Louisiana Dominates Texas Yearling Sale

The Fasig-Tipton Texas Yearling Sale just keeps trudging along. Held in the stable area of Lone Star Park at Grand Prairie, a track mired in Magma Entertainment mismanagement, bankruptcies and an elongated ownership change in recent years; and in a state where legislators who appear allergic to the horse racing and breeding industry; the sale has wavered little. Looking at the 2011 numbers after Tuesday’s sale, the trend continues.

“We thought we had a very solid sale,” said Tim Boyce, Fasig-Tipton Texas Sale Director. “We weren’t high fiving anybody after that sale, but in this economy, flat is the new up.”

Fasig-Tipton, the Kentucky-based auction company formed in 1898, has been conducting the Yearling Sale in Texas since Lone Star Park first opened for racing in 1997. Looking at the sale’s history going back to 2002 as published on the Fasig-Tipton website, the previous nine Texas Yearling Sales averaged $11,582 per yearling sold. Tuesday, 225 yearlings sold for $10,628. Last year, 214 yearlings sold for an average of $11,119.

During the last ten Texas Yearling Sales, the highest average was $13,623 for the 241 yearlings sold at the 2007 sale. The lowest average occurred in 2005 when 323 sold for an average of $10,325.

This year, there were several yearlings sold with no reserve as part of the Heiligbrodt Racing Dispersal. An additional 42 thoroughbred sold after the yearling sale as part of the third phase of the Heiligbrodt Racing Dispesal. Those two factors had an adverse effect on the average price of this year’s sale as several of those yearlings left the sale ring Tuesday after the gavel fell at $1,000 or lower.

Yearlings bred in Louisiana dominated the supply with nearly 60% of those catalogued coming from the Pelican state. Oklahoma-breds (14%), Texas-breds (12%) and Kentucky-breds (9%) made up most of the remaining yearlings sold.

It was the Louisiana-breds that also dominated the demand. Of those sold, Louisiana-breds averaged $11,375, Oklahoma-breds $10,113 and Texas-breds brought an average of just $6,580. Purses or prize money in Louisiana and Oklahoma are supplemented by other forms of gaming such slot machines at race tracks in the state. Earlier this year, Texas state legislature again failed to address the issue costing the horse racing and breeding industry in the state millions of dollars.

“If slot legislation was passed in Texas,” Boyce said, “there is no doubt prices at this sale would reflect what is happening in New York where slots legislation has passed.” A recently concluded Fasig-Tipton Saratoga sale recently averaged $55,000 for yearlings bred in New York.

The leading buyer at the sale was Texan Ed Wright (photo left with Bernie Flint) from Amarillo who purchased three yearlings for $137,000. While sitting next to trainer Bernie Flint, Wright was the high bidder on a Lemon Drop Kid colt for $63,000, a Grand Slam colt for $45,000 and a colt by Limehouse for $29,000. Despite calling Texas home, Wright said he plans to run his new purchases with Flint in Louisiana and Kentucky.

Flint has saddled more than 3,000 winners and has titles at nine tracks including Keeneland, Churchill Downs and Fair Grounds. Flint also signed the tickets for on a Not For Love colt for $55,000 and $5,600 for colt by Lunarpal.

A Louisiana-bred filly by the Kentucky stallion City Zip topped the sale after dropping the gavel at $78,000. Consigned by Paul Mills Bloodstock for Judice Farms, the chestnut filly out of the stakes winning Malagra mare, Streak of Malagra, went to Bill W. Cunningham who predominantly races near his home in Vinton, Louisiana with trainer Glenn Delahoussaye. It was Delahoussaye who signed the sale ticket on top selling Daecallherdastreak.

Hall of Fame jockey Eddie Delahoussaye (photo left) was also at the Texas Yearling sale, working in his post-riding career as a bloodstock agent. A winner of two Kentucky Derbies, a Preakness and the Belmont Stakes twice, Delahoussaye remains based in California as an independent bloodstock agent and was representing Eclipse Thoroughbred Partnerships at the sale. “Eclipse runs their horses mostly in California, but there are a few of the partners from Louisiana too,” Delahoussaye said. “So I came to look at some Louisiana-breds for them.”

Delahoussaye said it was his first trip to Lone Star Park since retiring from racing in 2003. “I only rode at Lone Star Park a few times in those jockey championships,” he said, “ but I’ve enjoyed coming back. I have a lot of friends here today from Louisiana too.”

Pinhookers were also well represented at the sale with the likes of Bryan Rice, David McKathan and Harold Hatcher all signing tickets. Those yearlings were purchased for potential profits realized by re-selling them in 2-year-old in training sales next spring.

