Fasig-Tipton yearling sale by the numbers

Photo by The Racing Biz.

by Frank Vespe

A week hence, on October 4, Fasig-Tipton Midlantic will host its annual Fall Yearlings Sale at the Timonium Fairgrounds.

While the company’s just-after-the-Preakness two-year-old sale is its busiest and perhaps best regarded, the yearling event has carved a similar niche for itself as a good place to buy a runner at perhaps something less than the premium costs of sales like Keeneland’s monster, 13-session, 4,000+ hip event which ended Sunday.

Among the top competitors the Midlantic sale has produced are the three poster-horses that adorn the catalog’s cover: Bradester, Stellar Wind, and Cathryn Sophia:

• Bradester, a son of Lion Heart, cost just $20,000 at this event in 2011 and then was subsequently sold as a two-year-old in training for $195,000.  He owns 10 wins and has earned nearly $1.2 million.
• Stellar Wind, a Virginia-bred daughter of Curlin, sold here in 2013 for $86,000.  She has won six of 10 career starts, earned nearly $1.2 million, and was a tough-luck second in last year’s Breeders’ Cup Distaff.
• Cathryn Sophia, bred in Maryland, fetched $30,000 here in 2014.  The winner of this spring’s Grade 1 Kentucky Oaks, she has won six of nine starts and earned over $1.2 million.

And it’s truly an A-to-Z sale, at least alphabetically speaking.  Sires range from Afleet Alex (two hips on offer) to Zensational (one).  Here are some more facts and figures:

• What’s in a name? Out of 367 numbered hips, 307 are unnamed.  Of the rest, names range from Appealing Temper (hip 302) to Zesty Zar (hip 336).
• Boys and girls together… Of the group, there are 212 fillies and 152 colts.  Oh, and one gelding.  That’s hip 258, a Pennsylvania-bred son of Redeemed named Risen.
• All the colors of the (brown) rainbow.  A plurality of horses — 153 — are listed as being bay in color.  That’s not to be confused with the 95 that are dark bay or brown, or the 85 that are chestnut.  Thirty-one horses are gray or roan, meaning 31 opportunities for someone to say, “What a pretty gray horse!”
• One of these things is not like the others.  Hip 20, a Jersey Town colt, is listed as black.  He’s the only black horse in the sale.

1. Maryland – 156
2. Kentucky – 71
3. Pennsylvania – 57
4. New York – 42
5. West Virginia – 15
6. Virginia – 12
7. New Jersey – 6
8. Florida – 5
9. Alabama – 1

TOP SIRES

1. El Padrino – 16
2. Friesan Fire – 12
3. Despite the Odds – 9
4. Hunters Bay – 8
5. Freedom Child – 8
6. Weigelia – 7
7. Great Notion – 7
8. Cal Nation – 6
9. Outflanker – 6
10. Warrior’s Reward – 6
11. Paddy O’Prado – 6

1. Not for Love – 18
2. Two Punch – 8
3. Polish Numbers – 6
4. Tiznow – 6
5. Medaglia d’Oro – 5
6. Tale of the Cat – 5
7. Broken Vow – 5
8. Victory Gallop – 5
9. Outflanker – 4
10. A. P. Indy – 4
11. Honour and Glory – 4
12. Holy Bull – 4
13. Speightstown – 4