By Jessica Martini
TIMONIUM, MD – The Fasig-Tipton Midlantic Fall Yearling Sale, featuring a slimmed-down catalogue this year, has its one-session run Tuesday at the Maryland State Fairgrounds in Timonium. Bidding on the first of 284 catalogued yearlings begins at 11 a.m.
Activity on a drizzly and overcast day at the state fairgrounds was steady Monday and consignors are expecting the action to heat up heading into sale time Tuesday.
“We have had good activity,” said consignor Bill Reightler. “Yesterday, I thought we were a little busier than normal, with all-shows, and we have more of them today. We are starting to see more of the local trainers coming in and we will probably have more local trainers come in tomorrow.”
Consignor Clovis Crane was expecting to see plenty of activity at the barns Tuesday.
“I feel like people come late to this sale all the time,” Crane said. “The consignors start to get nervous, but it's a smaller sale. It doesn't take as long to get through, so a lot of people come late. Right now, it's midday Monday and it's pretty steady. Traffic picked up and I think people got done with their training and they are coming in. And tomorrow I think it will be all-day busy.”
The Midlantic Fall sale has been held over two days–with an abbreviated first session, followed by a full day of sales–in recent years, but as the size of the catalogue continued to shrink, the auction will be held in just one session this year. The 284 yearling catalogued in 2024 is down from 412 a year ago and 526 the year before.
“We have fewer people breeding horses right now,” Reightler said of the smaller numbers. “And we have virtual sales that are competing with the live sales. My numbers are down about 20% as far as what we usually offer for this sale. One thing you can expect is change, but there is no problem yet. You probably have to work a little harder if you are tailoring your horse for the market. You are going to be fine, but you have to work pretty hard on the selection of your stallions and assessing the horses you are bringing to the market. I have horses here that a couple breeders thought would sell better here than in Kentucky. Frankly, that always works because if you have a nice yearling by a Kentucky sire, a national sire, you're already in the top 10% or 20% of the horses.”
Crane admitted the smaller catalogue may dissuade some buyers from attending, but the success of the sale's graduates should make the auction a must-attend for local buyers.
“The reality of it is, it is going to hold some buyers back from coming, but this has gotten to be a great regional sale,” Crane said. “There are so many good horses who have come out of this sale, that people in the region have to come. We have a bunch of PA-bred, PA-sired horses and those horses are running for huge money. So the trainers and the owners who run in the Midlantic need to be here.”
Following record-setting yearling sales in New York and Kentucky, consignor Chris Gracie expects plenty of buyers who still have orders to fill to be shopping in Maryland.
“A lot of people came up here who couldn't get horses bought in September,” Gracie said. “People still need horses. Hopefully, we brought them the right ones.”
A total of 290 yearlings sold at the Midlantic Fall sale in 2023 for a gross of $7,082,000. The average was $24,421 and the median was $12,000. Twelve horses brought six figures at the auction, led by a $205,000 son of Nyquist who returned to the sales ring to sell for $550,000 at this year's OBS April sale.
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