Before Fasig-Tipton’s select yearling sale in Saratoga Springs, NY, on August 5 and 6, auction house President and CEO Boyd Browning Jr. was confident his team had assembled one of the highest quality catalogs ever. His confidence was rewarded when the Saratoga Sale set records for gross sales and average sales, surpassing last year’s records by 9.5%.

Browning thanked his team for the record-breaking success of this week’s sale.

“Thank God when you have an incredible team. They’re the unsung heroes, like the workers on the back end,” he said. “They don’t get any bloody recognition. It’s not easy, it’s a thankless job, but it’s the combination of everyone wearing a red shirt. It’s a shared responsibility, it’s a shared effort and a shared desire to do a great job.”

Contributing to the record were 12 horses that sold for $1 million or more during the two shows. After the last horse left the ring, gross sales totaled $82,160,000 and the average was $533,506 from 154 horses sold.

The second round was the stronger with gross sales of $41,900,000 for 73 horses sold from 92 offerings and an average sales of $573,973. The RNA rate for the entire sale was 19%.

A Into disaster The Lane’s End consigned colt (hip 183) sold to agent Marette Farrell on behalf of Speedway Stable during Tuesday’s session for $2.4 million, making him the session’s top performer and the second most expensive yearling at the auction overall.

Hip 183, bred by Marty and Pam Wygod and consigned by Lane’s End on behalf of the Wygod family, nearly left the ring for $2 million, but buyers came forward again and drove the price much higher. The colt was hard to let go of, being a foal of a stakes-placed winner. Sweet Stitch (Awesome Again), the son of multiple Grade 1 winner and 2000 Champion Grass Mare, Perfect Sting.

“We made our very last bid a couple of times,” said Farrell, who signed the ticket for the bay stallion for speedway owners Peter Fluor and KC Weiner.

Farrell said her partner Zoe Cadman urged her to make another offer as the bidding war neared its end.

“We were absolutely thrilled with this stallion, I felt like he commanded the room, as they say,” she said. “We love all the connections and we love to honor Marty Wygod. He was such a great supporter of our Thoroughbred business and so successful.”

Farrell said she viewed Hip 183 as “a stallion in the making.”

“I can’t thank Peter and KC enough. I’m still shaking because I loved that horse, but I was really hoping I wouldn’t have to spend that much money and they knew we loved the horse. I hope he gets lucky, I hope he’s a good horse. They deserve that and so does the horse. I really think he’s a fabulous horse.”

Marty Wygod, who died on April 12, was a well-known breeder and owner. He and Pam bred many stakes winners, including the 2004 Eclipse 2-year-old champion mare Sweet Catomine and several Grade 1 winners Life is Beautiful both from our own broodmare Sweet Life.

“We bought the mare at the beginning of the Covid pandemic and my dad picked her out and he liked the lineage. We were all housebound,” said Emily Bushnell, Marty and Pam’s daughter. “She’s relatively new to our broodmare herd, we have a two-year-old that we love, she’s a full brother, so hopefully this one will be just as nice.”

Lane’s End sold both offers on August 6 for seven-figure sums. Also sold in the consignment was Hip 146, a colt by Arms smugglers for $1.9 million to MV Magnier and Peter Brant’s White Birch Farm.

“It’s been a super healthy market for us,” said Allaire Ryan of Lane’s End. “We try to bring quality individuals here from across the spectrum. We want nice individuals that will present well and be good representatives for the breeder and for us, and we’ve been really well rewarded for that.”

John Stewart of Resolute Racing was the leading buyer for the second year in a row, purchasing six yearlings for a total of $3,660,000. Over the two nights, Stewart spent $9,085,000 on 11 yearlings.

Browning and several other buyers spoke of the fierce competition at the sale, which they felt reflected the quality of the horses on the sale lot.

“We’re thrilled with the results. The buyer base was very well positioned,” Browning said. “We also saw some new faces who had never bought here before who contributed a lot to the sale. But we also saw some groups who they thought could dominate the bidding and they were outbid on a number of hips, which is good.”

Magnier and White Birch Farm teamed up to buy the second most expensive horse of Tuesday’s session for $1.9 million – the aforementioned Hip 146, a colt by Gun Runner out of Tip It mare Secret sigh . The same team had previously had success with Colts from Gun Runner in Sierra Leone Winner of this year’s Blue Grass Stakes (G1) and runner-up in the Kentucky Derby (G1).

Gainesway was the leading consignor at the Saratoga sale, selling all 19 yearlings offered, averaging $670,526 and grossing $12,740,000.

Sales action continues August 11 and 12 in Saratoga Springs for Fasig-Tipton’s New York-Bred Sale. The first session on August 11 begins at 7:00 p.m. ET with hips 301-400, the second and final session begins at noon ET with hips 401-600 on August 12 at the Humphrey S. Finney Pavilion.

“The New York breeding program is producing top-notch individuals, top-notch horses and top-notch runners. That makes us very optimistic,” Browning said.