Serving as the original impetus for the current seven-year boom in the Thoroughbred auction markets was the success in the early 1990s of Barretts Equine Ltd.'s March sale of two-year-olds in training.

Japanese buyers descended on the Pomona, California, sales grounds in droves looking for runners to exploit the lucrative Japanese purse structure. Pinhookers reinvested profits from those sales in the yearling market and were largely responsible for the current upswing in the yearling market that began in 1993.

Barretts Highlights

• Saint Ballado colt equals record at $2-million
• Average price declines 20.6%
• Total receipts down 21.2%
• Buy-backs stable at high 43.5%
• David Shimmon leading buyer

By 1998, however, the California company found itself trapped by the engine of its own success. A dramatic decrease in Japanese support, caused by a stubborn recession in that nation, resulted in a 28.9% decline in total receipts for the sale. Moreover, the increase in top prices for juveniles at Fasig-Tipton's Calder sale-made possible by Barretts's success-led many Florida-based pinhookers to question whether the long and expensive trip west was worth it.

Barretts responded in the logical ways, reducing its catalog, encouraging the development of Western-based consignors, and instituting a California-bred mini-session in 1999. Those measures resulted in a record $226,752 average for Barretts March in 1999, though buy-backs soared to 43.6%.

The record average, however, was not enough to convince some Florida- and Kentucky-based consignors to return in 2000, and despite an enlarged Cal-bred session, the 2000 catalog was the smallest in history. Notably absent were pedigrees worthy of the summer selected sales.

Despite all those problems, the 2000 edition of Barretts March managed to equal the world-record price for a two-year-old in training-first set last year at Barretts-demonstrating once again that Barretts may not be on its last legs quite yet.

Expected drop

"I fully expected a drop in average price," Jerry McMahon, Barretts president and general manager, said after final figures for the March 14 sale showed a 20.6% decline in average sale price to $180,072. Total receipts declined 21.2% to $17,287,000 after only 96 horses, the lowest number in Barretts's 11-year history, were sold.

"The ongoing issue for us is always going to be who wants to come out here and sell to this buyers' base," McMahon said. "I don't think anyone can say that we didn't have plenty of buyers here. Some consignors didn't bring their blue-chip horses, and a few didn't show up at all. The question is whether we will ever get them back."

Indeed, with more Japanese buyers in attendance than in any of the past three years and representatives of all the usual suspects on site, the operative question before the sale was whether a sufficient number of quality horses were on the grounds for the number of buyers. "The quality is very thin," Irish agent Demi O'Byrne said the day before the sale.

Reiterating the most powerful trend of virtually all selected sales over the last two years, the buyers with deepest pockets focused on only a few individuals. In fact, after the final breeze show on March 12, the cynosure of all eyes was Jerry Bailey Sales Agency's almost black colt by Saint Ballado out of What a Reality, by In Reality.

Breezes in 10 flat

The half brother to stakes winners Streamer and Krikiti breezed a furlong that day in 10 seconds flat, a record for Barretts; but it was how he did it and not just the time that attracted attention. After breaking sharply, the lengthy, smooth-muscled colt truly appeared to be merely breezing along comfortably in the most impressive presale gallop since Unbridled Song's legendary "tree-swaying" breeze in 1995.

With lots of other fast times but few other horses that passed inspection of the conformation, veterinary, and pedigree gurus, every big buyer in the game was interested in the Saint Ballado colt, and trainer Craig Lewis (bidding for Al and Sandee Kirkwood) opened the bidding at $500,000. From there, bids flew so fast to a record-equaling $2-million that contenders such as The Thoroughbred Corp.'s Richard Mulhall and O'Byrne never offered a bid.

Winner at that figure was newcomer David J. Shimmon, a 41-year-old Silicon Valley entrepreneur who entered the commercial market in a major way last year, represented by trainer Robert Hess Jr. Shimmon built a semiconductor and biopharmaceutical company, Kinetics Group Inc., in Santa Clara, California, before selling the company in early 1998 for a reported $7-billion, but he remains its chief executive officer. Last year, he purchased four yearlings for $3,855,000 through Hess.

"I've been involved with horses as long as I can remember," Shimmon said. "I used to spend summers working on a ranch, and I've been going to the track since before I could get in legally. It's really been a grass-roots interest. We like the business, but we love the animals."

Shimmon was unfazed by the record price. "I think we bought an outstanding animal," he said. "There wasn't anything we didn't like about him. When you're focused on the top level, this is consistent with the prices we've been paying."

Consignor Bailey, who declined to identify the owner of the colt, said: "I didn't dream I'd ever have one of the $2-million ones, but this horse did everything perfect. He went fast, he showed really well, and he vetted miraculously well."

The colt was bred in Florida by F. Carl Schwietert and reportedly was purchased privately as a weanling by Martin Cherry.

Midcourse adjustment

Although the record-equaling price came within the sale's first 11Ú2 hours, few other horses that passed through the ring in the first half of the sale managed to find buyers. Only 21 of the first 51 horses through the ring were sold, a disastrous 58.8% buy-back rate. Then-because consignors adjusted their reserves, or buyers adjusted their lists, or the more attractive horses fell in the second half, or a combination of those factors-more sales were recorded, and the overall buy-back rate finished at 43.5%, virtually the same as last year's sale.

"I don't know what happened there," said McMahon. "I guess we lined up some better horses later. Consignors might have been a little seduced by the number of buyers here. It may have given them a little false sense of security.

"In a select-sale environment, people don't want to buy the 102nd best horse. We try to encourage California trainers to buy here, but they land on the same horses as the big buyers and get blown away."

The first half of the sale also included the second-highest-priced horse, Kirkwood Stables' Southern Halo colt out of Cause I'm Special, by Cause for Pause, who had worked an eighth with brio in :10.21. The winning $900,000 bid came through the phone to the auctioneer's stand in the name of Target Bloodstock, which appeared to be the latest buying entity of Ahmed bin Salman, whose The Thoroughbred Corp. led all buyers of two-year-olds in 1999. Kirkwood's Christopher "Kip" Elser purchased the colt for $145,000 at the 1999 Keeneland September sale.

Salman was also the apparent buyer of the third-highest-priced horse, Free Heart, a Fly So Free colt out of graded stakes winner Heartlight, by Majestic Light, who was the star of the California-bred segment at $700,000. Trainer Bob Baffert signed the ticket as agent but emerged with Salman from a private conference room at the pavilion immediately after the bidding.

Consigned by Becky Thomas Montgomery's Sequel Bloodstock as agent, the colt posted the fastest quarter-mile breeze of the sale, whizzing around the tight Pomona turn in :20.98. Sequel's Rudy Delguidice Jr. purchased the colt for $60,000 at the 1999 California Thoroughbred Breeders Association y