Unusual Heat Colt Tops Barretts Yearling Sale

A colt by Unusual Heat topped the Barretts Select Yearling Sale when selling for $250,000 to Samantha Siegel's Jay Em Ess Stable Tuesday at Del Mar. The yearling (hip 11) was one of six to bring $100,000 or more during the one-session auction and three of those six-figure offerings were purchased by Siegel. Siegel, who purchased last year's sale-topping daughter of Bodemeister, also acquired a colt by Goldencents (hip 33) and a filly by Fed Biz (hip 83), both for $130,000 Tuesday evening.

In all, 42 yearlings grossed $2,632,000. The average of $62,667 was up 52.6% from a year, while the median jumped 56.3% to $50,000. With 38 horses reported not sold, the buy-back rate was 47.5%.

The sale-topping yearling was bred and consigned by Harris Farms and is from the final crop of Unusual Heat, who stood at the Coalinga nursery and led the sire lists by earnings in California in four straight years.

“The mare might not have been bred to Unusual Heat had he not stood at the farm,” said Harris Farms general manager Dave McGlothlin. “It was such a fitting way to go out with the last crop of his yearlings to have the sale topper at Del Mar.”

The yearling is out of Cinema Paradisa (Capote), who was purchased by Harris Farms for $34,000 at the 2005 Keeneland November sale. The colt is a half-brother to multiple stakes placed Moving Desert (Desert Code) and Sambamzajammin (Heatseeker {Ire}).

“We referred to him as a rock star because he was just a standout from the time he was foaled,” McGlothlin said of the sale topper. “We talked about him when he was 60-90 days old in a little paddock adjacent to the foaling barn, how outstanding he was at the time, and he maintained that throughout.”

While polarized markets–with high demand for only the top offerings–have been the norm at auctions across the country in recent years, McGlothlin said the issue is magnified in California, as reflected in the sale's hefty buy-back rate.

“The upper end always does well,” he said. “I was disappointed in the number of RNAs. We would have liked to see it a little stronger in the middle of the sale. But the market is what it is. I think it's just a matter of us having the right product for the buyers. We need to define our product probably a little more.”

“[The market] is even more polarized in California,” McGlothlin continued. “We don't have the depth of the market that exists back East with the availability of venues for them to race. We're out here on the island.”

The Select Yearling Sale was the final auction to be conducted by Barretts at Del Mar. The sales company will host one final sale, the Fall Sale of Yearlings and Horses of Racing Ages in Pomona Oct. 16. Fasig-Tipton will host a 2-year-olds in training sale at Santa Anita next June and plans for a yearling sale in Arcadia in late September.

McGlothlin said an influx of commercial stallions was pivotal to the success of the California breeding industry going forward.

“If we bring in some more strong stallions, I think the industry will support them,” he said. “But, as farms, we need to do that to give them viable options. I think we need to do more to bring in those types of stallions.”