Inaugural Lexington Mixed Sale grosses over $4.7 million

Herb Liverman leads all buyers with nearly $1 million in purchases. Freshly-minted world-record holder Impinktoo tops sale with bid of $300,000.

by Dave Briggs

Herb Liverman had a very good reason for spending just shy of $1 million Sunday night at the inaugural Lexington Selected Mixed Sale at the Fasig-Tipton sales pavilion.

“I’m 72 years old and my wife told me, ‘You’ll be too bored sitting at home.’ So, I’m back in the breeding business.”

With the help of agent Bryan Montgomery, Liverman spent $995,000 to purchase the $300,000 sale-topper, trotting filly Impinktoo, who equalled the 1:49.4 3-year-old trotting filly world record just the day before at Red Mile.

Liverman, who was the leading buyer by a wide margin, also bought:

  •  Two shares in Muscle Hill for $150,000 apiece
  •  A share in Father Patrick for $85,000
  •  Byway, a Muscle Mass mare out of Passageway for 
 $80,000
  •  The Russian Spy, a Credit Winner mare out of Bramalea 
 Hanover for $60,000
  •  What A Knockout, a Donato Hanover mare out of 
 Southwind Sofia for $170,000

All the horses Liverman bought, along with one of the Muscle Hill shares, were consigned by Preferred Equine. The other Muscle Hill share was sold by Diamond Creek and the Father Patrick share was sold by Brittany Farms.

The sale’s co-manager David Reid said the highlight was having the opportunity to sell Impinktoo, who was sold by William Walter, Joe McLead and RTK Racing LLC, all of Ohio.

“It was an exciting night,” McLead said. “My partner and I got to spend the weekend together watching the races and got to see her do what she did – it’s been a perfect storm. You’ve got to give a lot of credit to Bill Daley, who created the foundation and, unfortunately, with his passing, his family did a great job with her. Then, when it came time to make a decision we went to Ronnie Burke and Ronnie does a great job for a lot of people and we’re just fortunate to have him create the perfect storm to come into the sale.”

“This is the first time they’ve had a mixed sale here in Lexington for many years, it looks like it was a success and they’ll be able to continue with that,” McLead said.

In all, 105 horses/stallion shares were sold, grossing $4,759,000.

The sale’s co-manager Randy Manges said he was “very pleased” with the results.

“It was a nice strong sale,” Manges said, adding that the proceeds will help support the new $1 million race for 2-year-old trotters set to debut in 2019 at Red Mile.

“It supports the race, and to do that kind of gross… what we’ll be able to give toward that race is a good chunk,” Manges said.

Fifty-nine racehorses went through the ring, grossing $2,896,000. Thirty-seven broodmares fetched a total of $1,260,000 and nine stallion shares grossed $603,000 in all.

“I’m very happy… We’re just trying to capitalize on the Lexington experience, the people are here and the crowd was good,” Reid said. “It was our first year and I think we had some people who wanted to see if we could pull it off. I think we proved that tonight and, also, people who sold yearlings here are from the region and they put their race fillies in and offered people the opportunity to race them in the upcoming stake races. I think that makes a difference and it’s actually going to grow from that,” Reid said. “You have an international crowd and great racing. It’s right before the Breeders Crown and it creates some excitement.

“I thought the crowd was good, the pace was good and the bidding was good. Overall, at the end of the day, it was a healthy market. Could we do things better? Yeah. Are we maybe going to tweak it a bit? Yeah, but I think it’s a great start. I’m happy the week is over, but then again it’s very gratifying to see that we had a successful sale tonight,” Reid said.

“We had a little bad luck… we had The Veteran in the sale, but due to an unfortunate situation he was taken out. He would’ve brought boxcar numbers. He would’ve brought more than the filly. We would’ve loved to have the horse here, because we had a huge amount of interest in the horse, but things happen and we’ll move on and wish everyone the best of luck. Go from there.”

Reid said he’s a strong believer that commerce is good for the business.

“Trade is good for the business and gives people the opportunity… You had breeders come down here and they had a great yearling sale. You’ve got people that want to sell racehorses, maybe going to Harrisburg with some cash. It creates a lot of commerce and commerce is good for the industry, the breeders and the racehorse people,” he said.