By Joe Bianca
Attempting to capitalize on the international success of American-bred turf horses, as well as fill a niche in the marketplace, Fasig-Tipton announced Tuesday that it will conduct The Turf Showcase, a sale consisting of yearlings suited for grass, Sept. 10 at the company's Newtown Paddocks in Lexington, Kentucky.
Two-time champion Tepin (Bernstein), a $140,000 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga graduate in 2012, won her first Eclipse as top turf female in 2015 after capturing that fall's GI Breeders' Cup Mile and two other top-level events. The bay mare's most momentous victory came last June, however, when she shipped across the pond to Royal Ascot and overcame soft ground to beat males in the G1 Queen Anne S. The victory reverberated around the racing world as a legitimizing effort for American turf horses, one that Fasig-Tipton president and CEO Boyd Browning looks to capitalize on.
“What we've certainly seen in recent years is a significant level of success for American-bred horses [overseas], like at Royal Ascot last year, and a really significant investment by many of the major stallion operations in and around central Kentucky on horses that had a turf influence,” Browning said. “Literally every major stallion operation in central Kentucky has added a stallion or is in the process of adding a stallion that has turf pedigree, turf suitability or turf appeal.”
With its Turf Showcase, Fasig-Tipton will try to recreate the ingenuity and success of its “New Sire Showcase,” a section of the company's July yearling sale carved out in 1992 to help highlight and promote horses by freshman sires.
“One of the things we were able to do with the creation of the New Sire Showcase was to help change the perception of new sires,” Browning said. “We hope to help improve and enhance the market acceptability of turf pedigrees and turf stallions and thought the time was right.”
Yearlings under consideration for The Turf Showcase will be inspected and approved based on pedigree and conformation by Fasig-Tipton. Browning admitted that it's difficult to pin down set criteria for inclusion in the sale, but laid out a general overview of how horses will be selected.
“I don't think there's any hard and fast rule,” Browning said. “We're looking for stallions who have achieved success on the racetrack with horses on the turf. For unproven stallions, we'd be looking at pedigrees and/or their racing careers. We'll also take into consideration the female families. We're going to have judgment and ultimately the marketplace will judge us by the group of horses that's presented. What I don't want to do is say 'It's got to be by a top 25 turf sire of 2016-2017 as of this date,' because those lists and rankings can change pretty quickly with a significant horse or two because the population's not all that large. We're looking for horses that we think have a high likelihood of success in turf racing.”
The early reaction to the announcement of the sale has been mostly positive, Browning relayed, while also admitting that there have been a few doubts about the viability of such a specific sale.
“One thing I've learned in a number of years in this business is that you're never going to get 100% consensus on any new concept or idea, but the overwhelming reaction thus far has been positive,” he said.
Browning added that there are no target head or target average numbers for the horses Fasig-Tipton hopes to sell at The Turf Showcase, acknowledging that it will be a niche auction during a busy time on the sales calendar.
“I don't know what to expect and I don't have a sales budget drawn up that says X horses averaging X and so forth,” he noted. “We believe in the concept, we believe that there's interest, that there will be quality product available and we're willing to expend a significant amount of energy and effort to try to make the sale a success. We think there's a unique opportunity where we can help create and help transform interest and provide a better alternative than what might be available for a population of horses.”
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