The Fasig-Tipton Gulfstream Selected 2-Year-Olds In Training Sale is one of the most unforgiving marketplaces on the North American auction calendar, offering windfalls for the flawless specimens in the catalog and relative crickets for the ones that leave even one box unchecked.
Fortunately, the auction's early placement on the calendar offers the horses that didn't jump through every single hoop a chance to regroup and find the right fit at the right price somewhere down the road.
The patience to wait for that second chance paid off for the de Meric Sales operation, which consigned the session-topper during Tuesday's closing session of the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic 2-Year-Olds In Training Sale, a Tapit filly out of the Grade 1-winning Uncle Mo mare Gomo who brought $625,000 as Hip 492.
Tuesday's trip through the ring was the second during the current juvenile auction season for the Tapit filly. In March, she hammered for $475,000 at the Fasig-Tipton Gulfstream sale after breezing an eighth in :10 2/5 seconds, and she was brought home as a buyback.
Tristan de Meric said the filly did a fair bit of growing in the two months since the Gulfstream sale, and she shipped north to Timonium, Md., a different horse.
“Physically, she put more weight on, even since the Miami sale, and she looked even better in company,” de Meric said. “I was really happy to see her develop physically as well as she did since the sale. She got better, bigger, stronger. She even grew an inch. She changed a lot since that sale, and the track here ended up suiting her.”
The filly shaved a fifth of a second off her time over the Maryland State Fairgrounds racing surface during last week's under tack show for the Midlantic sale, covering a furlong in :10 1/5 seconds – just a tick off the overall fastest time for the entire breeze show.
When the hammer fell on Tuesday, the ticket went to the back ring of the pavilion to trainer Mac Robertson, who signed it on behalf of Mike and Vicki McGowan's Xtreme Racing Stables.
“I thought she was the best filly in the sale,” Robertson said between placing bids for the horse immediately following the session-topper. “Mike and Vicki McGowan, are looking for really good fillies. I thought she had the best breeze, and being out of a Grade 1 horse, by a sire that everyone wants, it made sense to me. We went a little more than we wanted, but the sale is strong.”
Even if the filly never runs a step, her page stood out in the catalog as one with instant broodmare potential.
Bred in Florida by Bridlewood Farm, she is the second foal out of Gomo, an Uncle Mo mare who won the Grade 1 Alcibiades Stakes as a juvenile. The page also features several graded/group stakes-producing mares.
While the long-term residual value was appealing, Robertson was more concerned in the moment with taking things one step at a time, and that starts with the racetrack.
“They're looking to win good races,” he said. “If they buy good fillies like that, I think they'll have a good chance.”
The transaction was one of the highlights of what was a record-setting renewal of the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic sale, which set all-time high marks in gross, average, and median sale price.
Over the course of two sessions, a total of 357 horses changed hands for revenues of $33,692,000. The gross surpassed the previous record of $29,374,000 set in 2019.
The average sale price also reached a new high previously set in 2019, finishing on Tuesday at $94,375, after hitting $90,104 two years ago. The new record median of $50,000 bettered the previous mark of $45,000 set in 2015.
The buyback rate for the overall sale was 16 percent, and it was an even more impressive 13 percent during Tuesday's session.
Much like what de Meric said about the placement of Tuesday's session-topping filly, Fasig-Tipton Midlantic sales director Paget Bennett said the auction's spot on the later portion of the juvenile sale catalog has made it an increasingly popular target for quality horses, instead of a “last chance” stop at the end of the season.
“So much of it is the consignors just like the sale because of the extra time it gives a lot of these horses,” Bennett said. “A lot of the horses were May babies, so they don't want to push them early, because if they ding them early, they don't have anything, so when they buy horses, a lot of times, they target this sale.”
Even after an all-time edition of the sale, Bennett said she foresaw this week's results spurring on a further evolution of the Midlantic 2-year-old sale catalog, potentially attracting a new group of sellers who might have still held reservations about selling in the marketplace. However, she did not expect the catalog would expand any further than its current size.
“Six hundred (horses) is really what we can stable here, but we're seeing a lot of new consignors,” she said. “It's always nice for people to see other people be successful, and say 'Well, I wasn't sure about that sale earlier, but now I see the results, so perhaps it's something we need to put on our calendar for the future.' We've seen a lot of that, and I think we'll continue to see more.”
To view the auction's full results, click here.
The post Second Time’s A Charm For De Meric Sales With $625,000 Tapit Filly At Record Fasig-Tipton Midlantic Sale appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.
