New Sales Season a Labor of Love for Legacy

[Wandering Eyes]

They were heading up the driveway of a famous horseman when old Joe Taylor turned to young Tommy Eastham. “Hey,” he said. “This guy can be a little cranky. So if you've any questions, just wait until we get out.”

Tommy nodded. “Okay Joe.”

They'd only got to the third yearling when suddenly Taylor was bringing him into the conversation.

“What d'you think about that one, big fella?”

Tommy didn't know what to say: all he could remember was being told to keep his mouth shut.

“Well Daddy Joe,” he admitted. “He wouldn't be my favorite.”

Taylor came straight back. “You don't know what you're talking about.”

Tommy shrugged. “You're probably right,” he said.

But then Taylor gestured to their host and said, “He doesn't know what he's talking about.”

Tommy was puzzled. Where was he going with this?

“And nor do I,” Taylor continued. “So: find the best in the horse. Because you don't know, I don't know, nobody ever knows.”

All these years later, like so many of his mentor's lessons, this one sticks in Tommy's memory. It's part of what makes him look forward with undiminished enthusiasm to every new sales cycle. For some, no doubt, the perennial demands of the circuit gradually corrode the passion. Yet Tommy and his wife Wyndee, 22 years after founding their sales agency, maintain a pristine fulfilment in their vocation.

As such, it felt apt last year that Legacy Bloodstock should have sent the very first yearling of the crop into the ring, a Maxfield colt sold for $220,000 at the Fasig-Tipton July Sale. This time round they fielded Hip 2, a $120,000 colt from the debut crop of Cyberknife. In each case, the consignors eagerly renewed their role as conduit for the intrigue and enthusiasm that together drive the market. For just like Taylor said, the mystery always abides.

“What he said was very, very true,” Tommy says. “I feel like I can sell a wide variety of horses because I know that I don't know; that, in the end, only God knows.”

That said, one of his principal responsibilities is to evaluate each horse, to read the shows and the state of trade before recommending a reserve.

“Having that bit of market savvy, it's kind of like placing horses for a trainer,” he says. “Expectation management. We try to be realistic. I remember one of the first horses I sold for Dr. David Richardson wasn't one of the best. So I was trying to let him down a little bit gently. And he said, 'Thomas. I'm a doctor. I've delivered a lot of bad news in my life. If you tell me what I need to know, then we've a chance of making a good decision. If you try to protect my feelings, we probably won't.'”

“Doc” was always one of his favorites. And that approach, over the years, has just come to feel right for the kind of clients drawn to Legacy.

“I don't like tension,” Tommy says. “And I don't like disappointing people. So if we see a commercial penalty coming, we're going to be up front about it. Now, we can all miss those sometimes. But we've sold enough horses that 99 percent of the time we can identify, and early, what we need to concentrate on.”

Wyndee and Tommy Eastham | Sue Finley

That candor is the direct road to trust–and, for a consignor, trust is indispensable to your dealings either side of the fence. If you want repeat business, people need to depend on your word.

“It's like high school,” Tommy agrees. “Every day you go down the hallway, it'll be the same guys. So you better take care of them. As a consignor, it's not the sellers that are hard to find. It's about getting people to come by your barn and trust you enough to buy horses from you. That's the true test of what you're doing.”

That can boil down to basic diplomacies: knowing, for instance, which guy will (or won't) remain chilled during the heat of a big sale, with horses being shown left and right, and everyone obliged to wait their turn. And actually that personal connection explains a Legacy trademark commitment: not to stretch numbers, because that might stretch service.

“Our business plan has always been to be selective on the people we represent,” Tommy emphasizes. “Because we always want to be the ones selling a horse, not somebody we hired.”

That philosophy has found favor with longstanding clients from Spendthrift to such programs as those operated by Bob Austin, for whom they sold Girvin, or Scott Pierce.

“One of the things I'm proudest about is that we've maintained relationships for a long time,” Tommy notes. “Some of our clients have been with us 20 years, becoming good friends. Of course, that loyalty they've shown does bring a certain amount of responsibility. But then personality-wise, too, I think certain people just fit with us and like the way we do things. We all have to go through obstacles and challenges, and we like people that can handle things in a classy, strategic way.”

