Fasig-Tipton's Director of Digital Sales Leif Aaron took time out of his busy day to discuss with the TDN the numbers, the expectations, comparisons with the physical sales and a whole lot more, as the offerings unfold through the holiday weekend.

TDN: It seems like every digital sale you are announcing a record number of entries! The sheer size of the December catalogue must be a positive? What does that say about the digital climate?

Leif Aaron: Buyers and sellers are becoming increasingly comfortable with the platform. It takes time to change people's buying habits, and obviously, digital sales are very different from a live auction. Digital is being embraced by more and more owners who are conscious of costs, stress on horses and the narrow buying base at the end of marathon auctions.

TDN: The share you are offering in Flameaway (Scat Daddy), do you envisage more and more stallion shares being traded this way? Is this a growing trend? How did this opportunity develop?

Leif Aaron: I think it's actually a case of history repeating itself, many readers will remember the days when Fasig-Tipton did stallion access. In the early 2000's, Fasig-Tipton was selling seasons, shares and options online. We are happy to try things for sellers, but mainly it depends on the stallion, stud farm and the market. Just like the digital auction it must make sense for everyone involved.

I've been begging farms to save me a couple very desirable seasons to auction in February Digital. That way when they have to say 'no' to multiple breeders, they can always offer the option of 'you can buy the last one' in February online. That hasn't gained any traction as of yet and I really am puzzled as to why.

As far as how the Flameaway season came about, Chance Timm contacted me and said I have a client with a share and a LBR in a leading first-crop sire, can we go on the website? Darby Dan was kind enough to oblige and here we are.

Leif Aaron | Fasig-Tipton

TDN: Did you expect to get so many broodmares, especially just after the physical sales? Digital sales run August, October etc., so the timing has to be right, correct?

Leif Aaron: We were confident we would have a lot of breeding stock. So far on the platform we have had most of our success with broodmares and racing stock. What was a surprise to us was the number of weanlings and yearlings that were entered for this sale.

We've had some success with young horses, so I think that part of the market is currently developing online. Time of year does have to make sense in general for certain types of horses–breeding stock etc.–to sell well, but racehorses can sell no matter the time of year.

TDN: Speaking of racehorses, online seems like a perfect place to trade them (which is a very liquid market at the moment due to high purses). Could you speak about that a little? Why are racehorses maybe more suited to the digital space?

Leif Aaron: I touched on this a little bit earlier, but racehorses are in huge demand right now because of record high purses. With a digital sale, the seller can keep the horse in the barn and continue with training, while the potential buyer gets to look at the horse and look at the vetting. They are getting a lot more information than they would through the claim box.

In general, the horse racing ownership community are traders. It only makes sense for us to have a platform for those owners and trainers to buy and sell.

The post Q&A With Fasig-Tipton Digital Sales Director Leif Aaron appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Our trade has in recent years appeared mysteriously impervious to many of the economic dramas afflicting the outside world. In 2023, however, many keynote auctions have experienced what felt like an inevitable and possibly overdue moderation of the tempo. Nothing too dramatic, in the main: the kind of thing that might be described as a “correction,” often measuring up more than respectably to what had seemed extremely robust figures in 2021, prior to a notably giddy spike at the elite auctions last year. But those trends are internal: they are measured, year to year, in the same ring and in the same currency. Now that we can more or less close out the data on the 2023 yearling market, however, we're in a position to take a step back and assess its overall performance in the kind of transnational terms that match the perspective of its principal investors.

And, with only a couple of minor European sales still to be entered on the ledger, it turns out that the aggregate value of the yearling market either side of the Atlantic in 2023 has almost precisely matched even the historic landmark of last year. Then, for the first time, we were able to acclaim “Billion Dollar Babies.” This time round, the headline figure has inched up 0.3 percent from $1,001,529,828 to $1,004,465,043.

