Yearling Sales Seasons Starts with F-T July Tuesday

[Wandering Eyes]

LEXINGTON, KY – The Fasig-Tipton July Selected Yearlings Sale, which jumpstarts the yearling sales season, will be held Tuesday at the Newtown Paddocks in Lexington. A total of 364 yearlings have been catalogued for the one-day auction, with bidding scheduled to begin at 10 a.m.

“We have another great group of yearlings this year,” said Fasig-Tipton President Boyd Browning, Jr. “We have a nice mix of proven stallions and young stallions. The July Sale has been known for years for being a great place to buy and sell precocious, athletic yearlings and I think the catalogue this year reflects that. I think it is a very good group of horses and I expect it to be very active.”

The July sale comes on the heels of a record-setting spring of strong 2-year-old sales which surpassed the $200-million mark in total gross for the first time. The results of the juvenile sales and a robust economy have Browning optimistic heading into the yearling sales.

“The worldwide economy is good and I think that was reflected in what we saw at the 2-year-old sales with near record, if not record, sales,” he said. “Certainly the financial picture in the United States is good today and it is solid around the world. There are lot of positive things going on in terms of purses throughout the United States. The interest level is very high and I certainly would anticipate it continuing with the yearlings.”

As temperatures steadily climbed through the 80s on a balmy day in Lexington, action was steady at the sales barns Monday and consignor Pat Castello of Paramount Sales is looking forward to a strong yearling market.

“I think the 2-year-old sales were all very positive, so I think it’s all going to drive on again,” Costello said. “I’d say, it should be on par with last year, anyway, we’d hope. There are plenty of people out here looking at horses and we’re looking forward to a good season.”

Asked if he had seen a broader middle market at the juvenile auctions, Costello said, “Absolutely. And we’re seeing that here in the showing of horses, people are picking out horses at every level.”

The July sale has long been known for presenting a strong bench of first-crop sires and 25 stallions will be represented by

their first yearlings at auction Tuesday: Air Force Blue, Ami’s Holiday, Anchor Down, Brody’s Cause, California Chrome, Cinco Charlie, Exaggerator, Firing Line, Frosted, Hit It a Bomb, Jess’s Dream, Laoban, Mosler, Mshawish, Not This Time, Nyquist, Outwork, Runhappy, Social Inclusion, Speightster, Tamarkuz, Texas Red, Tourist, Upstart and Vancouver (Aus).

“People are always very anxious to see the yearlings by the new stallions,” Browning said. “Certainly there is always great interest and anticipation to see the first crops of some of the horses we watched and admired on the racetrack. This year is certainly another interesting group of first-crop yearlings and there should be a lot of very popular stallions that emerge from this group and I think the market will receive some of them very well.”

From a catalogue of 349 head, a total of 196 yearlings sold at the 2018 July sale. The average was $100,829 and the median was $75,000. A colt by Flatter brought the auction’s top price of $520,000.

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