SHSC yearling sale tough to predict, but the mixed sale is expected to be gangbusters

Despite coming off the most successful mixed sale in Standardbred Horse Sales Company history, this year’s auction features several major dispersals and opportunities for people to upgrade their breeding stock.

by Dave Briggs / additional quotes by James Platz

Stopping for a brief break in the two-week setup process for the 87th Standardbred Horse Sales Company (SHSC) mega-auction running Monday (Nov. 3) through Friday (Nov. 7) at the Pennsylvania State Farm Show Complex, sales company president and director of operations Dale Welk said he is “very optimistic” about the three-day yearling sale that runs through Wednesday (Nov. 5), but positively excited about the two-day mixed sale that starts Thursday (Nov. 6).

“I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a stronger mixed sale,” Welk said, despite the fact the 2024 mixed sale alone produced both the highest gross ($31,608,000) and average ($52,945) in SHSC history. “The problem is that [this year] it’s at the expense of several really nice and really good people and farms.

“There’s some tremendous mares and even race fillies, but it’s bittersweet too, because this is it for All American. Jules Siegel [of Fashion Farms] is having, pretty much, a total dispersal and Mark [Mullen of Fair Winds Farm] is dispersing everything except some weanlings that he might sell next year as yearlings, but I haven’t really spoken to him about it. I would imagine that’s his plan. The other one is the Katz and Libfeld [partnership dissolution]. It’s sad to see so lengthy of a partnership just go away.”

Yet, Welk said it’s a unique opportunity for breeders to acquire some amazing breeding stock and stallion shares.

“I’d be surprised if either one of them would let Ariana G go,” Welk said of the Katz and Libfeld homebred mare (selling as Hip #1196 out of the Preferred consigning) that earned nearly $2.5 million and won Dan Patch and O’Brien Awards at 2- and 3- (with an additional Dan Patch at 4). “And, she’s in foal to Walner. She’s definitely one at the top ones.”

Tom Grossman, owner of Blue Chip Farms, said this year’s mixed sale reminds him of the days before online auctions when, “book two was a very big deal and you had a feeling for what was out there as opposed to just waiting for them to pop up on onGait. So this is really, I think, a throwback to seven or eight years ago.

“I’m a big fan of onGait, and onGait has, I think, done a tremendous amount of help for the industry in terms of making it easier for horses to get to where they’re most valued and bred where they’re most valued. But these dispersals are best in person.

“I think the bidding for the mixed sale will be aggressive because the industry is in good shape. The purses are as high as they’ve been, and everyone’s going to be looking to upgrade the broodmare band for sure.”

That includes Blue Chip.

“Like every other breeder, I always wind up buying more than I want because somehow you never really get to take money out of the business,” Grossman said. “So, if our yearling sale goes as I hope, we’ll be putting a lot of that money to work back in book two.”

Patti Murphy, the farm manager at Hanover Shoe Farms, said the renowned Pennsylvania farm will, “definitely be looking” at upgrading its broodmare band after selling almost all of its yearlings the first three days of the auction. “We’re a little boxed in because we have three sons of Somebeachsomewhere and two sons of Chapter Seven. So we need to expand our broodmares to jive with our stallions. So it will give us a nice opportunity.”

Julie Meirs said her family’s Concord Stud Farm will also be looking to upgrade. Just how much they will be able to spend will depend on how their yearlings sell, as well.

“I think you have to constantly be upgrading, but we’re just going to have to see if it’s going to be in our budget, in our price range,” Meirs said. “We’ll know much more after Wednesday night what we’ll be able to do.

“We’re pretty active at the mixed sale. Our payday comes once a year. We’re just the farm, we don’t have another business that’s inserting cash when it’s needed. Our mixed sale is definitely where we are adding more mares. We do make an effort to add a couple mares each year, just to stay up and current.”

She said a harsh reality of the market is also something that speaks well of the health of the standardbred industry.

“Each year it’s been getting harder and harder to get those top ones, which is wonderful for the industry with those big mares having their residual value,” Meirs said. “I think that has had an impact on selling fillies as yearlings, because [buyers] are able to see that they’re going to be able to get out and not be losing money at the end.”

Hunterton’s Steve Stewart said he likely can’t resist improving his broodmare band, as well.

“There’s always interest,” Stewart said. “I always make the joke to all our partners, ‘We’re not buying anything this year. We’ve got enough.’ If you look back on the millions we’ve spent as a group all the way from Jiggy Jog to all the mares we’ve bought the last three or four years, I think a lot of times people don’t realize when you buy, it’s three years before you sell something, and that’s if the mare gets in foal and has a good foal, and there’s a lot of ifs along the way. So do we need to buy another mare? No. Will we buy mares? Yes.

“We’ve got more than enough mares in the pipeline coming, but I will say that dispersals are a great opportunity… and we’ve probably made as much or more money than anybody on buying from Perretti when he dispersed and buying from White Birch when they dispersed. So it’s really an opportunity for people.

“And that’s the fun of those sales because it can be a lifetime of people breeding, and then for whatever reason, they get out. You know, the one thing that people are saying about the sale is, ‘Oh, gosh, is this saying something that there’s so many dispersals?’ And it’s not. It wasn’t when Perretti sold out. It wasn’t when Castleton sold out 25 years ago, and it’s not now. You know, it’s just a matter of the course of history where most of it is all people getting older. I don’t think it’s a reflection on the industry at all.

