http://www.fasigtipton.com/2019/The-Gulfstream-Sale#/
2yr olds. There are some very nice pedigrees involved.
There are some very beautiful horses in this sale. A gorgeous Honor Code colt RNA at 390k and really nice Tapit colt RNA at 325k. I can’t blame the owners for not selling.
Can someone explain why some horses breeze and get a time and others get a G? I assume this stands for gallop, but not sure why they don’t breeze.
They aren’t all in the same place in their training.
American Pharoah colt just hammered at 1.65M sold to Magnier.
Two year old in training sales are tough. The normal schedule is usually a work/breeze every third day with galloping the other days. If your entry hasn’t been in regular conditioning for a 6 months or more, it’s a very reasonable decision not to work at speed at the sale, or not work that schedule.
And it you have a nicely bred, good looking two year old with a lovely ground covering gallop that is training well, you might not need to post a hot work to get a good price, so why risk it?
Curlin colt hammered at 3.65M.
Sold to Magnier
Kip Elser, Kirkwood Stables, has been bringing a group to the sale to gallop only for the past 2 or 3 years.
Here’s an article about his program: https://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-racing/articles/232200/elsers-gulfstream-gallop-experiment-continues
Breezing a lights out furlong or two is very tough on growing horses. Two years ago, Kip Elser (Kirkwood Stable) formed a partnership with the express purpose of trying to put some sanity back in the sales process. He announced ahead of time that the yearlings he bought to pinhook would not breeze, only gallop–since it’s supposed to be the efficiency of movement that’s important, not the fast time. The partnership is called Gulfstream Gallop.
Last year, he did quite well at this sale and at least one of his gallopers has won a stakes race since being sold. This year, it looks like he didn’t do as well, but I certainly have to applaud the fact that he’s trying to make the idea work.
ejm, we were typing at the same time. 
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That makes perfect sense. Why stress a 2yr old that is already in a new situation and/or take the chance of incurring an injury?
There were some really lovely horses today. I don’t understand why people lament the demise of quality in the Thoroughbred. Granted this is the pricey end, but so are the horses that people are referring to when they complain.
Well the most interesting part of these sales are the buyers. There’s a lot of moaning out there how the quality of the American Thoroughbred has just gone down the chute because of supposed drug use but who is buying them- Magnier bought 4 out of this sale, Narvick, Shadai and other Japanese buyers, even Team Valor which races everywhere. Seems to me amid all of the rhetoric, these people vote with their pockets.
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Thanks, I had previously only payed attention to the Timonium sale, where I don’t recall any gallopers. Perhaps because it is 6 weeks later in the year!
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Pronzini, I thought that was an interesting point, so I went back and did the math.
19 of the 59 horses sold went to people who race primarily (or totally) outside the U.S. Collectively, they spent just under $16,000,000 (54% of the total money spent) for those horses.
We don’t know when the “live mony” bidding ended. Especially the Honor Code colt. $390 is almost surely the RNA . If there was still live money at that point, it is likely that the bidding would not have ended at one bid lower than a nice round number.
No matter, their owners liked them more than to sell at those amounts, IE a higher reserve,which was the point.