It all happens very quickly, after all. Typically, a horse enters their care barely half a week ahead of entering the ring, hardly time to turn a duckling into a cygnet.

“But the good thing is that we generally get out on the farms once a month, ahead of the sales, and get to know them a little that way,” Wyndee says. “You're talking to the people who raised them, and they'll tell you their personalities, little bits and pieces that we can take away with us.

“But horses can be very different when they get to the sale. So we're fortunate to have a great team of horsemen working with us, a lot of them very experienced. They're calm and patient, not rushing in there grabbing horses. Especially when it gets really stressful, with lots of shows going on, I think that makes a huge difference.”

Wyndee Eastham grew up in racing | Sue Finley

Wyndee has lifelong experience herself, as daughter of a trainer in Frank Carter.

“My dad was a little older by the time I came along, so slowing down a little as I was growing up,” she recalls. “But he would do the Oaklawn circuit and go down to Florida and come back here [to Keeneland]. I loved coming to the track. I'd wake up early and sneak into his truck so that I could hang out the backside, maybe hotwalk a couple.

“And it just became a natural progression. I saw the romance and magic in horses at a very young age. They fascinated me from the very beginning. It was almost like God meant me to do it.”

“Happy horses sell good,” Tommy declares. “And their body language counts. If you've a horse that you can get in, make comfortable and confident, they're going to show that out on the show ring. And the really good ones, they take care of themselves in the barn–whether you call that intelligence, or just a nervous system handling pressure. But I've sold a lot of really good horses that had significant commercial penalties, too.”

Of course, one of the challenges of this business is that labor and other costs are the same for a $1,000 horse as for a $1-million horse. (“And sometimes there's a little more pressure on the cheaper horse!” Wyndee notes.) It was ever thus, but the big change has been the growing timidity produced by vetting.

“There's always going to be a sorting method,” Tommy acknowledges. “But I feel the vetting has gotten really, really tough. If I could have a dollar for every time I took a large penalty, because of vetting, on one that turned out to be a really good runner, I'd be a very wealthy man. We probably sold 300 last year, but I don't think there was one that had all its radiographs clean with everybody.”

It is obviously a market increasingly oriented to perceived “commercial” sires, too, but the best buyers get past both those barriers.

“Kenny [McPeek] is not a sire snob,” Tommy says. “And he can read a vet sheet. He uses vet information as a tool, not as 'pass' or 'fail.' And I've seen Mike Ryan spend a long time on a horse with obvious conformational penalties. And he'll say, 'Tommy, good sale horses come in one size. Good racehorses come in all shapes and sizes.'”

'TDN Rising Star' River Thames | Lauren King

In fairness, their latest star graduate ticked all the conventional boxes. 'TDN Rising Star' River Thames (Maclean's Music), sold for $200,000 at Saratoga a couple of years ago, was beaten a neck in the GII Fountain of Youth Stakes and a length in the GI Blue Grass Stakes.

“When we saw him on the farm, he just had a presence about him,” Wyndee says. “Very confident in himself, had a really nice walk, just did everything that we asked him to do.”

“He went through the whole rigors of Saratoga and I don't think he lost a pound from the day we shipped him to the day we shipped out,” Tommy says. “Just enjoyed the whole thing: enjoyed people, enjoyed the activity, wasn't intimidated by the horses there. Sometimes Saratoga can sort them out, they can get really tight. But he was a man. Those kind, they're just class.”

But horses of every stamp, the Easthams insist, are owed the same standards.

“Doesn't matter if we're hoping for $3,000 or $3 million, we feel a responsibility to get that horse in the correct position,” Tommy says. “Because you know those horses with value will have a good quality of life, but animals that don't might not. So we always try to get them in the right hands.

“Some people see an eyeball. Wyndee and I were always blessed enough to have seen that window into their soul. And when you hit a home run for a family that doesn't just say, 'Oh, that's nice,' but, 'Oh, now we can get the tractor fixed…' That fills your heart. Because you know you made a difference in their life. There's a lot of effort for everybody, lot of sweat and tears. It's truly a labor of love. There's so many ups and downs that it just has to touch your soul before you can do it. But when it does, it's incredible. So the horse has given us a beautiful life.”

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