By Christie DeBernardis
Fasig-Tipton will offer racehorses during their traditional July time slot for the 10th straight year Monday, but with an added twist. After adding a broodmare portion to last year's auction, most of which was a dispersal, the sales company has decided to incorporate breeding stock again this year and has therefore renamed the auction the Fasig-Tipton July Horses of All Ages Sale.
“Last year with the dispersal, it kind of sparked the concept,” said Fasig-Tipton President Boyd Browning. “And you know, we had some people this year who reached out to us and said they'd like to try it again. You know, I think what we're seeing in the world that we live in is people are looking for trading opportunities and looking for liquidity options. There's a time and a place and often times circumstances change for every owner or particular consigner. It just creates an opportunity in the marketplace for a person to sell their horse and those horses were well received last year. I think that's why we've got another group this year.”
There are 216 horses catalogued to Monday's sale, 27 of which were late supplements added last week. There are several black-type winners on offer including graded stakes winners Newgrange (Violence), Ete Indian (Summer Front), Enforceable (Tapit), Easy Time (Not This Time) and Risk Taking (Medaglia d'Oro).
“The composition of a racehorse sale changes from year to year, but there are certainly a lot of attractive offerings as you go through the catalog or go online and evaluate,” said Browning. “The great thing about the horses of race age sale is that there are horses that fit in every circuit that's racing, both in the United States and internationally. So if you're looking for a horse that might be able to run a starter, we've got some of those. If you are looking for potential candidates for Grade I races or graded stakes races down the road, or even in the near future, we've got some of those too. It's a great composition in terms of variety of offerings and it continues to gain more and more momentum every year that we have the sale and more acceptance.”
The timing of the sale is key, just days before the start of two prestigious and very popular meets, Saratoga and Del Mar. With the big purses offered at this meets creating increased demand and the strong markets at the juvenile and breeding stock sales earlier this year, Browning said he expects the momentum to carry right into the July auctions.
“Racing is pretty good right now,” Browning said. “Purses are very, very strong on several of the key circuits. People seem to be generally enthusiastic about buying racehorses and racing prospects. So we think, hopefully, the positive momentum that we've seen in the last 18 months will continue.”
The July sale has had some pretty successful graduates, such as last year's second highest-priced horse Stilleto Boy (Shackleford), who brought $420,000 and has placed in four Grade Is and won the GII Californian S. for his new owners. The sale has also produced the likes of GI Breeders' Cup F/M Sprint winner Wavell Avenue (Harlington) and GIII Westchester S. winner Nicodemus (Candy Ride {Arg}).
Bidding begins at 3 p.m. Monday at Newtown Paddocks and will be followed by the Fasig-Tipton July Yearling Sale Tuesday.
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