New York-breds take center stage Sunday and Monday at Fasig-Tipton Saratoga. Fasig-Tipton Photo.
Boyd Browning Jr. walked the balcony of Fasig-Tipton’s Humphrey S. Finney pavilion Tuesday night, not long after the dust settled from the most spectacular Saratoga select sale in history and let his mind look ahead.
Asked in joking way about what the auction house might do for a follow-up to the $100 million Saratoga sale, Browning didn’t look to next year’s boutique auction. He looked a lot closer on the calendar.
“New York-breds, of course,” Browning said.
The select sale saw records for total sales, average price and median. Now it’s the New York-bred sale’s turn, coming off strong yearling sales in Kentucky in July and this week in Saratoga, and on the heels of solid 2-year-old markets to start the year. The New York-bred sale featured a catalog of 304 yearlings before the 31 scratches as of Friday night.
Browning and the Fasig-Tipton team, members and leaders of the New York Thoroughbred Breeders, Inc., along with a local and national group of consignors, are ready.
“Our chests will be puffed out tomorrow morning, no doubt,” Browning said after the select sale. “But guess what? We’ll have a crew out there tomorrow morning cleaning the grounds and getting ready for the New York-bred sale. Because we’ve got 300 New York-breds shipping in Thursday morning. They’ll be showing Friday and Saturday and come Sunday at 7 o’clock, we’re going to go in there and do the absolute very best we can for those 100 that sell Sunday night and the 200 that sell Monday. We’re lucky we get to do something we love to do. I hope that’s evident.”
Consignors with yearlings in the New York-bred sale share Browning’s and Thompson’s enthusiasm and hope the final stop on the Saratoga auction calendar continues the momentum set this week.
“The main sale was so amazing and record-breaking. I hope it just keeps rolling and I would expect it to,” said Lili Kobielski of The New Hill Farm in nearby Hoosick Falls in Rensselaer County. “There’s a lot of energy – we’ve been busy all morning. It’s been nonstop.”
The New Hill Farm cataloged eight yearlings, sired by established stars as Hard Spun and Practical Joke along with newcomers Golden Pal, Cyberknife and Epicenter.
“Honestly, across the board, it’s a very consistent group,” Kobielski said. “The feedback we’ve gotten so far is that it’s a nice group overall. We only started selling our own horses that we either bred or raised at the farm so we can stand behind what we’re bringing to the sale. They were all foaled, raised and kept with us.”
Indian Creek, one of a few consignors to sell at both the select and New York-bred sale, cataloged 15 yearlings for Sunday and Monday.
“Everybody is pretty optimistic and has a little bounce in their step off of last week,” said Indian Creek’s Sarah Sutherland. “I’m sure you’ll see that enthusiasm carry over here and on to the sales in September and October as well. It’s been very steady all morning. With more horses on the grounds here, everybody has a place where they like to start and a way they organize themselves. We’re not slammed, but we’re very steady and consistent.
“This is probably one of the best groups top to bottom that we’ve brought here. We’re represented by some really nice stallions, some proven horses as well as some young freshman sires, so it’s kind of a good mix. There’s a little bit of something for everybody. It’d be hard to sort of peg a couple over the others.”
Longtime Saratoga consignor Summerfield returns for another New York-bred sale.
Francis Vanlangendonck, who runs the Florida-based operation with his wife Barbara, praised the local breeders heading into the Empire State’s major yearling market.
“The number of people and the quality of people that are looking today are really good,” Francis Vanlangendonck said. “I watched the horses ship in, and there were so many good horses. The New York breeders do such a great job of bringing in good pedigrees and raising them where they look like an athlete that can compete. And then, they have the program with the New York-breds running for the same money as open horses. With all of those things together, I expect this to be a good sale.”
The success of the select sale continued to be a common theme Friday morning and afternoon throughout the sales grounds, which were packed with trainers, bloodstock agents and owners scouting prospects.
“We’re just coming off the heels of a very, very good sale in the select sale,” said Carl McEntee of Ballysax Bloodstock, which cataloged three yearlings. “Obviously, different kind of horses, but still. There’s a vibrancy to the market and just being here the last couple weeks, there seem to be a lot of young people in town. Looks like racing is becoming cool again, which is really exciting for everybody in this industry.”
Tommy Eastham of Legacy Bloodstock, which cataloged four yearlings, agreed.
“I’m really encouraged. Generally, I’m an optimist, so you’ll probably get more of a positive spin off me,” he said. “I’m really encouraged about the enthusiasm with the horse business. Now, some people are saying it’s the depreciation. The tax depreciation that has motivated sales and boosts that we’ve had. We’re doing a good job with our product. The tracks are getting more aware of the customer service aspect of it and the owner experience. This sale’s going to be good, but I think it’s an accumulation of a lot of different factors. It’s good timing for us to be good and tax depreciation is going to make it be really great.”
– Additional reporting by Alec DiConza, Julia Reedy and Darby O’Brien
