The Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Select Yearling Sale is a long way from the Quarter Horse show circuit in northern Iowa, no matter which figurative or literal measurement one chooses to employ to describe the chasm.
Tim and Nancy Hamlin will create a new common thread between the two disparate scenes this week during the boutique auction, drawing upon the experience of their past life operating a world-class Quarter Horse operation to debut their Wynnstay Sales consignment in Saratoga.
For over three decades, the Hamlins built up their Quarter Horse program into a powerhouse, breeding and showing in halter class events around the country, and rising the ranks high enough to own an AQHA Open World Champion in Kidlook, who earned the title among 3-year-old stallions in 2004.
Showing in the halter class might sound familiar to veterans of the Thoroughbred auction business. The showperson has their horse on the end of the shank, and they are asked to walk, jog, and stand for a judge, who examines the horse's physical and mechanics down to minute details.
Looking over his four-horse Saratoga consignment, Tim Hamlin said the skills translated into his new equine vocation beautifully, even if the Thoroughbred auction sphere offered a few new wrinkles.
“In the show horse world, you had to have the best-looking horse,” he said. “The difference here is you have to have the best-looking and soundest horse. It's kind of hard to do, but we figured it out. All of our horses lived outside. We turned them out until right before the sale, and they got some scrapes on them, but they have to be horses.”
Hamlin started phasing out of the Quarter Horse sphere in the mid-2000s after Kidlook earned his world title, selling off his farm and stock and moving to Kentucky to pursue the Thoroughbreds. Part of it was finding a new mountain to climb after reaching the pinnacle of the Quarter Horse breed, and part of it was nipping in the bud a genetic defect that had worked its way into their breeding program.
After experiencing some initial success in the pinhooking realm, the Hamlins found a farm in Winchester, Ky., which they have built up into several properties, gaining high-profile clients including Allen Poindexter.
Poindexter, himself a pillar of the Iowa Thoroughbred industry, factors into why the Hamlins are in the midst of their Saratoga debut.
Though the sign above the shedrow is new to Saratoga, the Hamilns are far from rookies in upstate New York. The Wynnstay Sales consignment was founded in November 2018, and in previous years, the Hamlins sold their Saratoga stock through other consignors including Bluewater Sales, Machmer Hall, and Gainesway. When Poindexter asked them to handle some of his select offerings under the Wynnstay banner, though, they answered the call.
“We would just let other people bring them, and we'd just come up here and enjoy ourselves,” Hamlin said. “Now, we have to come and be responsible, but it's okay. It's what we do.
“We've always gotten along selling horses up here, and the best thing is they get into good hands,” he continued. “They get to good trainers, and that makes your mares.”
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The Wynnstay consignment features a pair of first-crop fillies by Spendthrift Farm's Horse of the Year Authentic, a filly by fellow rookie sire Volatile, and a colt from the final crop of More Than Ready.
Horses tabbed for the elite Saratoga sale might get treated differently by sellers for the high financial ceiling they possess just from being in the catalog, but Hamlin said he's been preparing his Saratoga draft differently from the ones pointed toward local Kentucky sales for reasons altogether removed from the dollars and cents.
“They usually go a half-hour from my house to the sale, and now they're 16 hours, so you have to prep them a little different,” he said. “You have to have them a little heavier and a little different so they can deal with the trip.
“We ask a little more of them, and we start a little earlier,” Hamlin continued. “We used to show horses, so we know what it's like to haul horses across the country, and we know what it takes. They made it, they look great. You've just got to prepare them different. It's just more of a project getting everybody up here, getting them places to stay and figuring how to get all your help up here. There's a lot more to it, but if you've got the right horses, this is a great place to sell them. The atmosphere's the best. There's no better place to come up and sell one.”
The showing philosophy hasn't changed much from the halter class days, and Hamlin said that goes well before the shank is clipped to the halter.
The Wynnstay program calls for the young horses to get the same feed that the champion Quarter Horses received on their way to the top. Where it differs is in how the Thoroughbreds spend the rest of their day. Where he said his Thoroughbreds are sent out to pasture to develop themselves, show Quarter Horses are often kept inside for more of the day.
That's one part of the old style Hamlin said he was happy to abandon. A Thoroughbred develops a bit of grit being outside, and that reminded him of home.
“If you can raise a horse in northwest Iowa, you can raise a horse anywhere,” he said. “It took us a while to figure it all out, but it seems like it's coming together.”
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