark.

“We have been slammed all day today,” Mark Taylor said from the front of the Taylor Made Sales Agency barn around midday Monday. “I think the foot traffic, looking at data this year versus last year, we are trending right on par, but I feel good about it. There just seems to be good energy and optimism.”

Taylor sees plenty to be optimistic about ahead of the first yearling sale of the year, starting right out of the gate with 94 yearlings in the July sale's traditional Freshman Sire Showcase.

“This sale has a strong representation of first-crop sires and I think it's an exceptional group,” Taylor said. “Not only in their popularity, but also in the physical specimens they are putting on the ground. There are some years that the freshman sires maybe aren't producing the quality and so this sale suffers. I think this year is a banner year for these first-crop stallions.”

Taylor continued, “And the recent tax legislation that got reinstated as far as bonus depreciation, I just think that is going to help the yearling market the whole way through. It just makes the economics of buying yearlings a lot better than it would have been otherwise.”

Mark Taylor || Fasig-Tipton

The July sale has perennially been known to attract a strong buying bench of pinhookers and, following a spring of record-setting juvenile sales, there were plenty of pinhookers looking to restock at the sales barns Monday.

“Fasig always tries to promote this as a trainer's sale, but at the end of the day I think the pinhookers are always the backbone of it,” Taylor said. “I've been talking to a lot of the Ocala guys coming through here and, by and large, most of them had a pretty good year. That always helps. Because they are so important to us yearling sellers, so I think that was a real blessing that most of them came out in pretty good shape.”

For the first time this year, Fasig-Tipton will award a bonus of $25,000 to the trainer who purchases the highest number of yearlings at the July sale. John Henry Mulholland of Mulholland Springs hopes efforts like that attract additional end-users to broaden the July buying bench.

“I think this sale is pretty dependent, generally speaking, on what kind of year the Ocala pinhookers have had,” Mulholland said. “So I think the ones that were pretty successful and had a good year, I think they will be here ready to shop. I am just hopeful that we get as many trainers and end-users as we can here. This is–for whatever reason–thought of as a sale mainly for pinhookers. We don't always get a whole ton of trainers, but I think as long as we get both pinhookers and end users, it will be fine. It will be a good, solid consistent sale.”

With a whole summer and fall of yearling sales to come, Mulholland thinks some buyers might take more of a wait-and-see approach at the July sale.

“It's the first sale of the year and everybody is probably going to tread lightly,” he said. “We've got a lot of sales in front of us. It's the transition for everyone. It's the sale that kind of gets the ball rolling for everybody. I don't expect any fireworks. I just think it's going to be the same thing. Whatever everybody perceives to be the top 20% of the sale, those horses will sell extremely well. And the middle market will be okay. I just hope that there are plenty of end-users, plenty of trainers that want to go to the races that come to this sale.”

Gabriel Duignan | Fasug-Tipton

From his Paramount Sales barn, Gabriel Duignan said he saw plenty of end-user shoppers.

“There were quite a few end users walking around today,” Duignan said. “It's the same old, same old. You have the right horse, I think you can sell them well here.”

He continued, “I think there is a lot of positivity in our business at the moment. We're running for record pots, we are coming off a good 2-year-old season, and the economy seems to be good.”

Freshman to the Fore

Of the seven horses in the Mulholland Springs' yearling consignment, six are by freshman sires, including Early Voting, Highly Motivated, Pinehurst, Drain the Clock, and Mo Donegal.

“I think it's a nice group,” Mulholland said of this year's class of freshman sires. “Those will be a lot of the ones people will want.”

With divisional leaders Flightline and Life is Good not represented in the July catalogue, Jackie's Warrior is the leading freshman sire by weanling average in the auction. Last year, 28 weanlings by the sprint champion sold for an average of $151,482. The stallion has six catalogued in the July Freshman Sire Showcase, including a filly from the Taylor Made consignment, which also features yearlings by first-crop sires Nashville, Drain the Clock, Early Voting, Pinehurst, Cyberknife, Epicenter, Olympiad, Idol, Mo Donegal, Corniche, Jack Christopher, and Golden Pal.

Jackie's Warrior | Sarah Andrew

The Freshman Sire Showcase brings a little extra buzz to the sales grounds and to the start of the July sale, according to Taylor.

“I think there are a lot of breeders who have supported these horses and they might have one going to September, but they like to walk around here and see what everybody else's look like,” Taylor said. “It's kind of a fun part of the sale.”

