Tattersalls A Good Fit For Taylor Made

At any major sale in the U.S., it is just about a sure bet that Taylor Made Sales Agency will not only make up a significant portion of the catalogue with its sizable consignments, but also in turn be among the leading consignors.

Next week, the agency that sold Roaring Lion (Kitten's Joy) for $160,000 two years ago will tread new waters when presenting its first European draft at the Tattersalls December Mare Sale. It is a bit of a different look for Taylor Made; the six-horse consignment makes up just a tiny slice of the four-day sale and won't land them at the top of the vendors' table, but for this new experiment, that isn't the point, Taylor Made's Mark Taylor explained.

“Our decision to go to Tattersalls with the consignment this year was kind of the final step in conversations we've had for a long time,” he said. “While we've been growing our business for the last 40 years we've had to focus on America. And we've got a lot of exciting things going on in our company right now; we've got a lot of youth coming up and we felt like we had the resources and the people to try something new and get out of our comfort zone, and hopefully go build some new relationships.

“We're not going to Europe saying, 'we're going to be Taylor Made, like we are in America,'” Taylor added. “What we're doing is a very boutique experiment.”

And while the Taylor Made brand is quintessentially American, the family patriarch Joe Taylor laid roots in Europe through his involvement in importing stallions like Lyphard, Blushing Groom and Riverman to stand at Gainesway Farm, where he was the longtime manager.

“My father–who some people may remember, but he's been gone a few years now-he would always talk growing up about all his good friends in Europe that he did deals with, on behalf of Mr. Gaines, bringing stallions to America, and that was just part of the kitchen talk,” Taylor recalled. “He would be throwing out names from France, England and Ireland.

“We've been kind of insulated here because we've been so busy building the Taylor Made brand, and it just felt like a good time to try to reach out and open up some more of those relationships.”

Taylor said that having the Cartier Horse of the Year Roaring Lion an advertisement this year has been very timely, but that “it's never a bad time to have a horse like Roaring Lion come through your consignment.

“And kudos to David Redvers and the whole team that picked him out, because I thought that he was undervalued,” Taylor added. “They bought him for a very fair price in Book 1 at Keeneland and I think a lot of the Americans maybe walked past him thinking, 'Oh, he's just a turf horse.' And then some of the Europeans looked at him and said, 'Oh, he's out of kind of an American family.' They didn't really buy into it, but those guys saw the athlete there and I'm sure there's a lot of disappointed people that walked past him at Keeneland.”

Taylor Made's inaugural Tattersalls consignment is comprised of:

-Hasten (Ire) (Montjeu {Ire}) (lot 1821), a full-sister to G1 Criterium International winner Jan Vermeer (Ire) and a 3/4 to the GI Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup S. winner Together (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}). Hasten was placed on the track for the Coolmore partners and is in foal to Kingman (GB).

-Glade (GB) (Bertolini) (lot 1822), a three-times listed-placed half-sister to Group 3 winner Indian Blessing (GB) (Sepoy {Aus}) in foal to Showcasing (GB) carrying her first foal. It is the family of Group 1 winners and sires National Defense (GB), Helmet (Aus) and Epaulette (Aus).

-Roystonia (Ire) (Redoute's Choice {Aus}) (lot 1912), a listed-placed 3-year-old maiden who is out of a full-sister to Irish Classic winner Roderic O'Connor (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}).

-Midnight Crossing (Ire) (Dark Angel {Ire}) (lot 1913), the winner of last year's GIII Robert J Frankel S. for Taylor Made partnership Medallion Racing. Midnight Crossing was originally sourced from Tattersalls December in 2016 for 70,000gns by Kern Lillingston and was bought by Medallion Racing and Abbondanza Racing for $240,000 at Keeneland November last year the month prior to her career-best win. She is five and is offered as a maiden.

-Queen Blossom (Ire) (Jeremy) (lot 1914). The 5-year-old mare was picked out of the same Keeneland November sale as Midnight Crossing by Abbondanza Racing and Medallion Racing for $220,000. Previously a Group 3 winner in Ireland, she won this year's GIII Santa Barbara S. at Santa Anita.