There were no magical moments with million dollar babies at the Fasig-Tipton Texas Yearling Sale. In fact the top seller fell $22,000 short of six figures. But the sale produced solid numbers in a Texas horse racing environment that is in neglect at best and near extinction at worse. Although the sale bears the Texas name and is located in the Lone Star state, it is neighbors in Louisiana, Oklahoma and other states more in tune to horse racing, breeding and sales, that are now reeping the benefits.

Fasig-Tipton Texas Yearling Sale Stays Consistent in Fluid Southwest Market

The Fasig-Tipton Texas Summer Yearling Sale gets underway Tuesday at the company’s sale pavilion located inside the stable area of Lone Star Park at Grand Prairie. The Kentucky-based thoroughbred auction company has catalogued 372 yearlings with an additional 70 horses selling as part of the Heiligbrodt Racing Stable Dispersal immediately following.

The Texas division of Fasig-Tipton Company has been conducting sales in Texas since Lone Star Park first opened their doors in 1997. At that time, horse racing and breeding in the Lone Star state was on the verge of tapping into the long believed potential of the Dallas-Fort Worth market.

Although pari-mutuel wagering had been legal just more than a decade, it had taken that long to develop a major horse racing facility in the lucrative market. While much of that potential was realized in the first five years, the track was eventually sold to Magma Entertainment which drove the facility into bankruptcy. While Remington Park in Oklahoma City never filed for financial protection, that track too was owned and managed by Magma, stagnating the regions developing thoroughbred racing and breeding industries.


The Southwest is also a market in which hurricanes Katrina and Rita whipped out entire thoroughbred seasons in New Orleans and Houston in 2005 and 2006.

It is a market in which Texas state legislators continue to strangle the horse racing and breeding industries. While tracks in other states benefit from hosting other forms of gambling, off-track and account wagering, Texas has been stuck in the technological stone ages of horse racing with purses to match.

Just weeks ago in Saratoga, New York, average prices hovered around $300,000 at Fasig-Tipton's Select Yearling Sale. That sale of course, traditionally features some of the most prominent bloodlines and buyers in the world. But days later, Fasig-Tipton hosted their New York Bred Preferred Yearling Sale at Saratoga and averaged nearly $55,000 for the 124 yearlings that were sold.

Last year at this sale, 214 thoroughbred yearlings sold for nearly $2.4 million for an average of $11,119; far short of even the New York-bred numbers in Saratoga. But the Texas division of Fasig-Tipton Company has not only survivied but continued with a level of consistency.


Top selling yearlings at the Texas sale continue to break the six-figure barrier each year and last year’s prices were nearly 10% above those in 2009.

“The dynamics of this sale has certainly changed over the years,” said sale director Tim Boyce. “This (Texas Yearling) sale used to be predominantly for Texas-breds and Kentucky-breds. Now Louisiana-breds, Oklahoma-breds and New Mexico-breds are a big part of this sale.”

Boyce said they will still see a considerable amount of buyers from Texas, but there has been a recent infusion of demand from other states. “Louisiana has really become more lucrative for owners,” Boyce said. “There has been a large growth in purses while the price of training in Louisiana has remained very competitive. You are also starting to see more national like Maggie Moss and Spendthrift race in Louisiana.”

Boyce said that has brought more Louisiana-bred horses to the sale and additional prospective Louisiana owners to bid on them.

“A lot of our horses are sold to the end user who will run them,” Boyce continued, “but the pin-hookers are also starting to realize that Louisiana-breds will sell anywhere [next year in 2-year-old in training sales.] They’ll sell in Texas or they’ll sell in Florida.”

Boyce has again attracted yearlings representing some of the top sires in North America including Dehere, Exchange Rate, Smoke Glacken, Lemon Drop Kid, Lion Heart, Spightstown and Successful Appeal. The sale will also feature six colts and three fillies by perennial Texas leading sire Valid Expectations.

The sale begins at 10 am at the Fasig-Tipton Sales Pavilion in the stable area at Lone Star Park at Grand Prairie located between Dallas and Fort Worth.

In Pursuit of the Kentucky Derby Formula

Is there a formula for winning the Kentucky Derby presented by Yum! Brands (gr. 1)?

