Fasig-Tipton holds the best yearling sale in its long history with record receipts, average

"Ten years ago to this very night, in this very room, the industry said this sale was on life support, pull the plug," D. G. Van Clief Jr., chairman of Fasig-Tipton Co., said at the conclusion of the 2001 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga sale of selected yearlings in Saratoga Springs, New York. "I've been coming to yearling sales at Saratoga since I was 14, and in all that time this is the best horse sale I can ever remember."

After sitting through an incredible final session of the three-day sale from August 7-9, the only thing surprising about such a sweeping, emotional, and understandably biased evaluation was that it was so believable.

Fasig-Tipton did not pull the plug on its flagship sale a decade ago. Instead, with the financial assistance of shareholders John Hettinger and Robert P. Levy, it fought back. Instead of turning out the lights, ten years later the company achieved, quite literally for a few minutes, a "lights out" horse sale.

Incited by what was generally agreed to be the best Saratoga catalog of physical specimens in years, final totals for the sale pushed into record territory in practically every significant category:

• Total receipts soared to a record $62,412,000, up 49%;
• Average surged 26% to a record $385,259;
• Median jumped 23.7% to a record $235,000;
• Number of seven-figure horses climbed to nine, a record; and
• Buy-backs remained low at 19.4%.

About the only meaningful record that did not fall was record individual price. After flirting with the Saratoga sale record price of $4.6-million (set in 1984) last year when a Seattle Slew colt brought $4.2-million, this year's top price was $3.3-million.

Saudi Poetry's brother

On the sale's second evening, English bloodstock agent John Ferguson, acting as usual for the Godolphin Racing stable owned by the Maktoum family, paid that price for a muscular, almost black son of leading sire Storm Cat who is a full brother to current Grade 2 winner Saudi Poetry.

"He's an outstanding colt with an outstanding pedigree," Ferguson said, "a full brother to Saudi Poetry and a very athletic horse. Sheikh Mohammed and Sheikh Maktoum (bin Rashid al Maktoum) will get together in a few months and decide whether he will be trained here or in Europe. He's the kind of horse that could go either way."

"I thought he would bring $3-million," said Duncan Taylor of Taylor Made Sales Co. "After that, you never know."

It was the second Saratoga sale topper for the Gone West mare Gone to Venus and for her owners, the Beau Ravine Farm of Edward and Pat Pavlish, since Saudi Poetry topped the 1998 Saratoga sale on a $1.7-million bid from The Thoroughbred Corp. The colt was the fourth consecutive Saratoga sale topper sold by Taylor Made, a streak that began with Saudi Poetry.

Ferguson outlasted veterinarian Robert McMartin, who was connected by cellular phone with Canadian buyer Eugene Melnyk. During that duel, Melnyk was circling Saratoga's airport in his private plane, but he made it to the sale pavilion in time to land the top filly, a lovely Canadian-bred daughter of A.P. Indy out of Canadian champion Larkwhistle, by Silver Deputy, for $2-million. Ferguson was the underbidder on the filly consigned by Anderson Farms, agent.

"She's a beautiful, athletic filly," Melnyk said. "She passed all the vetting immaculately, and we hope to race her in Canada." Melnyk has about 35 horses in training in Canada, mostly with Phil England.

"We are just so pleased that she has been bought by a Canadian," said Bob Anderson, owner of Anderson Farms. "She belonged to Mack Cuddy, my longtime partner Ron Ferguson, and myself, and she's the type we would normally keep and race ourselves. But Mack is not well, and because of that it was decided to sell. It hurts me to sell her, but the price was right dead on."

Combustible combination

With the somewhat unexpected increase in average at the recent Keeneland July sale fresh in memory, the attitude of both consignors and buyers leading up to the 2001 edition of one of Saratoga's most revered traditions was bullish.

"I don't think people have even dusted off the powder," said bloodstock agent Headley Bell.

The combustible combination of attractive, correct, athletic horses and buyers with itchy trigger fingers exploded on the third horse in the ring at the first session, on Tuesday night. Histrionic owner Roger King, whose King World Productions distributes such television shows as "Wheel of Fortune" and "Oprah," engaged Satish Sanan in a contest for an Unbridled's Song colt out of Win Crafty Lady, by Crafty Prospector. With Sanan seated two rows directly behind him, King ejected from his seat and stalked out the door to light up a cigarette when Sanan bid $1.8-million.

When King ambled back to his seat 30 seconds later and made the winning bid of $1.85-million, Sanan rose and took a few steps forward to ask if he wanted a partner. King declined. "I told him, 'I don't need a partner. I own "Oprah",' " King said.

While the Unbridled's Song colt was the opening session's only seven-figure horse, the sale heated up during the second session with the sale-topping colt and filly, plus a $2.4-million Storm Cat colt out of Miss Caerleona (Fr), by Caerleon.

A severe thunderstorm rolled through Saratoga Springs at the beginning of the third session, causing a power outage that left the first horse of the night standing patiently in eerie darkness in the sale ring.

Temperature rising

The storm signaled the end of the debilitating heat wave that had suffocated New York and New England, but it did not take any heat out of the market. Instead, the temperature inside the pavilion went up even higher, both figuratively and literally, because the emergency generators provided enough power for the lights but not the air conditioning.

