Through three days the gross is a record $58.5 million — up $3 million from last year — and the average is over $96,000. With two sessions to go, the sale is just over $6.8 million away from smashing last year’s jaw-dropping gross total of $65,2889,000.

quotes by James Platz / story by Dave Briggs

There appears to be no ceiling to the Lexington Selected Yearling Sale. Records were set across the board during Wednesday’s (Oct. 4) third session.

Through three days, the sale gross of $58,485,000 is up 5.4 per cent from last year’s previous record gross of $55,494,000 through three days.

With two sessions to go, the sale is about $6.8 million off last year’s complete sale gross of $65,2889,000. Last year, the last two sale sessions combined grossed close to $10 million. So, a new all-time sale gross is certainly possible this year.

This year’s cumulative average of $96,351 is a new sale standard (up 1.4 per cent from 2022). A record 226 yearlings have sold for $100,000 or more, up 37 yearlings from last year’s record of 189.

As for the third session alone, it smashed records for gross ($13,021,000, up 8.6 per cent), average ($52,717, up 3.3 per cent) for 247 yearlings sold and $100,000+ yearlings (29, up four yearlings from last year).

“Not only gross, but to sell 12 more horses and have the average go up three per cent gross up eight per cent and median steady at $40,000 [is rewarding],” said sale co-manager David Reid. “The number of $100,000 yearlings is up, too. Trotters definitely ruled the roost today.

“It just goes back to the strength of the market. Today we sold some regional horses. Green Manalishi popped in here, some Love Yous that were Kentucky eligibles. Now, we’re getting into another tier of horses and I think the strength has been showing well. It feels that way, without reading it in any detail.

“You try to lay out the sale as best as possible, but there’s always a certain ‘guess’ element and a certain ‘luck’ element. You have to be lucky and you have to be good and if you happen to have luck, you look smarter than some other years.

“Trotting fillies were especially strong. From a financial point of view, it’s a cyclical business and we’ve always said that. People will see the result of the first two and if you’re selling a trotting filly on day 3, it definitely impacts the value. People are in the back of their mind saying, ‘We need good pedigrees, we need quality individuals… looking down the road if we can acquire a filly with good pedigree and she does anything on the racetrack, she could be in our broodmare band.’ I think we’re starting to see some of that as well.”

SESSION TOPPER BROUGHT $435,000

The session topper was Hip #440 Mybffannee, a Tactical Landing filly out of Avalicious that is a full-sister to Karl. Mybffannee was purchased by Nancy Takter for $435,000 from the Crawford Farms consignment.

“We’re really excited,” said Michelle Crawford. “We had a lot of people really interested in her and obviously Karl has paved the way for the mare and a full sister, how can you go wrong? She’s a really nice individual and, I think, for us it’s our personal best selling at the sale, which we love so much. We’re over the moon.”

Crawford Farms is the sale’s fourth leading consignor by gross through four days. They have sold 46 yearlings for a total of $5,364,000, including one mare that traces her lineage back to when Al Crawford’s parents had Crawford Farms.

“It’s the best year we’ve ever had, by far,” Al said. “It’s a lot of work and we’ve put a lot of money into the business… The trotting side, our trotting mares, are much stronger than our pacing mares, so it’s nice to see. We’ve done a lot of the crossing and worked on five generations. So, [it’s great to] see it pay off like that.”

Takter said she has had good luck with Tactical Landing offspring.

“I’ve trained two colts and one won the Hambletonian and the other is Karl, who is undefeated and the fastest colt in the country as of now, so I had to go back to what’s working for me and hopefully he continues to do so,” she said. “They are all very athletic. Tactical Landings have been very good-gaited, at least the ones I’ve had. Just good, athletic, racing-looking… they seem to cover a lot of ground and they all seem to have a really good attitude.”

Another Tactical Landing filly — Hip #509 Lisbon, out of Swing It Cathy — was sold for $375,000 to Determination Stable out of the Hunterton consignment.

Through three days, Hunterton holds a slight lead over Reid’s Preferred Equine in consignor gross — $9,679,000 to $9,580,000.

“It’s very rewarding for us, because the reason why we’re doing so well is because we believed in the business when a lot of people did not,” said Hunterton’s Steve Stewart. “A few years ago when Perretti sold out, because he died… and White Birch sold out, because he died… George Segal sold a lot of mares because of his age and his family doesn’t want to do it. He didn’t want to saddle them with a bunch of horses. People saw that from the outside and thought, ‘They must know something.’ We kept saying, ‘No, they don’t.’ It was for a reason. Castleton Farm sold out because Van Lennep died. Armstrong Bros., Yankeeland, Walnut Hall, Almahurst – just go down the list of all the people that were at the top of the rung 10 to 15 years ago and they just aren’t here anymore, but we believed in the industry, so now we have a lot of product and it’s a lot harder to buy the factories now.”

Kentuckiana Farms is the third leading consignor by gross, with $8,324,000 in sales.

“We came with a very correct, athletic group of yearlings, so we felt they were going to do okay,” said Kentuckiana’s Bob Brady. “As far as home-run horses, you never know which is going to be the hot horse, but this is the first time in probably a dozen years that I really couldn’t identify which was going to be the sale topper. We had a really evenly-balanced group and I kind of like that, not just having one big hitter. We probably had lots of horses that could take that spot.

“It’s been a tremendous sale. I think it’s probably beat everybody’s expectations. We all expected, with the quality of the stock that was here from top to bottom, that it was going to be a pretty strong sale, but you never know until the bidding starts of how it’s going to really go.”

The top three consignors by average (three or more sold) are All American Harnessbreds ($146,000), Hanover Shoe Farms ($135,720) and Hunterton ($129,053).

ALAGNA REMAINS TOP BUYER

Through three sessions, trainer Alagna has spent $4,382,000, total, to purchase 29 yearlings. He bought five more on Wednesday afternoon, spending $307,000 to do so.

Bill Pollock remains second on the buyer list, with $3,550,000 spent, despite not buying any yearlings on Wednesday.

Marcus Melander, agent, is third with $2,305,000 spent on nine yearlings, total.

WALNER LEADING ALL SIRES

Chapter Seven continues to lead the sires in gross sales ($7,498,000), but first-crop sire Gimpanzee is the top sire by average, with more than three yearlings sold. Twenty-one Gimpanzees sold are averaging $168,238.

Walner is second by gross ($6,191,000). The top pacing sire is now first-crop stallion Tall Dark Stranger ($5,526,000).

The fourth session of the sale gets underway today at 1 p.m. at the Fasig-Tipton sales pavilion.

“I think it’s going to be similar to today,” Reid said. “I think probably the median and average will be down a bit, which is the industry standard of the way it has been in history, but I think there will be lots of boots on the ground and there’s a lot of quality horses offered [today]. I think value buyers will be here participating and hopefully having good luck doing that. People around here [yesterday], you could sense that they might have pulled back, but [today] they know there’s another 200-plus horses selling and they can be a little choosy and picky if their budget is $30,000 or $40,000 or whatever. They’ll work out a game plan and hopefully be successful buying something.”