Certainly, there is no proven recipe for breeders to produce a Kentucky Derby winner. The last ten Kentucky Derby winners have been sired by nine different stallions. The Maria’s Mon is the only stallion during that span to have sired two winners having sired 2001 Derby winner Monarchos and last year’s winner Super Saver. That in itself put Maria’s Mon (photo right) on an elite list with only 18 other stallions that have produced more than one Kentucky Derby winner. Before Maria’s Mon, the most recent stallions with two Derby winners were Alydar (Alysheba, 1987, Strike The Gold, ’91) and Halo (Sunny’s Halo, ’83 and Sunday Silence, ’89). Falsetto, Virgil, Sir Gallahad III and Bull Lea all sired three Kentucky Derby winners with others stallions with two.

On the bottom side of the last ten Derby winnering pedigrees, only Dixieland Band is listed on as the dam’s sire on more than one. The former Lane’s End stallion sired Regal Band, the dam of Monarchos; and Street Sense's mother Bedazzle.

There is no Kentucky Derby winning map for owners either. Owners spent some $400 million on yearling’s at Keeneland and Fasig-Tipton Company public yearling auctions in 2008 in search of a 2010 Kentucky Derby winner. The next year they spent an addition $64 million on two-year-olds in training at three additional Fasig-Tipton Sales Florida, Maryland and Texas. Unfortunately for all of them, the eventual winner of the 2010 Kentucky Derby would be the home-bred Super Saver – bred and raised by his owners at their WinStar Farm in Versailles, Kentucky.

Since creating his Godolphin Stable in 1992, perhaps no one has invested more money in thoroughbred horse racing than Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. He has been among the leading buyers at nearly every major thoroughbred auction in the world, spending hundreds of millions of dollars. Sheikh Mohammed also has major racing operations in Europe, North America, Japan and in his home of Dubai, UAE. His Darley has become a massive international breeding operation with farms in Kentucky, England, Dubai, Japan and Australia. Since 1992, Sheikh Mohammed has owned or was in partnership on nine Kentucky Derby starters. His best finish has be sixth with China Bowl in 2000. Money can't buy you love or a Kentucky Derby winner.

What about trainers then? Surely there must be a plan that works well for the conditioners. No, but there seems to at least be some clues. Since Lil E. Tee won the Kentucky Derby in 1992, every Derby winner has shared at least three criteria. They all raced as a two-year and had won their first race by January of their 3-year-old year. At times, the third principal is out of the trainer’s control. But every winner of those 19 Kentucky Derbies has a sharp race, (defined as finishing fourth or better and within five lengths or less lengths from the winner) in their start just previous to the Kentucky Derby.

There have been some other guidelines met by nearly all of the previous 19 Kentucky Derby winners, but not quite. Since 1992, only 1997 Derby winner Silver Charm did not run in a two-turn race by February of his 3-year-old year. Only Mine That Bird (2010) and War Emblem (2002) had not recorded at least a 90 Beyer Speed Figure before February and only Funny Cide (2003) and Sea Hero (1993) had not been first or second in a two-turn race by March.

Between Lil E. Tee in 1992 and Barbaro in 2006, every Kentucky Derby winner had at least three starts before the Derby during their three-year-old year. Since then, Street Sense (‘07), Big Brown (‘08), Mine That Bird and Super Saver, came to Churchill Downs in consecutive years with only two starts in their respective sophomore campaigns.

During the last four years, Calvin Borel seems to have the jockey secret down. The rail-hugging Borel has now won three of the last four Kentucky Derbies with Street Sense, Mine That Bird and Super Saver. In the last 19 years, only Kent Desormeaux (photo left) has won the Derby three times winning with Real Quiet (1989) Fusaichi Pegasus (2001) and Big Brown. Gary Stevens won three Kentucky Derbies going back to his first aboard Winning Colors in 1988. Since, he won the Run for the Roses with Thunder Gulch (’95) and Silver Charm (’97).

Eddie Arcaro and Bill Hartack have the record for most Kentucky Derby wins with five each while Bill Shoemaker has four. Arcaro won with Lawrin, Whirlaway, Hoop Jr., Citation and Hill Gail between 1938 and 1952. Hartack won the Iron Liege, Venetian Way, Decidedly, Northern Dancer and Majestic Prince from 1957 through ’69. Shoemaker won with Swaps, Tomy Lee, Lucky Debonair and Ferdinand from 1955 through 1986.

There are no paths, plans or recipes that can guarantee a Kentucky Derby winner. Watching the gut wrenching decisions of owners and trainers to withdraw horses like Toby’s Corner, The Factor and To Honor and Serve to name a few, illustrates that getting to the Kentucky Derby is a monumental task. And if plans existed and were flawlessly executed, the pull of a bad pill at the post position draw or a second, third, or fourth bump in the first half-mile of the race can shatter all plans and flawless executions.

Perhaps that is what makes it the most exciting two minutes in sports.