“I GENUINELY believe it was the greatest horse sale I’ve ever seen in my life,” Fasig-Tipton President Boyd Browning said following the 105th edition of the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Sale.
It was a bold statement, especially given that last year’s renewal reached record highs, but his claims were well founded, as this week’s sale saw turnover rise by almost $18 million (+17%), the average increased by 24%, median grew by 17% and the number of millionaires went from 25 to 35.
The number of seven-figure yearlings represented an incredible 23% of the total number sold - a figure that feels a million miles from even the most elite of European yearling sales, as does the average price of $773,954 (€670,933) and median of $525,000 (€455,117).
A major contributor to the sale’s strength was the Flying Dutchmen, the operation of Travis Boersma, who spent a whopping $21,625,000 on 11 lots, six of them costing in excess of a million dollars.
Boersma’s Dutch heritage also influenced the name of the coffee chain he established with his late brother Dane. What began as a pushcart in Oregon developed into Dutch Bros, which now has over 1,000 locations across the US and brought Boersma’s net worth to $3.2 billion, according to Forbes.
His racing operation, run by son Payton, celebrated their first Grade 1 win in May with Shred The Gnar, trained by Brian Lynch. The daughter of Into Mischief was sourced at the Saratoga Sale and her owners followed the same formula this week, as four of their purchases were with the help of Hunter Rankin and were by her sire Into Mischief.
Dream buy
That included their most expensive purchase of the week and the sale’s top lot overall, a colt out of All American Dream - apt, given Boersma’s path to success. Bred by Jeff Drown and Don Rachel, the half-brother to dual graded winner and Grade 1 third Barnes, was consigned by Juan Aguilar and Sarah Sutherland’s Heartwood Farm on their yearling sales debut.
“I just think he’s an unbelievable animal,” Sutherland said of the sales topper. “I think anybody that had a couple of minutes to look at him and watch him, I think you understood him pretty quickly. You can see what a serious horse he is, he could be anything.”
Heartwood later sold another Into Mischief colt to the Flying Dutchmen for $3 million, this time out of a half-sister to Kentucky Derby hero Always Dreaming.
“That’s a mare that my father (Mike Ryan) owned with the Dilger family, with [the late] Gerry Dilger, so to have her first foal come up here and sell this well to a great programme like Flying Dutchmen is everything,” Sutherland explained
“It’s very emotional, very fulfilling. I think any time you bring two horses by the same stallion in a small consignment, you hope that you’re doing the right thing... I think they were seen as individuals and really complimented each other.”
The Flying Dutchmen later stretched to $4,000,000 for a colt by Gun Runner out of dual Grade 3 winner and Grade 1 runner-up Four Graces. Gainesway consigned the colt on behalf of Mandy Pope’s Whisper Hill Farm, who purchased the dam for $2,300,000 in 2022. Her first foal, a Flightline filly, fetched $2,200,000 last year.
Power in numbers
Pope invested in an Into Mischief colt herself this week, spending $2,600,000 with Delta Squad Racing and Spendthrift Farm on Warrendale Sales’ son of Grade 2 scorer Vault.
Spendthrift, who stand the seven-time champion sire, sold one of his colts through Four Star Sales for $2,800,000, leading Spendthrift General Manager Ned Toffey to say: “I just hope the one we sold doesn’t beat the one we bought a couple of years from now.”
They weren’t the only buyers to team up with others in order to secure a yearling in such a strong market - Winchell Thoroughbreds, White Birch Farm, MV Magnier and Resolute Racing combined to secure a son of Not This Time for $3,000,000.
Paramount Sales consigned the half-brother to multiple Grade 2 winner Forbidden Kingdom on behalf of Springhouse Farm, who bred the chesnut out of a Grade 3 winner.
Relative newcomer, Randy and Jenny Boyd’s Boyd Racing, continued to bid boldly this week, securing three million-dollar babies in tandem with agent Brittany Linton.
After splashing out $3,200,000 on a colt by Darley’s rising star Nyquist, Jenny Boyd said: “We’re enjoying every minute of it. It’s exciting. You don’t know what’s going to happen around the corner. This is a magnificent colt, we love him.”
“He’s worth every penny of it, and we’re excited to see him on the track next year,” Randy Boyd added.
The Gainesway offering is the first foal out of Stonestreet’s $1,100,000 purchase Slammed, while the Quality Road filly bought by the Boyds from Denali Stud for $1,500,000 was bred by Stonestreet out of $1,300,000 buy Talk Veuve To Me, herself a Grade 1-placed half-sister to the dam of Nitrogen.