When you think of the huge spectrum of yearlings to come under the hammer from each crop, this virtual parity feels almost freakish, especially when so closely matched by the numbers entering the ring: 12,731 this year, compared with 12,674 in 2022. One of the few conspicuous wedges between the two years is a slippage in the clearance rate, from 83.3 percent to 80.7, translating into a 2.75 percent drop in overall sales to 10,268 from 10,559. Sure enough, then, the average cost of every yearling in the combined transatlantic market has actually advanced 3.1 percent to a new high of $97,825 from $94,851.

That headline positive duly contains a mild negative, in that the average achieved from essentially unchanged turnover goes up because there have been more RNAs. But the bottom line is that those that did change hands made more money than ever.

Nonetheless there are a couple of caveats to that statement. The most important is that the European element must always be assessed through the prism of fluctuating exchange rates. Last year, for instance, the dollar value of a soaring internal market in Europe actually weighed in 2.4 percent lighter than in 2021. This time round, European trade converted to $404,163,529, up 3.3 percent from $391,241,817, on the face of it a wholesome contrast with a marginal slip (1.6 percent) in the American gross from $610,288,011 to $600,301,513.

But much of that gain in European trade reflects the anaemic condition of sterling last year. During Book I at Tattersalls it traded at $1.13, and there had been little change by the time the global data was reported for a similar examination this time last year. By the start of the year, sterling had hauled its way up a few rungs to $1.21 and–following a mild midsummer swell–that's pretty well where it remains today. So while an American buying a Book I yearling this year might regard the extra cost of a “guinea” this time as no big deal, the difference was comfortably more than the increase in the dollar value of the European yearling market.

We're a still a long way from pre-Brexit values, however. In October 2015, sterling at $1.52 meant that the Book I average converted to almost exactly $355,000. This time round, when the local value of a Book I yearling was 9.7 percent higher than 2015, the dollar value remained 12.7 percent lower. Domestic vendors should not deceive themselves, then, that it is only the caliber of their stock that might have been tempting American investors since the great Brexit tantrum.

Of course, if you're trading within that market none of this will matter. A domestic pinhooker, or a breeder who pays a local stallion fee, will be paying electricity bills and wages in the same currency. Within that trading environment, in Europe, a few factors together conspired to take some of the heat out of the market compared with 2022: just one of the final crop of yearlings by Galileo (Ire) surfaced in Book I, for instance, even as his premier son Frankel (GB) becomes increasingly the resort of top breed-to-race programs. (And then there was the fact that one of the biggest contributors to turnover in 2023 never actually paid up!)

As for the American market, perhaps the key indicator is the decline in clearance to 78.7 percent sold, from those entering the ring, down from 82 percent last year and 83 percent in 2021. We've already noted the impact on the overall figures, the European rate having held up a good deal better at 83.3 percent, after registering frantic demand (84.9 and 85.9 percent) over the two previous years. As a result, at $105,095, the average North American yearling transaction in 2023 fell only just short of last year's breakthrough figure, when the six-figure barrier was breached for the first time at $106,808. In other words, people appear to have been a little “pickier” in their shopping while being prepared to go harder at their final shortlist. A little tougher to sell, then; but a little tougher to get that hammer to fall, too. But don't forget that a clearance rate touching 79 percent is still way better than 74 percent in the year before the pandemic.

One way or another, the market plainly remains robust. A mild loss of momentum in some indices feels somewhat overdue, if anything, a prolonged bull run having suggested bloodstock to be immune even to the most alarming economic and geopolitical tremors. But it may be that those whose affluence has been consolidated even through times of plague and war are not quite so indifferent to an altered fiscal landscape.

It was always contentious that the cash doping of panicked economies persisted so long after the banking crisis, but for a while now we've found ourselves back in a forgotten world of high interest rates. And central banks still aren't getting enough patches of blue sky to put away the umbrella. Meanwhile the S&P 500 is heading towards its third negative month in a row, which hasn't happened since the start of the pandemic in 2020. There's new instability in the Middle East, compounding the ongoing crisis in Ukraine, and a turbulent election year ahead. Those are some of the trees falling in the forest.

