The new sale – the Fall Mixed Sale at Saratoga – was added to the Fasig-Tipton calendar after what Fasig-Tipton President Boyd Browning qualified as “a very positive yearling market at Saratoga for New York-Breds, and [the] grade 1 success at the summer meet here by the likes of New York-Bred Willy Beamin. The feed-back we were getting through the early summer was that the significant funding strides made to the New York-Bred program have created a need for this sale.”
The Fall Mixed Sale is scheduled to take place Tuesday, October 9, beginning at 11 a.m. A total of 254 horses have been catalogued, including 104 weanlings, 44 horses of racing age and/or broodmare prospects and 103 in-foal mares.
“This is a very big deal for New York racing on the whole,” said Brendan O’Meara, racing expert and author of “Six Weeks in Saratoga: How Three-Year-Old Filly Rachel Alexandra Beat the Boys and Became Horse of the Year.” He continued, “Horses sold for five figures can run for decent money at all the New York Racing Association Tracks. An extra sale could lead to new owners getting in the game, which would be a huge bonus.”
While Fasig-Tipton usually holds only two sales in Saratoga – the Saratoga Selected Yearling and the Saratoga New York Preferred Yearlings sales – a rebounding New York horse breeding community, combined with an influx of cash from slot machine and video lottery terminal (VLT) proceeds, have reinvigorated the New York-Bred market.
“[This sale] illustrates the vitality the VLT revenue has provided to purses and New York Breeders,” said O’Meara. “There’s a good chance some of these horses will run at Saratoga, but with so many more race dates and state-bred conditions at Belmont and Aqueduct, this will certainly help fill those races.”
The catalogue for the sale can now be accessed online at www.fasigtipton.com. Hard copies of the catalogue can be picked up at the New York Thoroughbred Breeders offices in Saratoga at 57 Phila Street beginning September 15.
