Monday, February 6, 2023
Courtesy of Thoroughbred Daily News
By Jessica Martini
LEXINGTON, KY – With just weeks to the opening of the 2023 breeding season, the Fasig-Tipton Winter Mixed Sale begins its two-day run Monday at Newtown Paddocks with an eclectic offering of broodmares, broodmare and racing prospects and short yearlings. The auction attracted 465 entries to its main catalogue and, with the addition of supplemental entries, now features 594 catalogued offerings. Bidding begins Monday at 10 a.m.
Jill Gordon and Jacob West’s Highgate Sales consignment made its debut at last year’s Winter Mixed Sale and made an immediate impact when selling the broodmare prospect Brilliant Cut (Speightstown) for a sale-topping $750,000 to Katsumi Yoshida.
Highgate returns for its second February sale with a consignment of 10 head.
“This sale got us off to a really good start last year,” Gordon said on a windswept Sunday morning in Lexington. “We are definitely glad to be back.”
Activity at the Highgate sales barn, and throughout Newtown Paddocks, has been steady over the last two days, according to Gordon.
“The traffic has been steady throughout the barns,” Gordon said. “We haven’t been overrun, but we have kept busy enough throughout the day today as well as yesterday. We hope to see some more activity for the remainder of the day today and into tomorrow.”
The consignment has a hard act to follow from its 2022 debut. In addition to the sale-topper, Highgate sported a perfect strike rate at Fasig-Tipton last February.
“We have a good group of horses,” Gordon said of the 2023 offerings. “We have got horses with current race form and some stakes-placed fillies. And some mares in foal to fashionable covering sires and a nice yearling from the first crop by Game Winner. So we are hopeful that we will have another good February sale. We were 10 for 10 last year and hopefully we can replicate that this year.”
