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With everything that is going wrong in the American economy, it seems likely there will be some sort of negative effect on the Thoroughbred auction business this year. Will the nation's financial woes have a significant impact right off during the yearling sellingsseason, which begins with the Fasig-Tipton July select auction, or will they inflict ...

The word from Fasig-Tipton executive Boyd Browning is that there won't be many changes when the company conducts its first auction, in July, under its new ownership. And there probably won't be any major ones in the near future. Fasig-Tipton does a lot of things well. The staff works hard to attract horses, and many buyers seemed pleased with how ...

The practice of correcting the legs of young horses surgically before they are offered at yearling auctions stirs up controversy. Some people believe it is a good thing because it allows the horses to be sounder when they race. Others say it allows horses with inferior conformation to succeed, making them more likely to contribute their defects to ...

Big Brown's auction prices of $60,000 as a yearling and $190,000 as a 2-year-old in training weren't high enough to attract much attention when other horses were bringing millions of dollars. But the amounts did stand out among the progeny of the stallion Boundary in their respective years. According to The Blood-Horse Auctions of 2006 ...

  The recent breakdowns of horses in high-profile races have raised questions about the soundness of the Thoroughbred. How many breeders consider soundness to be an important actor when planning the matings for their horses? Apparently, not many. Here's what prominent equine surgeon Larry Bramlage had to say about the situation: ''We ...

When the members of this year's field for the Kentucky Derby Presented By Yum! Brands (gr. I) were yearlings in 2006, the most expensive horse sold that year at public auction was Meydan City, who brought $11.7 million. When they were 2-year-olds in 2007, the most expensive in their age group was The Leopard, who sold for $2.5 ...

  When Storm Cat lost some of his luster at last year's yearling auctions, it wasn't good news for breeders based on the stallion's $500,000 stud fee in 2006 when those horses were conceived. But the situation did open a window of opportunity for yearling-to-juvenile pinhookers.   Four Storm Cat offspring were sold during this year's ...

Spent a day with Dr. Larry Bramlage in the operating room at Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital recently, and quite a number of the patients were yearlings and foals that could one day end up in a sale. It was interesting to see what OCDs and bone chips actually look like. The undamaged cartilage of a joint looks like new-fallen snow with a ...

Keeneland made a lot of changes in its April sale of 2-year-olds in training and you have to give management there credit for trying. Director of sales Geoffrey Russell indicated the company would be open to doing some more tinkering in the future. One of the most popular suggestions from consignors and buyers for future change involves the ...

I don't know what was more shocking April 11, Michael Johns getting kicked off of ''American Idol'' or the announcement that an agreement had been reached for a company owned by a friend of Sheikh Mohammed's to buy Fasig-Tipton. Guess, after a little thought, I'll have to go with the Fasig-Tipton announcement. One fun thing about a Blog is that ...