SHSC yearling sale wraps with strong gains

by Ray Cotolo

After a strong opening session with just over 15 per cent growth in gross year over year, Dale Welk felt that momentum would carry through the rest of the yearling sessions for the 2026 Standardbred Horse Sales Company (SHSC) auction in Harrisburg, PA. The president/director of operations for the SHSC had his feelings proven correct by the end of the final yearling session on Wednesday (Nov. 4) with figures that bested the last three years of the Black Book sale.

From 886 yearlings, the 2026 Black Book sale grossed $40,040,000 with an average sales price of $45,192 compared to 2025’s gross of $36,030,000 and average of $41,701 from 864 horses — an 11.1 per cent increase in year-over-year gross and an 8.4 per cent increase in year-over-year average. The last Black Book sale to register better gross and average price figures was the 2022 sale, which grossed $44,356,000 from 904 yearlings for an average price of $49,066.

As for the third session individually, the gross of $5,762,000 represented a 6 per cent increase from 2025’s third session gross of $5,436,000. The average also increased.

“It’s proving that Standardbred is here to stay,” Dale Welk said. “It’s a regrouping; I think people need to restock and get new stock in. I was really impressed with the middle market and, today, there were some great horses sold today. Everybody thinks, ‘Wednesday, aw, doom and gloom,’ … well, there were some that went through the cracks, but overall, it was a great, great sale.

“I didn’t expect it to be quite as good as it was. I thought we’d be okay. I didn’t think it would be down, but I didn’t know. I thought we’d be kind of flat, but I’m pleasantly surprised. I guess I’d rather be a bit pessimistic and it comes out like this, than being optimistic and then something goes the other way because it gets me depressed. I’m really pleasantly surprised and I really can’t thank everyone enough – my crew, my team, the buyers, the consignors, I think everybody is pretty satisfied.”

Wednesday’s session saw a pair of Ontario-eligible prospects leave the ring for six figures. Nikway Farms Ltd. of St. David’s, NL, landed the session topper for $150,000 with Hip #724, a King Of The North colt consigned by Concord Stud Farm named Theo The King. His dam, the Guccio mare HP Guccio Girl, is a half-sister to O’Brien 2-Year-Old Trotting Colt of 2019 HP Royal Theo.

“It’s been more gaining comfort with the offerings and having confidence with the choices we’re making,” said Brent Chaffey, who operates Nikway Farms with his wife Sherry and daughter Kira. “We’re fortunate to have aligned ourselves with a really topnotch training family. The Steacys are excellent folks and they do a really nice job with the horses, so it’s just a gaining comfort level for us.

“Our dream would be to have some sort of Grand Circuit success. That’s what we’re trying to get to and today, and this week, we’ve taken a good stab at it. It’s just a hobby for us. We have another life that affords us to be able to do things like this. We need to focus on that, but what spare time we have we enjoy engaging in harness racing. We don’t do any of the work ourselves — our mares are cared for by other people, our foals are raised by other people, our trainers do all the training. We just get to show up and smile and enjoy whatever we can. Hopefully, we’ll get some success out of this.”

Along with his Wednesday session topper, the Chaffey family also took plunges during the sale on Hip #27, a Confederate colt named Caviart Andrew, for $177,000 and then bought another trotter during the second session for $62,000 with Hip #513, a Captain Corey colt named Saquon Hanover.

“We did our own research, but we really depended a lot on the advice of our trainer to help guide us through the dos and the don’ts, what things to look for and what things to avoid,” Brent said. “When we boiled it all down, this is where we ended up. We tried a few more, but we didn’t get… they were going to people who were not going to stop. So, I said, ‘Look, we don’t need to beat our brains out here, we might as well just go on and find something that we’re more comfortable with.’ That’s what led us to this.”

Another Canadian, conditioner John Pentland, hit the leaderboards Wednesday when he snagged the other six-figure yearling of the day in Hip #682, a Bulldog Hanover colt consigned by Concord Stud Farm named Waco. The colt, selling for $100,000, is out of the Somebeachsomewhere mare Endless Summer, who is a half-sister to world champions and double millionaires Rock N Roll Heaven and Clear Vision.

“Well, there’s only about three quarters of a horse; he’s a little on the small side,” Pentland said. “He’s not tiny, he’s good. He’s super made, perfect conformation, really well-made colt. He gave away a little bit on size. I bought the horse and I was right beside Linda Toscano and her owner and they were the underbidders. They were really nice. They got up after and congratulated me and we chatted. Richard [Gutnick] said that the whole family is that size, good horses or bad horses doesn’t matter… Rock N Roll Heaven, all of them, they are all that size, so that was really nice of him to tell me that.”

Pentland, an ever-present face every year at the major yearling sales, also represents yet another player who has increased his holster thanks to a generational stable star. Back in 2024, Pentland and his partners took a chance in the second session on a son of Bulldog Hanover named Redland Rocket Man, who has since parlayed his $30,000 sale price into nearly $800,000 in earnings including a classic victory in the Grade 1 Little Brown Jug and a Canadian record with a 1:46.4 win over reigning Horse of the Year Beau Jangles in the Grade 3 Simcoe Stakes at Woodbine Mohawk Park.

“I’ve got really good support from some partners,” Pentland said. “They realize that if we’re going to get a Bulldog, we’re going to have to step to the plate. When I started doing the math, dividing things by four isn’t that hard. The boys all wanted a quality horse, so we had to step up to get it. I said after [Redland Rocket Man] broke that Canadian record, ‘This is a whole lot of fun, this glamor-boy thing.’ I’ve got tons of fillies. I don’t really like training trotters as much, so I can’t just train 15 fillies every year, so it all works out well.”

Increasing his Harrisburg investment twofold in 2026, Pentland also snatched another Bulldog Hanover for $70,000 with Hip #765 consigned by Vieux Carre Farms, a colt named Bull Ring whose great granddam is the world champion Rainbow Blue.

Overall, Bulldog Hanover progeny ranked second among average sale prices from pacing stallions at the 2026 Black Book sale bested only by perennial pacing leader Sweet Lou. On the trotting side, Walner and Chapter Seven remained one-two on top of the average price leaderboard.

All attention in the Farm Show Complex shifts to the Mixed Sale with more yearlings along with broodmares, stallion shares, broodmare prospects and the Spring Station dispersal today (Nov. 5) and racehorses on Friday (Nov. 6) with the highlight being the auction of defending Horse of the Year Beau Jangles.

“I’m real excited for the Mixed Sale,” Welk said. “We’re down a couple hundred horses, but the horses we’ve got there are some incredible, incredible animals and I think it’s going to bode well for them because there are not as many to pick through. What’s here is good, really good. I think that’s what’s going on with the online [auctions], but when there’s a superstar, they want to sell it here. I’m not plugging my own sale; I’m just saying that that’s where they sell and they do well here.”

The opening session of the Mixed Sale begins at 11 a.m. (EST).