yearling sales

With the yearling sales now in full swing TDN quizzes industry figures on past purchases, life during lockdown and gets their perspective on the sales for the next few weeks. Nicolas de Watrigant answers our questions today. TDN:  What was your best yearling purchase over the last few years? And your favourite? NDW: From the 2014 Arqana August sale, Qemah (Ire) (Danehill Dancer {Ire}) was definitely one of the very best horses I have purchased. Winning both the Prix Rothschild G1 at Deauville and the G1 Coronation S. during Royal...

Machmer Hall Farm, the breeder of champion Tepin and Grade I-winners Gift Box, Vyjack, Money Multiplier, So Perfect, have launched a sales consignment operation to focus specifically on yearling sales in North America. Machmer Hall owners, Sandy Fubini and Craig and Carrie Brogden, along with Amy Bunt and Mullikin Thoroughbreds, are the principals of the new company, named Machmer Hall Sales. The group has enjoyed success pinhooking Mind Your Biscuits and Flat Out. Among services available, the new organization will advise on matings, sale placements and pinhooking. The operation will...

It has been both a good week and a bad week for women in British racing. Hollie Doyle has already featured in this column on several occasions this season but when her achievements make the evening news bulletin on BBC Radio 4, then it's worth revisiting the subject of this fast-rising jockey. When lockdown started, and racecourses in Europe were shuttered for at least two months, it was Doyle's partner Tom Marquand who grabbed the headlines with his Group 1-winning rides in Australia. Marquand is still 10 wins ahead of...

Lane's End's Grade I-winning millionaire sire Connect is just weeks from seeing his first yearlings enter the sales ring. The son of top sire Curlin was recognized for his commercial appeal with his weanlings last year, and the farm hopes to emulate that success again this fall. Advertised at a $20,000 stud fee for the past three years, his first weanlings averaged $65,120 with 29 of 38 sold. "Connect was well supported last fall with his first crop of weanlings averaging nearly four times his stud fee," said Allaire Ryan,...

The catalog for the world-renowned Keeneland September Yearling Sale, to be held Sept. 13-25, is now online and features 4,272 offerings. Book 1, which features 448 yearlings, will run Sept. 13 and 14 with each season beginning at noon, followed by a dark day Sept. 15. Selling resumes Sept. 16 with the first of two Book 2 sessions, beginning at 10 a.m. Books 3-6 will each be comprised of two sessions, also beginning at 10 a.m. Keeneland has enhanced its online catalog for buyers and sellers for the 2020 September...

In just five weeks, the annual Keeneland September Yearling Sale will be underway. Despite unprecedented challenges and ongoing uncertainty, it will mark the start of a marathon of events for Keeneland and its future President and CEO Shannon Arvin. "We've got a long fall," said Arvin, who now serves as Interim Head of Sales and will be officially named President-elect on September 1. "We've got the September Sale, the October race meet, the Breeders' Cup that we're so excited about and then we've got the November Breeding Stock sale to...

Overseas buyers are an ever-increasing fixture of the American yearling sales. It is not only the big-spending Maktoum family and Coolmore partners who are vital to the health of the market; an international presence stimulates spending at all levels of trade, fueled by visitors from all across Europe-not least the pinhookers who have enjoyed so much success with their buys at the breeze-ups-and Asia, Australasia and the Middle East. Global travel restrictions resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic have, naturally, caused some unrest in the minds of sellers as they put...

Working in racing has always been a stressful occupation; a roller-coaster of emotions, triumphs and tragedies, long hours and travel. Add a global pandemic and unprecedented economic worry, with many participants fearing for their health, livelihoods and businesses, and the stress can become almost overwhelming. It's the sort of topic many people don't like to talk about, but we asked several industry participants to open about what particular stresses they were feeling during these very concerning times, and how they were dealing with them. CRAIG BANDOROFF, Denali Stud  This business...

The Keeneland September Sale, scheduled to take place one day later than the 2019 renewal, will commence Sunday, Sept. 13. With over 6,000 yearlings currently entered, the 2020 sale runs through Sept. 28. The deadline for withdrawal is Friday, June 12. The format of Books 1 and 2 will remain the same as last year, with approximately 1,330 yearlings on offer during the first week. The dark day will be Wednesday, Sept. 16. An additional 3,000 yearlings--375 per session--will be offered through eight days of selling during Week 2; Books...

The extended hiatus in the Thoroughbred business is forcing changes to the accepted calendar and offers the opportunity to make others. The extent of the issues to be resolved will be uncertain for some time, but there are two inevitable challenges to be faced: depression of the economy will reduce demand at the sales and there will be a loss of income for racing owing to reduced betting activity. There is one change to the sales schedule which would be constructive in the long term and pragmatic in the short:...

There is one thing about the delayed start to the flat season-it means that more trainers are still riding Classic dreams than is normally the case by mid-May. Mark Johnston is the winningmost trainer in British history-he has saddled 4508 winners in the country-and each year since 2017 he has sent out in excess of 200 winners in a season. So chances are Johnston has more than a few horses in his Kingsley Park Yard in Yorkshire to look forward to when racing in Britain resumes presumably early next month....

Selling Thoroughbred horses online has never quite caught on in the U.S. as buyers and their advisors are obviously reluctant to purchase a horse they cannot examine in person. But a West Virginia-based auction company is forging ahead with an ambitious online sale later this month, its owners confident that Thoroughbred racing is ready to accept the online marketplace. "In 2000, if you asked me if this is going to work I would have said no," said Tim Jennings, who runs ThoroughbredAuctions.com with his wife, Cathy. "I just didn't think...