By Christie DeBernardis
The final auction of the breeding stock sales season kicks off Monday at Fasig-Tipton with their two-day Winter Mixed Sale. A total of 542 horses filled the initial catalogue and that number has risen to 651 with the addition of late supplements. Hips 1-324 will sell Monday and Tuesday's session starts off with Hip 325 and runs through the end of the supplemental catalogue. Both sessions start at 10 a.m.
“I think there are several short yearlings with very interesting pedigrees in the sale,” said Fasig-Tipton President Boyd Browning. “There are some high quality broodmare prospects and in-foal mares, particularly with the strength of some of the late additions that have come into the catalogue. We are optimistic. I think we will see a continuation of what we have seen in the marketplace, in terms of a certain level of selectivity from the buyers. We do expect to have lots of interest and lots of demand on a significant number of horses.”
One of the auction's 2018 graduates Storm the Court (Court Vision) gave Fasig February a nice update when winning the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile at 45-1 and taking home the Eclipse Award for champion juvenile colt.
“It is always nice to have a horse like that jump up,” Browning said. “It just shows you that top quality horses can come from a variety of different sales and a variety of different places. That is the great thing about the Thoroughbred world, you never know where the next good one if going to come from.”
A total of 327 horses changed at the hands at the 2019 edition of this sale for a gross of $9,659,400. The average was $29,539 and the median was $15,000, both of which were increases from the previous year. The RNA rate was 20.4%, which was down from 2018.
Last year's Fasig February sale was topped by Grade II-winning broodmare prospect Cheekaboo (Unusual Heat), who brought $300,000 from K R Japan. The most expensive short yearling was a $200,000 daughter of red hot sire Into Mischief, purchased by Irish Meadow Stable.
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