by Pete Denk

Pennsylvania homebuilder Ed Stevenson outbid perennial top buyer Jay Em Ess Stable to buy a Holy Bull colt for $320,000 on Wednesday, the final day of the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic Eastern fall yearling sale.

Fireworks were few and far between during the three-day auction at the Maryland State Fairgrounds in Timonium, as only ten horses sold for six figures, compared with 27 in 2007.

Fasig-Tipton reported 483 of 753 yearlings offered as sold for $8,211,600, a 38.4% decline from last year when 574 yearlings sold for $13,331,400.

The average price of $17,001 was a 26.8% drop from last year and the lowest since 2002.

“You never want to be down, but everything in the world is down, especially this segment of the market,” said Fasig-Tipton Chairman Walt Robertson. “We damn sure knew it was gonna be tough under $30,000. It has been all year, and the [economic turmoil on Wall Street] this week sure didn’t help.

“I’ve heard some people say we had better horses last year, but I don’t know that’s the case. I think it’s just where we are today.”

Median declined 10% to $9,000. The buy-back rate was 35.9%, compared with 25.2% a year ago.

The sale topper was a gift to Ed Stevenson from his uncle Donald.

“We’ve been in the building business for 30 years. I’ve worked with my uncle since the time I was tenor 11 years old and then we were partners for about 30 years,” Ed Stevenson said. “I live on a farm [in Bedminster, Pennsylvania]. I’m 54 years old and semi-retiring, and I thought it would be nice to race some horses and have foals on the farm. I’m trying to slowly ease out of the building business and into the horses.”

The Stevenson family’s Cavanaugh Breen Farm purchased a Holy Bull filly named Holy Okie Dokie for $12,000 at last year’s Eastern fall yearling sale. They lost Holy Okie Dokie to the claim box for $25,000 on Tuesday at Delaware Park.

“[Holy Okie Dokie] was really our first starter. We really liked the horse and we had some fun, so we kinda came down looking for another Holy Bull,” Ed Stevenson said. “We weren’t expecting to go this high on this colt, but my uncle said go ahead and buy it. Basically, we didn’t want to stop.”

The sale topper will be sent to Ocala for breaking and will be trained by Guadalupe Preciado. The colt is out of the stakes-placed winning Citidancer mar Disco Darlin’ and was bred in Pennsylvania by Classic Thoroughbred XVIII, a partnership of Herb and Ellen Moelis, Jim Ferguson, and Mike Lipper.

The Moelis’s Candyland Farm in Middletown, Delaware, co-bred, raised, and consigned the colt. Candyland led all consignors with 19 horses sold for $823,700 at the Eastern fall yearling sale.

Candyland’s Mike Palmer said everyone was extremely excited about their first sale topper.

“It was unbelievable, a lot of fun. He went well above our expectations, but he is a very, very nice colt—strong, sturdy, and one of the smoothest Holy Bulls I’ve ever seen,” Palmer said. “I knew everybody was on him, but I didn’t realize it would be this amount of money.”

Trainer Chad Brown, representing former harness driver Malvern Burroughs of Saratoga Springs, New York, purchased the highest-priced female, a $105,000 filly by first-crop sire Purge, on Tuesday. Paramount Sales, agent, consigned the filly out of Canadian champion two-year-old filly Brusque, by Canaveral.

M & B Bloodstock purchased 12 yearlings for $409,500 to lead all buyers.

For hip-by-hip results, click here.

Pete Denk is sales editor for Thoroughbred Times