“It was a great buying opportunity. Now, it won’t be as easy as it was 5, 10, 15 years ago when those other people were selling out. You know, the broodmares have really elevated and they followed suit with the yearlings. So we got lucky and bought a lot of mares, Jolene Jolene, for $200,000. Even Mission Brief at $600,000 was obviously a bargain basement price, as it’s turned out. So we’ve benefitted, we’ve bought a lot of mares at the dispersals because of the opportunity that it presents.”

As for the yearling sale, it’s coming off a 2024 auction in which the gross was $37,091,000 and the average was $44,284. The sale’s record for gross came in 2022 when $44,366,000 worth of yearlings were sold. The record average of $54,653 was set in 2021.

Welk said this year’s sale is “hard to predict” despite it being a strong catalog.

“I can’t predict it, I wish I could,” Welk said. “Ten, 15 years ago, I could get within a few thousand dollars of what a yearling would bring. Now an $80,000 yearling brings $20,000 and a $20,000 yearling brings $150,000.

“That’s what makes it fun in a way. [Last year we] sold three million-dollar horses in three different categories – a yearling, a mare and a racehorse.”

On the last day of last year’s mixed sale, trotting colt Amazing Catch fetched the highest bid ever recorded at a standardbred auction when he sold for $1.85 million to Greg Luther. Yearling Cambridge Hanover sold for $1 million during the opening session of the yearling sale and broodmare Hot Mess Hanover, the dam of Jiggy Jog S, sold for $1 million during the opening session of the mixed sale.

This year, all Welk knows for sure is the SHSC will sell, “some tremendous yearlings – full sisters, half-sisters and half-brothers to some of the top horses in racing right now.

“We’re strong in trotting fillies,” he said. “The pacing side is not bad, but we’ve got fillies out of some of the top horses that are racing this year.”

Welk said it’s tough to find an accurate bellwether for the SHSC yearling sale. The major thoroughbred sales have been off the charts this year. But, the Lexington Selected Yearling Sale, while grossing over $60 million for just the fourth time in history, was down in total sales and average this year compared to 2024.

“Lexington has been so high and you can’t have record-breakers every single sale,” said Rob Tribbett, general manager of All American Harnessbreds. “If you presented the buyers with an attractive horse, they were more than willing to purchase it. Maybe if you didn’t have a stallion or a mare that they liked, then they didn’t want to purchase it, but there was plenty of interest in the horses throughout, really, the whole sale. We sold some super nice horses on the last day and there was plenty of interest on those horses, as long as they met the mark.”

Welk said the SHSC bases its predictions, “a little bit on the thoroughbred sales, how they are selling, and how things are going there,” Welk said. “Of course, Lexington, we look at that because it’s important and even some of the regional sales… We just take an overall big picture.”

Tribbett is also immersed in the thoroughbred business. He said the thoroughbred sales have benefitted tremendously from extremely favorable U.S. tax laws.

“We continue to see the tax benefits for the purchasers of racing stock,” Tribbett said. “This can’t be overstated and it’s just an advantage for anyone who has any interest in participating in standardbred racing – that depreciation really makes your dollar go a lot further because of the tax advantage that you’re getting.

“I think with the strong, different jurisdictions that we’re seeing it’s really one of the best times that you could be an owner of a standardbred.”

He also pointed to the fact that the SHSC auction is the last major chance to purchase a standardbred this year and it comes after most of the major stakes races are done and owners have earned their money.

“We just saw at the Fasig-Tipton October thoroughbred sale, the last thoroughbred yearling sale, that even the last day it was as strong as anything just because this is the last chance to purchase a yearling, basically,” Tribbett said.

“The one thing I think that buyers should be aware of is that you probably should be pretty in-tune to working the sale from beginning to end because I think your dollar can really go far in that first couple of days so you don’t get caught in a situation where you’re trying to buy five more horses when there’s only 100 more horses left in the sale.

“Really smart buyers are really trying to work the whole sale, because the best horses might be Hip 1 and it might be Hip 900. We don’t know. I really think that you’re better working it hard early because if you lay off and still need 10, you might not get another shot. We saw at the thoroughbred sale, we sold 1,600 and it was tougher to buy the horses in the last 100 than in the first 100, just because of the demand that was created.

As for the mental toll of trying to predict something that is difficult to predict, Welk said the late Geoff Stein who operated Preferred Equine with David Reid, summed it up best years ago.

“Geoff said, ‘Dale, the biggest thing you’ve got to do is just don’t base everything on average,” Welk said. “Wait until the end of the year and average all the sales out.’

“Over the years that’s happened, and especially after taking over as president [of the SHSC]. You know, last year was a little off in the middle. I think the middle market is really tough, but the high end is the high end. I let it get to me a little bit, but then I always refer back to what Geoff told me. He sat with me in the office the first time I was manager, just to give me a little insight on some of the people I didn’t know and things like that, but that was some of the best advice I think I ever got from Geoff.”

In the end, Welk said he’ll be satisfied if the customers are, as well.

“My big concern is that my consignors and the people and owners are as happy as they can be, satisfied,” Welk said.