A few minutes later, Demi O'Byrne and John Ferguson finally hooked up in another of their epic duels, this time over a Kingmambo colt consigned by Bettina Jenney's Derry Meeting Farm as agent. Out of Seattle Way, a Seattle Slew daughter of champion Waya (Fr), the big, handsome colt was sold to O'Byrne for $3-million after he and Ferguson countered in $50,000 increments from the $1.2-million mark.

As usual, O'Byrne had little to say about his purchase, but Jenney, presenting her first Saratoga consignment since the death last year of her husband, Marshall, was more effusive.

"I'm a little overwhelmed," she said. "I don't know how I'll get to sleep tonight. We knew he was going to bring a big price, but I didn't dream it would be that big."

The second $3-million horse of the third night went to trainer Bob Baffert, bidding by phone through Fasig-Tipton's Peter Penny, after a multifaceted exchange of bids with Nadia Sanan, David Shimmon, and O'Byrne.

From the last crop of the late, great Mr. Prospector, the smallish but racy-looking colt is the second foal of the Storm Bird mare Stone Flower, a full sister to English Group 3 winner Stonehatch and a half sister to Grade 1 winner Danger's Hour.

"That was great," said Tom VanMeter of consignor Eaton Sales. "You always hope two people will hook up and just go crazy, but that was a great price. I told everybody he was better than the $1.9-million Mr. Prospector we sold at Keeneland July."

Those were the two highest prices among five seven-figure horses on the final night, the most ever for a Saratoga sale session, and it raised the total for the sale to nine, a Saratoga record. That session also posted record total receipts for a Saratoga session of $24,787,000 and a record session average of $459,019.

Clearance rate

Despite eight consecutive years of rising prices in the bloodstock market, over the last half of that golden run consignors have found it increasingly difficult to sell more than about 65% of their offerings at almost any horse sale. Thus, perhaps the most surprising and gratifying aspect of this year's Saratoga was that 80.6% of the horses offered at the 2001 sale were listed as sold.

Actually, it was the second consecutive year that the buy-back rate at Saratoga has been around 20%, well below the 30% or higher that has become accepted grudgingly in the industry since the institution of veterinary repositories five years ago.

Consignor satisfaction was spread over all price ranges. As shown in the accompanying decile chart (see the August 18 issue), the market was undeniably strong at the top but equally buoyant in the middle and lower echelons. That top-to-bottom strength spoke volumes for the depth of quality specimens throughout the Saratoga catalog.

That same depth is reflected in the accompanying chart of returns by stud fee (see the August 18 issue). Results were good at the top of the market but even better for outstanding individuals by less-expensive sires.

After not buying a horse at the Kentucky July sales, partly as a result of distancing itself from trainer D. Wayne Lukas, the Sanan family's Padua Stables ranked as leading buyer at Saratoga, paying $6,320,000 for 14 horses, eight of them fillies. "We're trying to build a broodmare band," Satish Sanan said on opening night before leaving the bidding to his daughter, Nadia, for most of the rest of the sale.

Taylor Made again led consignors, with 23 of their 27 offerings selling for $12,912,000. Storm Cat led all sires with four horses selling for an average of $1,687,500. Grand Slam led all first-year sires.

As shown in the accompanying pinhooking chart (see the August 18 issue), only 37 of the 201 yearlings offered had been listed as sold at previous auctions. Of them, 28 were sold and provided pinhookers with a healthy $1,823,901 paper profit and an 82.2% rate of return.

Walnut Green Bloodstock, agent, scored the biggest on a Cape Town colt out of Sunday Morning, by Sunny's Halo, who had been purchased for $110,000 by Becky Thomas Montgomery's and Lewis Lakin's Lakland at the 2000 Keeneland November sale. At Saratoga, David Shimmon provided the partners with a $540,000 profit by paying $650,000 for the colt.

Few mistakes

Fasig-Tipton's management team-headed by Van Clief, President Walt Robertson, and Chief Operating Officer Boyd Browning-has made few mistakes in an increasingly giddy climb from near extinction to market ecstasy. After securing breathing space through the financial support of a group of shareholders led by Hettinger, their first move was to hire veteran pinhooker Bill Graves as director of yearling sales.

Graves, guiding the selection and recruiting process, has helped transform the Saratoga yearling sale from a sale of glittering pedigrees attached to doubtful individuals to a sale of superb individuals with pedigrees that have begun to regain some of that traditional glitter.

Although the management team declined to admit comparing its glamour sale to the Keeneland July sale of selected yearlings, total receipts at the 2001 Saratoga sale came within $800,000-in other words, about two more average Saratoga horses-of equaling Keeneland July's 2001 total.

Ten years after the lights almost went out at Saratoga, it is Keeneland July that appears to be on life support while Saratoga is fairly bursting with robust health.

Whether that radiant health is merely a sale-ring parallel to the continuing growth of the vibrant Saratoga race meet across Union Avenue is a bit more uncertain.

When asked how long Saratoga's dramatic upsurge could last, Terence R. P. Collier, Fasig-Tipton's director of publicity, said: "People have been asking that question since 1911," an ironic reference to the company's long history at the Spa.

"Six weeks ago, I wouldn't have imagined the depth and strength in this marketplace," Van Clief said. "Before the July sales began, everyone was justifiably concerned about the market."

"We had the kind of horses this year that, after we knew the market was alive and well after July, we knew it was going to be very good," Robertson said. "You have these kind of horses, the buyers show every time. I would have been disappointed if we hadn't been up big. This is not a surprise to us." The lights may have gone out briefly at the 2001 Saratoga sale, but the venerable auction remains a bright beacon in a surprisingly vibrant market.