Yearling Market Off to Slow Start [w/Update]

- A quiet opening day at the Fasig Tipton yearling sale, with a high price of just $350,000 for a colt by Lion Heart. Glenye Cain Oakford, covering the sale for the Form, writes that most buyers were walking out of the pavilion with receipts for horses they wanted, sometimes at what they felt was a discount.

Bloodstock agent Buzz Chace, who bought another Lion Heart colt for $300,000 on behalf of Lewis Lakin and Terry Finley, estimated afterward that the colt might have brought $600,000 in 2006.

"I think it's a good market to buy horses," Chace said. [DRF]

The average for the session, exclusively for first and second year sires, was down 18% from the opening session last year which included 15% of the hips by proven sires.

The session topper is out of Aim for the Moon, a winless Deputy Minister mare who is a half sister to Christy Love, who we mentioned the other day as being the dam of Lexington winner Distorted Reality, Atticus Kristy and Fiery Dancer, all stakes winner on grass. The colt's 4th dam is Tamerett, the dam of Secrettame, the dam of Gone West.

The second highest hip was also a son of Lion Heart, and also out of a Deputy Minister mare; he's the abovementioned "50% off" colt who sold to a new pinhooking venture which includes West Point Thoroughbreds. In all, 15 Lion Hearts sold, out of 21 cataloged (three outs) for an average of almost $150,000; a total of 11 brought six figure bids, four of those over $200,000.

Chapel Royal, the other leader in the number of hips, had 17 of 20 sell for an average of just under $70,000.

Some others worth mentioning:

Cuvee (stands for $10,000) sold 7 of 11 offered for an average of $125,000. His high sale was a filly out of a Manila mare who brought $230,000.

Domestic Dispute, who stands for $5,000 in Maryland, is advised to eat as much of that fresh crab cake as he can before he's shipped off to Kentucky. He sold six of seven, for an average of over $111,000, and a high sale of $240,000, a half brother to stakes winner Private Slip.

Friends Lake sold six of eight for an average of $105,000.

Medaglia D'Oro had six of ten sell (the four RNA's went for $90K and above), and each of them brought over $120,000; his average was over $150,000.

Posse is off to a hot start with his first crop, but that didn't seem to lift the prices paid for his progeny. Six of ten sold for an average of over $65,000.

Not a good day for Sky Mesa. Only three of eight sold for total of $215,000, most of that from his high sale of $120,000.

Strong Hope sold three of three offered (another was out), for $220K, $210K, and $80K.

And Smarty Jones had one in the ring; hip 184 sold for $150,000.

- The '1' horse in the first baby race of the Del Mar meet is a colt who sold for just a bit higher than the horses on Monday. Maimonides is the Vindication colt who brought $4.6 million from a determined Ahmed Zayat+ at Keeneland last September. You may not recall that because he was overshadowed by Meydan City, the $11.7 million Kingmambo purchased by the Sheikh (and named after his new Dubai plaything, the massive development which will include a new track).

Maimonides is out of the Silver Deputy mare Silvery Swan, which makes him a half brother to the current sires, standing together at Hill'n'Dale, El Corredor and Roman Ruler. And like those two, Maimonides is trained by Bob Baffert. He has the usual bullet workouts, and will probably be the favorite to win his debut, as did his aforementioned half-brothers. [UPDATE: As pointed out by Handride in the comments, Baffert told Jay Privman of the Form that Maimonides will be scratched.]

Good Man Dan would seem to be the main competition amongst those who have started. He's by Proud Citizen (who had two sell, at $110K and $160K on Monday), and ran a close second with blinkers on in his last to Leonides, subsequently second by a nose in the Hollywood Juvenile.

Trainer David Hofmans is not a big first-time guy. but Coast Guard has been working up a perfect storm, including a bullet (of 52) half mile over the Del Mar Polytrack. He's by Stormy Atlantic, 14% with first-time starters, out of a Royal Academy mare.

And we've been talking about two-year olds that sell for high multiples of their stud fee; but what does it mean when it's the other way around? Many Rivers is a son of the $500,000 sire Storm Cat, and he's a half-brother to Harlan's Holiday (three of five sold on Monday for 75K, 90K, and 150K). But he brought a mere $100,000 at Barrett's in March, after two one furlong works of "only" 10 4/5 seconds each. Little surprise that he ran a distant 8th (at 9-2) in his debut, and not expecting much improvement here.