By Jessica Martini
TIMONIUM, MD – The Fasig-Tipton Midlantic Fall Yearlings Sale opens Monday at the Maryland State Fairgrounds in Timonium with a session of 200 catalogued hips beginning at 1 p.m., and concludes with a further 326 catalogued yearlings for a session beginning at 10 a.m. Tuesday.
Despite persistent rain throughout the weekend, shoppers were making the rounds at the sales barns Sunday and consignors are hoping the looks continue to build up to Monday's later start time.
“We are cautiously optimistic,” said Vinery Sales' Derek MacKenzie. “It seems like the traffic has picked up today. It was really slow yesterday, but they are coming now. And they will have more time tomorrow. We will see some trainers who won't come today who I am sure will be here in the morning.”
Consignor Bill Reightler found a silver lining in the dreary weather.
“We've been busy with all-shows,” Reightler said. “But I think horsemen are opportunists. I can remember some years ago here we had a sale in December where we had four or five inches of snow and I think we had the best sale we ever had because people thought nobody was going to show up and they could buy something.”
Coming on the heels of a record-breaking Keeneland September Yearling Sale, Reightler expects demand to continue to be high in Maryland this week.
“I think it's going to be fine,” he said. “It's going to be the same old story. It's going to be polarized. I think some of the buyers couldn't buy horses at Keeneland and that brings more people to the next sale.”
A total of 381 yearlings sold during last year's auction for a gross of $11,269,400. The average was $29,578 and the median was $20,000. A colt by Mendelssohn brought the sale's top price of $235,000 from Scanlon Training and Sales before re-selling for $1.3 million at this year's OBS April sale. David Scanlon was among the pinhookers looking at horses through the raindrops at the sales barns Sunday.
Last year's auction also produced GI Spinaway S. winner Leave No Trace (Outwork), who sold for $40,000 from the Vinery consignment. Results like that should have shoppers eager to return to the Maryland auction, according to MacKenzie.
“This sale was really good last year and I suspect it should be again,” he said. “A lot of people didn't get what they wanted at Keeneland and there are a lot of nice horses here.”
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