Our own world persists in its insularity, albeit without a great deal of coherence. Demand for racehorses can only be described as healthy, if the transatlantic yearling market can maintain the $1 billion breakthrough of last year. But supply continues to diminish, with a declining foal crop ever less eligible to service the betting windows and so, ultimately, purses. In the meantime, we have slot boomtowns even as storied venues are closing; extremes that make our sport's very survival bitterly contentious, including within our own community. Above all, we persist in placing the cart of commercial breeding in front of the horse itself. (We've just come within a couple of shifts of a totally unproven sire covering 300 mares!)

There remain many things we can be positive about, as we hope to be reminded at our principal showcase this weekend. But we can't take this resilience of investment, remarkable as it is, for granted. As and when it dries up, we need to be ready with a resilience of our own: with a breed, and a sport, equipped to last.

The post Big Picture Shows Yearling Market Holding Firm appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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In terms of individual stallions, Gun Runner, standing at Three Chimneys, was tops among all stallions when it came to mares bred. He was bred to 256 mares in 2022. He was followed by Yaupon (Spendthrift), 242; Mendelssohn (Coolmore), 232; Practical Joke (Coolmore), 230; and Not This Time (Taylor Made), 225. The top 56 stallions by mares covered were all in Kentucky. Five different farms had a stallion in the top 10, up from four in 2021.

Uncle Chuck topped the list of sires who do not stand in Kentucky. A Florida-based stallion, he was bred to 133 mares. The top five in this category was rounded out by Stay Thirsty (California-121); Honest Mischief (New York-119); Central Banker (New York-113); and Leinster (Florida-100).

The Jockey Club estimates that the number of live foals reported so far is 85-90 percent complete. The reporting of live foals of 2023 is down 2.5 percent from last year at this time when The Jockey Club had received reports for 18,609 live foals of 2022.

In addition to the 18,143 live foals of 2023 reported through October 8, The Jockey Club also received 2,018 No Foal Reports for the 2023 foaling season. Ultimately, the 2023 registered foal crop is projected to reach 18,500.

The number of stallions declined 4.2 percent from the 1,303 reported for 2021 at this time last year, while the number of mares bred declined 1.8 percent from the 29,065 reported for 2021.

Seventeen stallions bred 200 mares or more. Those stallions stood at six different farms: Three Chimneys, Spendthrift, Coolmore, Taylor Made, Hill 'n' Dale, and WinStar. There were 52 stallions who bred 140 or more mares. Gun Runner's 256 mares bred resulted in 192 live foal reports. The most expensive stallion in 2022, Into Mischief, covered 202 mares, resulting in 153 live foal reports.

TOP 10 STALLIONS BY MARES BRED IN 2022

Kentucky annually leads all states and provinces in terms of Thoroughbred breeding activity. Kentucky-based stallions accounted for 58.9 percent of the mares reported bred in North America in 2022 and 63.7 percent of the live foals reported for 2023.

The 16,827 mares reported bred to 208 Kentucky stallions in 2022 have produced 11,564 live foals, a 0.9 percent increase on the 11,460 Kentucky-sired live foals of 2022 reported at this time last year. The number of mares reported bred to Kentucky stallions in 2022 increased 0.2 percent compared to the 16,796 reported for 2021 at this time last year.

Among the 10 states and provinces with the most mares covered in 2022, four produced more live foals in 2023 than in 2022 as reported at this time last year: Kentucky, New York, Maryland, and Indiana.

The following table shows those 10 states and provinces with the most mares covered in 2022 sorted by number of state/province-sired live foals of 2023 reported through October 8, 2023.

The statistics include 227 progeny, 46 more than in 2022, of stallions standing in North America but foaled abroad, as reported by foreign stud book authorities at the time of publication.

The report also includes 67 mares bred to 23 stallions in North America on Southern Hemisphere time; the majority of these mares have not foaled. In 2021, there were 50 mares bred to 19 stallions in North America on Southern Hemisphere time.

As customary, a report listing the number of mares bred in 2023 will be released later this month.

The 2023 breeding statistics are available alphabetically by stallion name through the Resources – Fact Book. Click here for the link.

The post The Jockey Club Releases 2022 Breeding Statistics; Gun Runner on Top appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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