Two-Year-Olds and Yearling Sales

It is always a bit of an eye opener to check out the results of the major Standardbred yearling sales after the end of the two-year-old year and this year is no exception. Lets look at the pacers first that went through the major North American sales in 2008.

To put the stats into context there were about 9500 yearlings in 2008 by new sires or by sires that have produced a significant performer, i.e. a winner of $100,000 or more, in previous years. There were around 5900 pacers in this total and 1,528 of those were entered into the five major sales at Harrisburg (665), Lexington (445), Forest City (150), New Jersey (147) and the Canadian Open (121).

There were just 78 pacing two-year-olds that made over $100,000 in the past year and 51 of those were available for sale, the other 27 being privately held. The ones that sold were split as you might expect, primarily by Harrisburg (25) and Lexington (16). The percentage of $100,000 winners versus the yearlings sold was 3.7% in both cases. There were 8 on the roster in Forest City that made the top performer list for an average of 5.3% on the pacers entered in that sale. There was one each in the New Jersey and Canadian Open sales

What was really interesting were the prices paid for the top performers. The most expensive one was sold in Forest City, a real surprise, at $110,000. He was Code Word by Western Terror and he won $201,090, all of it in Ontario. The cheapest one was also sold in Forest City, that being the filly Bay Girl by Royal Mattjesty, and a filly I had identified on my best in sale list as having a special pedigree. Six of the eight $100K plus winners from the Forest City sale, in fact, sold for $12,000 or less making that sale the bargain hunter’s best venue.

The top ten two-year-old pacers from last year’s sales were Sportswriter, Fancy Filly, Put On A Show, Rock N Roll Heaven, All Speed Hanover, Fbs Terror, Malicious, Western Moonlight and Western Silk and Tiz To Dream. Eight of these were among my sale recommendations as were the 11th and 12th best, Wellthereyougo and Casino Nights.

Another interesting observation is that the good ones did not come predominantly from the early sessions of the sales as most would expect. Despite the practise of the sales companies in putting what they perceive as the best individuals at the front of the sale, there were clearly a lot of people who paid out big money for one of these early selling yearlings that were to say the least disappointed.

Harrisburg had three sessions and their 25 top performers were distributed as follows: Session One 1-380 (11). Session Two 385-759 (7) Session Three 765-1137 (7)

Lexington held five sessions. Session One 1-100 (4), Session Two 101-245 (4), Session Three 246-407 (2), Session Four 408-572 (3) and Session Five 573-824 (3).