-Raven's Lady (GB) (Raven's Pass) (lot 1915), the winner of this year's G3 Summer S. at York and G2 Goldene Peitsche at Baden-Baden for trainer Marco Botti. Raven's Lady is from the family of Group 1 winner and sire Best of the Bests.

Taylor Made's Philip Shelton is the man in charge of the logistics of the Taylor Made Tattersalls consignment, and he said, “We have two coming from America, which will be Midnight Crossing and Queen Blossom, who are both part of our Medallion Racing partnership. Midnight Crossing is a Grade III winner in the U.S. and she's by Dark Angel. She has a great Ballymacoll family and we felt with the depth of the pedigree and the Dark Angel, this was going to be a better marketplace for her.

“Queen Blossom is a group winner at The Curragh and she's also a Grade III winner in the U.S. We just felt in the U.S. [sales ring], there's less demand for graded stakes winners on the grass than there is in Europe.

“We're very excited,” Shelton added. “It's not something where we want to be the Taylor Made that everybody is used to here. It's all about trying to provide our customers with another outlet where they feel like they can maximize their value.”

Taylor said that the appeal of the European market as an outlet to sell the high-level turf mares acquired by the Medallion Racing partnership also gave the team a final push to make the dive into the European market as sellers.

“This year is the first year we're going to be selling a significant number of horses that we've been racing under our Medallion Racing banner, which is a new partnership we created two years ago to try to bring new people into the business that can get instant action in high-level racing with exclusively fillies,” Taylor explained “So there's some built-in residual value. We're trying to buy in and partner up on horses that can be running in graded stakes races within 30 days of the purchase. So it's been a really neat and successful venture so far and we have two fillies in this year's partnership, which is winding down, that we really thought fit the European market.

“It also checked off another box in what we're trying to accomplish within Medallion, which is just great experiences for our customers. It's a chance for some of our investors to possibly go to Europe, get exposed to the bloodstock market there and go to Newmarket. It's just a whole different thing that most of them have never experienced before.

“We're trying to expand our brand of customer service, really putting the customer experience first, into the racing model hoping that we can bring in new future investors that get a taste of it with Medallion, and then go on and maybe do their own thing and we can help them get into the business that way,” Taylor added. “So it's been, really, a great new branch of the Taylor Made brand and we're getting calls all the time of people that just want to get in and experience it, because it is unique. You get more instant action as opposed to buying yearlings or 2-year-olds.”

It wasn't long after Taylor Made announced its first European venture before it began to unveil plans for its second: another boutique consignment of yearlings at next year's Arqana August yearling sale. Taylor said Europe's first major yearling sale seemed the right fit as it is positioned well enough in advance of Keeneland September to allow some of its staff to focus on Arqana without taking anything away from Kentucky's mega-sale. The yearlings will be presented in partnership with Jean-Pierre de Gaste's Haras de Gouffern.

Taylor said they are looking at selecting American-bred yearlings that would fit in the European market to sell in Deauville.

“We've been already through the top breeders lists over here trying to identify sires that we think would make sense and we've been having a lot of conversations with Jean-Pierre, his team, and other Europeans to really get a more clear understanding of what sires might work,” he said. “But we're looking at all the horses that make sense and then trying to see if we could possibly buy some privately here, or reach out and do partnerships with some of the breeders who might want to join with us and go over there and have a great experience. So if they have a horse–a More Than Ready, or a Declaration of War, or a Speightstown, or a horse that we think might fit–I think it's going to be a great opportunity for the people we might buy in with as well as our existing customers.”

And in Taylor Made's quest to improve its customer experiences, an option to go to Deauville can't hurt, either.

“Some of our long-time customers here, they love going to Saratoga in the summer but they've never been a place like Deauville,” Taylor said. “It's an opportunity for them to get in on a few yearlings and go over there. It's not going to be a huge consignment but it would just be a great lifetime experience, a bucket list checked off to experience France within the context of the horse business.”

The first order of business, though, is Tattersalls next week, and Shelton said that while some elements of the process have been very new, he believes that the company's core pillars that have stood it in such good stead in America can transcend continental borders.

“We're going into this with our eyes wide open,” Shelton said. “I think here [in the U.S.], we're the leader in the marketplace. A lot of the things we do here, I think, are successful everywhere. Good business practices from marketing, putting your customers first–all those things are going to translate.”