Fasig-Tipton reversed the negative business trends seen at Thoroughbred auctions this year at its recent Saratoga select yearling sale, where the gross revenue, average price, and median price all enjoyed significant upswings from 2008. The second and final auction on the company’s upstate New York calendar is the Saratoga New York-bred preferred yearling auction, which will be held Aug. 15 and 16. Each session will start at 7 p.m. (EDT).
“We hope that the momentum that was established earlier this week at our select sale will carry over, but we also have to be realistic that the types of horses that are being sold are a little bit different than they were in our select sale,” said Fasig-Tipton president Boyd Browning, “You hope you carry the success forward, but it’s not an assumption or a given that it absolutely has to or will. In our preliminary discussions with buyers, I think we’ve seen a similar interest in New York-breds that we’ve seen in recent years, and I think we’ll see a similar level of buying activity. We continue to wait for the VLT (video lottery terminal) situation in New York to get resolved, and when that happens, I think we’ll see another significant step forward with the New York-bred program. That being said, the New York-bred program is still a great program, and it provides great incentives to owners.”
There are 235 yearlings cataloged for the New York-bred auction, which will feature the offspring of such stallions as A. P. Warrior, Artie Schiller , Bandini, El Corredor, First Samurai , Harlan's Holiday, Medaglia d'Oro , Rockport Harbor, Smarty Jones , and Tapit .
During last year’s New York-bred sale, the average price of $54,390 was the highest in the sale’s history and the median price of $45,000 equaled the auction record that had been established in 2005. The gross of $5,439,000 was down 6.7%. Nearly half of the yearlings offered (47.4%) failed to find new homes.