Fasig-Tipton yearling sale shows strong gains
What Tuesday’s Fasig-Tipton Midlantic fall yearling sale lacked in horses, it more than made up for in buyers.
The buyers were out in force in Timonium and powered the sale, despite a much smaller catalog than last year’s, to nearly $5 million in gross sales, an increase of 16% from a year ago.
“I think it demonstrates that there’s a viable and legitimate market here in the Mid-Atlantic region for people to bring a quality horse,” said Fasig-Tipton president and CEO Boyd Browning. “I thought we had more buyers here than we had horses, in terms of, there was more money here than we had horses that could fill those orders. A lot of people went home without buying a horse.”
On the other hand, a lot of people went home with new horses. The buyback rate declined from 28% a year ago to 18% today. In all, 161 of the 197 hips through the ring left with a new owner.

That was one factor in the increase in sales. The other was a bolstered average and median. The average rose by 29.8% to $30,920 on the day, and the median was up by a third, to $20,000.
The average per horse through the ring – counting RNAs as zero – was $25,270, up 48% from last year.
“This location has been as reliable and consistent a marketplace as there is in the United States, and that was evident again today,” Browning said. “[It was] very strong, great cross-section of participation, from pinhookers, from local trainers to owners that race really, throughout the region.”
The sale-topper came early in the day. That was Hip 18, a Maryland-bred Nyquist colt out of a very good female family that includes Cotillion winner Star Minister, multiple graded-placed runner Another Broad, and his dam, the stakes-placed Lookin Dynamic.
The colt, consigned by Becky Davis as agent, brought a winning bid of $370,000 from Scanlon Training and Sales.
Another Maryland-bred brought the second highest winning bid. That was Hip 202, an Army Mule filly out of the winning Tiznow mare Hello Now. The filly is a half-sister to the popular three-time Maryland Million race winner Hello Beautiful, who earned almost $600,000.
LC Racing made the winning bid of $210,000 on the filly, consigned by Northview Stallion Station (David Wade) as agent.
Northview/Wade was also the agent on Hip 17, another Maryland-bred filly, which brought a top bid of $200,000 from Robert Lambe. By new sire Corniche, she is out of a winning Bodemeister mare and has a bunch of family black type.
The top-selling horse bred outside of Maryland was Hip 158, a Virginia-bred Upstart filly. She is out of the popular Great Notion mare Crabcakes, who won the Maryland Million Distaff twice en route to earning over $400,000. Consigned by Morgan’s Ford Farm, she brought a top bid of $190,000 from Tom McCrocklin as agent.
All in all, a day that began with some uncertainty ended up making a lot of sellers – and the sales company – very happy, indeed. It continued a solid sales season in the yearling market.
“You always have a little trepidation when you come into a regional market of how is it going to translate?” Browning said. “Because we know this region’s in some transition. I think the nice thing is that there were a lot of positives to take out of the sale today, and hopefully it’s something that we can build upon moving forward and give people some confidence to breed a horse and to bring a quality horse here to sell next year and beyond.”
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