He continued, “Fasig actually put photos of all the new crop sires that are represented in the sale. There are conformation photos of each stallion and I've seen a lot of buyers looking at the horse that we are showing them and then they flip back to look at the stallion, so they can see if they are throwing themselves. I thought it was a cool touch.”

Other sires in the Freshman Sire Showcase include Mystic Guide, Happy Saver, Greatest Honour, Mandaloun, and Speaker's Corner

The July sale is an important step for the commercial success of these young sires, Taylor agreed.

“You look at some of the higher priced horses, they are not going to have a lot of representation here,” Taylor said. “But for those other sires, let's just say the $15,000 to $40,000 range, I don't think it's make or break by any means, but it definitely sets the tone. You're going to have a lot of them here and you're going to have a few in Saratoga. So if people have a positive outlook going into September, I think that it's easier for the momentum to continue. If they have a negative feeling, then they go in and the horse has to re-prove themselves. This is a select sale, so you have nice individuals in here, but the ones we have by first-crop sires are really knockouts.”

While the July sale may not be make or break, the clock is ticking in a fickle commercial market, according to Mulholland.

“You have such a narrow window,” Mulholland said. “They have to get off to a good start with weanlings and yearlings at the sale and then they have to do well at the 2-year-old sales or they have to come out running big early in the year at Churchill and Saratoga. It's an extremely unforgiving market anymore. I think that's because we are such a commercially driven industry. I understand we are losing a lot of tracks, I get all of the contraction of the racing business and all of that, there is a lot that needs to be solved there as well. But if you can get yourself a nice, decent racehorse, you can have a great time enjoying yourself and you can also make a hobby financially solvent. You can go have fun and actually make some money. These purses are just outrageous everywhere you look. I don't see why more people aren't on that end of the game, as opposed to just the commercial sales aspect of it.”

Perfect Time for a Horses of Racing Age Sale

The Fasig-Tipton July Selected Horses of Racing Age Sale begins immediately following the yearling auction and will offer buyers the chance to bid on horses ready to compete during a busy–and lucrative–time on the racing calendar.

“It's so well-placed on the calendar,” Duignan said of the horses of racing age sale. “You can get a quick reward for your buck because you have a whole lot of races in the next couple of months with great purses at a high level.”

The Paramount Sales consignment will provide a little extra sizzle to the end of the racing age sale when it offers the 2-year-old Romeo (Honor A. P.) (hip 370), who was supplemented to the auction after winning the June 29 Bashford Manor Stakes in stakes-record time for owner Joseph Lloyd and trainer John Robb.

“I want to give a shout-out to Paddy Campion who recruited him and did a good job landing him,” Dugnian said. “It's not every day you get a chance to buy a 2-year-old of his caliber at public auction, coming off a win where he broke the stakes record in a prestigious stakes.”

Romeo romped by 10 1/4 lengths in his debut at Laurel Park in May before finishing third in the June 5 Tremont Stakes.

Romeo | Fasig-Tipton

“It's such a good time of the year to buy a horse like him with the whole summer ahead,” Duignan said. “He's got everything you'd desire. We are looking forward to selling him.”

Mulholland Springs will offer six horses of racing age from the estate of the late Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas, who passed away June 28.

“Wayne is the trainer who started the whole trend that we see now,” Mulholland said. “He was decades ahead of everyone else. It's an honor for us to be selling his horses. Just that they came from Wayne's barn, they will sell themselves. It's a humbling, rewarding feeling to be able to help out his wife, Laurie, and his grandchildren and his partners. I am looking forward to them going off to good homes and continuing on. It's very special to both Martha Jane and me and everyone at the farm to be handling his horses.”

The group of horses from the Lukas estate includes the unraced 2-year-olds Summer Date (Essential Quality) (hip 362), a $125,000 purchase at last year's Keeneland September sale, Lost Valley (Liam's Map) (hip 363), a $90,000 acquisition last September, and Delancey Street (Street Sense) (hip 368). All three have been working in Kentucky towards their debuts.

Martha Jane and John Mulholland | Fasig-Tipton

Mulholland agreed July was a perfect spot on the calendar to sell racehorses.

“You've got every track that you would want open and you have the whole summer and fall of racing in front of you,” Mulholland said. “You've got great financial opportunities across the country. I am very happy to have some racehorses to sell.”

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