NEWS
Select Sales enters consignment game at Fasig-Tipton July
Posted: Wednesday, July 22, 2009 2:12 PM
by Pete Denk
A yearling market in decline is not an ideal place to debut as a consignor, but Select Sales managed a successful beginning at the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky July sale of selected yearlings.
Select Sales’s partners are bloodstock agent Tom Ryan, Craig and Carrie Brogden, and Carrie’s mother, Sandy Willwerth. Willwerth and the Brogdens own Machmer Hall in Paris, Kentucky.
Machmer Hall’s accomplishments include co-breeder credits of multiple Grade 1 winner Premium Tap. Machmer Hall sold about $4-million worth of horses last year through various consignors.
Carrie Brogden sees Select Sales not only as a chance to sell her family’s homebreds and partnership pinhooks, but a stepping stone to get more involved in the industry.
“I want to get more involved in the Breeders’ Cup and I want to be involved in creating a bigger fan base for the sport,” said Carrie Brogden, 35. “So for me personally, the sale company not only gives us an outlet to sell our own horses and client horses, but it gives me a chance to hopefully get more involved in pushing the industry forward.”
The Kentucky-based consignment offered nine horses and sold yearlings for total sales of $327,000 at the July sale.
“I was really happy with our first consignment,” said Select Sales General Manager Andrew Cary, who was sales director for Hill ‘n’ Dale Sales Agency from 2006 to ’08 and branched out this year into syndicates with Thoroughbred Racing Futures.
“The response was positive. People thought we ran an efficient consignment with good card people. No customers were kept waiting or left in a huff, and we didn’t have any horses get loose.”
There were not any home runs, but the sale produced a handful of profitable pinhooks for the new venture, including an It’s No Joke colt (Hip #56) that went from a $4,000 Keeneland November breeding stock sale weanling to a $40,000 July yearling and a Stephen Got Even colt (Hip #364) bought for $10,000 at the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Co. winter mixed sale who resold for $55,000 at the July sale.
Select Sales also picked up two new clients, who were impressed with the operation.
“It’s hard out there, so I thought the sale went phenomenal for where we are at,” said Carrie Brogden, who has earned a reputation as a shrewd weanling–to-yearling pinhooker.
“Carrie can see around corners. That’s the way I see it,” said the Irish-born Ryan, 33. “I think we’ve assembled a good team. Combine this with the fact we’ve entered 74 for [the] Keeneland September [yearling sale], it was a bloody good effort first time out."
Pete Denk is Thoroughbred Times sales editor
