THE Fasig-Tipton July Selected Sale on Thursday signalled the start of the yearling sale season in the USA and the results showed increases in all the key numbers. This led to the company’s president Boyd Browning expressing satisfaction with the outcome.

While last year’s highest price was not matched, this year’s sale-topper just fell short when she sold for $500,000. Consigned by Gainesway, who stand her sire, this daughter of leading sire Tapit was purchased by agent Steve Young. She is a daughter of the stakes-winning French Dip and the granddaughter of Grade 1 winner Mayo On The Side. Gainesway bred the yearling.

Seven yearlings, two more than a year previously, realised $300,000 or more and the best-priced colt was a son of Scat Daddy at $385,000. This was a successful pinhook, the son of the Sadler’s Wells mare Starbourne having cost $90,000 last November. Starbourne was a listed winner at Naas and third in the Irish 1000 Guineas when trained by Aidan O’Brien.

An even more impressive pinhook saw a $20,000 foal purchase last year turn into a $335,000 yearling. The son of Blame is out of a winning Deputy Minister mare.

Four lots sold for $300,000. The first two to do so were daughters of Quality Road, sire of Hootenanny, and the first filly comes from the family of Johannesburg. She was followed just over an hour later by a January-born daughter of a winning half-sister to UAE 2000 Guineas winner Desert Party. A Harlan’s Holiday colt, the first foal of an unraced half-sister to Grade 1 winner Taste Of Paradise, was the next to hit $300,000, while the last of the quartet was a Scat Daddy half-sister to a couple of winners.

With a larger catalogue than last year, the sale produced a 31% jump in turnover, while the increases in average and median were a more modest 4% and 10% respectively. The RNAs fell slightly from a year ago to 29%.

Without a major dispersal – last year’s edition featured the Eugene Melnyk dispersal – the horses in training section of the marathon day-long sale was never expected to reach last year’s heights. The sale topper in this part of trade was the last lot through the ring, with New York Oaks winner Temper Mint Patty selling for $350,000. The three-year-old daughter of Congrats will now be trained by Todd Pletcher.