Five horses sold for at least $100,000 yesterday as the two-day Fasig-Tipton Midlantic Eastern fall yearlings sale got under way at the Timonium fairgrounds.
The top-priced yearling was a black colt from the first crop of Vicar, a two-time Grade I winner and a son of Wild Again. The colt's granddam is Cruising Haven, who produced the Grade II winners Royal Haven and Belterra. Consigned by Chanceland Farm, the Kentucky-bred colt sold for $185,000 to Nick deMeric, a buyer from Florida.
The second-highest-priced yearling was a bay colt by the late Allen's Prospect. Samantha Siegel, a California horsewoman, bought the Florida-bred for $140,000.
In all, 235 yearlings sold for $4,040,200, an average of $17,192. The median price was $8,000.
Last year's fall yearling auction was a three-day sale in which 530 horses sold for an average of $16,680. In that entire sale, six horses sold for at least $100,000 - only one more than reached or surpassed that mark yesterday.
The sale in Timonium follows the record-setting yearlings auction at Keeneland that ended Sept. 20. In 12 days, 2,968 horses sold for $273,925,300, an average of $92,293. Comparisons are inappropriate, said Mason Grasty, executive vice president of Fasig-Tipton Midlantic, which conducts the Timonium auction.
"That's the 900-pound gorilla," he said of the Keeneland sale. "There's nothing to compare it to."
