Author
A Kansas native who has worked in racing journalism since 1974, he is the co-founder of the newsletter Racing Update, and served as the paper's editor until 1993, when he moved to Scotland. Oppenheim developed a reputation as an independent observer of the sales scene in the early 1980's, and he and the staff of Racing Update originated a number of methods of stallion and sales analysis which have been adopted throughout the industry. For the past 10 years he has written a weekly column for TDN, as well as reporting from the major sales. He also works as a consultant, primarily for pedigree analysis, in a private capacity.
The major yearling sales season ended this week with another 1,272 yearlings sold in the October Yearling Sales at Fasig Kentucky (837) and Arqana (435), both sales averaging, as you can see from the accompanying Weekly Sales Ticker, Ain the thirties@ ($35,850 at Fasig; i36,427 at Arqana). We’ll have complete tallies for the sale season...
Last week it was Dubawi week at Tattersalls’ October Book 1 yearling sale, as the Maktoum family and friends bought all 10 which sold during Book 1 for an average of nearly $1.1-million, topping even the mighty Galileo at the sales. This week his son, Poet’s Voice, consolidated his own lead among 2014 first-crop yearling...
As things turned out, the difference between Tuesday’s opening session of this week’s Tattersalls October 1 yearling sale and the subsequent two sessions could be summarized by the following statistic: Galileo (Ire) and Dubawi (Ire), between them, had 42 yearlings catalogued to the sale. On Tuesday, only six of those 42 were catalogued; the remaining...
A decline of 23% in gross and 11% in average from the corresponding opening day of Tattersalls’ October Book 1 yearling sale yesterday shouldn’t be taken at face value as signaling some sort of dip in the market. Last year’s first day was particularly strong, and the universal consensus among theatre-goers this week is that...
The yearling market has been centered in Ireland the last two weeks, and solid increases have been the theme. Tattersalls Ireland’s three-day sale at Fairyhouse last week was not entirely comparable to the previous year’s two-day sale, but, with nearly 100 more horses sold, the gross was up by more than 25%, and the average...
It could hardly have come out closer, could it? No, I’m not referring to the Scottish referendum (55-45 No to secession, I mean independence), but to the Keeneland September Sale, which finished its two-week run on Sunday. It was about as much like last year– which had seen a $60-million (28%) rise from 2012–as it...
Though yesterday was Day 9 (Book 4, Day 1) of the Keeneland September sale, our review of the sale totals today covers the first eight days–the four days of Book 1 plus Books 2 and 3. After Tuesday’s Book 3, Day 2 session there were five days remaining of the sale, whereas last year there...
Book 1 is “in the books’, as they say, with mixed reviews–primarily logistic: should 760 horses be spread over four days, or would it work more efficiently over three? Should Book 1 in fact go back to two days? These are questions Keeneland will be considering when all the dust settles, and it is certainly...
With $70-million in the coffers after the first two days of Book 1 (up marginally from last year), there have been 19 sires which have had five or more yearlings listed as sold. Gainesway=s Tapit is still almost $3-million clear of Candy Ride on the TDN YTD General Sire List (click here); he had the...
Horses will be shipping in tomorrow, and beginning to show Friday, for the biggest yearling sale of all, Keeneland September. They are gearing up for 13 days of selling over a 14-day period beginning next Monday. Last year Keeneland September heralded the beginning of a significant recovery in the Thoroughbred business, as 2,744 yearlings sold...
After a 30% recovery in the market began at Keeneland September last year, the Thoroughbred auction marketplace is up 16% in gross from the corresponding point in 2013, though the average is up just 2.5% as 13% more horses have sold. So far so good. Now comes September–well, after Doncaster, OBS, Washington, Baden-Baden, and Ontario–but...
Finding a racehorse that makes money is a challenge. By our calculations, only 8% of all the runners in North America in 2013 earned $53,500 or more ($53,492, to be precise). Recent studies show that it takes about $50,000, if not more, to have a horse in training at the major tracks for a year....