Fasig-Tipton Gulfstream Sale Wednesday

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fl – After a well-attended under-tack show Monday, shoppers were out in force at the sales barns Tuesday ahead of Wednesday's Fasig-Tipton Gulfstream Selected 2-Year-Olds in Training Sale.

“We are busy as hell,” confirmed consignor Eddie Woods. “We've been flat out since 8 a.m. with all the right fellas. What it leads to yet, I don't know–if they all land in the same spots again like they do a lot of times, historically, at this sale. But listening to the guys talking, it seems like there is a little bit more to go around. I don't know if there is. At OBS, there was no out-of-the-park horse, but there were a lot of horses who sold really, really well. And hopefully that is the case here. I haven't heard who the out-of-the-park horse is here yet. Usually, you hear the chiming in the trees and I haven't heard that yet. But several people who would know what they're talking about have said this a really good-looking group of horses. So that would be great–more to go around.”

The Gulfstream auction has led off the 2-year-old sales season for the last several years, but this year it follows on an OBS March sale which produced mixed results, with the average down 10% and the median up nearly 16% from 2017 figures.

“The OBS median was up and hopefully the median here will be up,” Woods said. “The median is the real number at the end of the day. The median is the indicator for the whole market. A $2-million horse will totally distort an average, it blows it right up, especially in a short sale where only 40 or 50 sell. The median is the number. Hopefully that's in better shape here than it has been before, but the one at OBS was very good.”

Consignor Cary Frommer sold two of the three seven-figure lots at last year's Gulfstream sale, including the $1.5-million sale-topping filly by Uncle Mo, and she was responsible for a $1-million Uncle Mo colt at the auction in 2016.

“It's been crazy,” Frommer said in a rare break between showings at the sales barn Tuesday morning. “It's been very, very busy.”

Frommer admitted she was slightly disappointed with her results at the March sale two weeks ago, when only two of her seven horses through the ring sold.

“We're certainly busy [at Gulfstream], but we were busy at OBS, so I'm a little tentative about getting excited about the traffic here,” Frommer said. “I think I had very nice horses [at OBS] and they did their jobs totally and a lot of them didn't get sold. And the ones that did get sold, I feel like I undersold. It's made me a little more tentative coming into this sale.”

Frommer will send six juveniles through the ring Wednesday afternoon, including a City Zip colt (hip 1) who worked Monday in :10 1/5 and who will be first through the ring when bidding begins in the Gulfstream paddock at 3 p.m.

“I think it was a tough track to work on [Monday] and the horses, for the most part, did their job,” Frommer said of her under-tack show results. “Our horses here are very nice. We paid more for them than we have in the past, we stretched to buy a really good horse. They did their job and hopefully we'll get rewarded for it.”

Tom McCrocklin sent out two fillies to work during Monday's under-tack preview, including a daughter of Orb (hip 54) who turned in the bullet quarter-mile drill of :21 flat.

“How could you not be,” McCrocklin said when asked if he was happy with the filly's work. “I think it was a really, really nice work. She trained very well all week. She prepped the week before the breeze show on Monday and she really duplicated it on breeze day.”

The filly is out of Taboo (Forestry), a daughter of Grade I winner Dream of Summer (Siberian Summer) and a half to Creative Cause (Giant's Causeway) and Destin (Giant's Causeway).

“She's scary talented,” McCrocklin, who signed the ticket on the filly for $130,000 at last year's Fasig-Tipton Saratoga sale, said. “She already has a built-in pedigree. I think she's the whole package for a racing or broodmare prospect.”

McCrocklin agreed action at the barns Tuesday was frenetic.

“[Hip 54] has been out all morning,” he said. “I'm starting to feel a little bit bad for her because she's literally been out more than she's been in. But that's why we are here, to show her to people. Traffic is very good. Given the number of horses here, we have tons of people.”

McCrocklin will be looking to carry on from a strong start to the sales season at OBS March, where his pair of $410,000 sales included a homebred colt by Kantharos.

“I've got eight mares and actually they called me from the farm and I just had a foal this morning,” McCrocklin said of his breeding program. “I don't have expensive mares and I typically breed everything in Florida, occasionally in Kentucky, but I try to support the local Florida breeding industry. And that was one [hip 368] that worked out. He was a very talented horse, a very fast horse. I miss Kantharos, I'm sorry he went to Kentucky, but I think he'll do great there, he's a really solid stallion.”

Niall Brennan will be offering six fillies at Wednesday's Gulfstream sale, including a filly by Medaglia d'Oro (hip 9), who was one of 11 to share the bullet furlong time of :10 flat.

“They all came home good and they all ate up,” Brennan said Tuesday morning. “They were a little tired. This track is a testing track for these babies, especially when they are going blazing at full speed. So I find that it does tire them out a little bit, but they all have good energy this morning.”

During last year's Fasig-Tipton Gulfstream sale, 74 juveniles sold for $25,115,000. The average was $339,392 and the median was $270,000.