What Was That?

What did I just watch?

In the end it felt like this sale was much more of a “select sale”. I was very surprised by the strength at the bottom end of the sale.

Take hip #557 near the end of the sale. None of the Classic Empire’s worked very fast, and this one worked a very horrible 10.3. Yet a smart buyer bought him for $70,000. Why? It almost feels like they had wanted to buy a Classic Empire yearling, and gave this horse credit for just showing up. I have dozens of example like this. The Temple City I liked but worked a slow 10.2 still sold for $42,000, same thing for the Keen Ice that worked 10.2 and sold for $40,000. These prices were strong despite the lack of the Korean buyers.

In the end average and median ended up 35% to 40% higher than last year, and buybacks fell from about 40% to 20%. There were also fewer “mysterious withdrawals”. It was clearly a “bull market” for horses. The prices at the high end were not that surprising, except maybe for the prominence of the Japanese buyers.

I was thrilled with the two horses I “bought” on the first day. Both were bought with price discipline, and the real buyers were smart folk. Clearly the second day buys were “chasing” a bull market.

1. #195 – f – Lea – Sassy’s Dream by Flower Alley – 3/14 foal – $20,000
2. #179 -c – Shaman Ghost – Repossee by Officer – foaled 5/9 – $45,000
3. #448 – c – Maclean’s Music – Dazzling by Galileo, 3/23 foal – $120,000
4. #461 – c – American Freedom – Divine Happiness by Divine Park, 5/12 foal – $260,000

Other things of note:

1. The Japanese bought the 9.4 American Freedom for “only” $160,000 early in the sale #41
2. Spendthrift paid $550,000 for the Violence by LDK mare that worked 9.4, #48
3. The median price for the 9.4’s was $190,000, making my guess of $120,000 look silly
4. The 9.4 Midnight Storm sold for $240,000 to my new friends at DJ Stable
5. The 9.4 Gormley sold for $550,000
6. The sale topper was a $750,000 daughter of Practical Joke
7. Both 9.4 Into Mischief’s sold for “only” $500,000 to the same Japanese buyer
8. The 10.0 were a mixed bag, a $550,000 Munnings, a $500,000 Candy Ride, a $300,000 Tonalist, a $290,000 Connect, but also some bargains with 20 selling for less than $100,000
9. My favorite 10.0 was $130,000 by Patrick Biancone for a Gormley with nice distance pedigree
10. The big surprise to me was 25 horses that worked 10.1 sold for $100,000 or more, 43 sold for less than $100,000, putting the median about $75,000, more than twice my best guess before the sale. This is where the “inflation” occurred. Given the high number of 9.4 and 10.0, these 10.1’s could have been 75th percentile works.
11. The were 11 works of 10.2 or higher that sold for $80,000 or more
12. The median for the 20.4 and better works was $250,000, so my American Freedom was a median buy, the median for the 21.0 was $190,000, and the median 21.1 was $100,000