At Fasig-Tipton’s sales complex in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., there are nameplates over many stall doors bearing the names of major winners who resided in those stalls as unnamed, untrained yearlings before going on to success on the racetrack.
The grounds crew has been kept busy hanging those placards in recent years. Among other standouts, the last three winners of the Preakness Stakes – champion National Treasure, Seize the Grey, and Journalism – all passed through here as yearlings, as did champion Sierra Leone.
In 2019, a bay colt was housed in the Lane’s End Farm consignment in Barn 7C – across Madison Avenue from the Humphrey S. Finney Sale Pavilion, and facing the Oklahoma Training Track across East Avenue. He did what he was in Saratoga to do, selling for $1 million. A few years later, the nameplate went up over the stall he had resided in – Flightline.
Several yearlings from the unbeaten 2022 Horse of the Year’s highly anticipated first crop now get their own turn in Saratoga, as Flightline leads a class of first-year stallions who have already made a market splash. The waters get deeper as this year’s Fasig-Tipton Saratoga selected yearling sale provides the first test of the upper marketplace in North America. There are 222 yearlings, chosen on the basis of their glittering pedigrees and/or strong physical conformation, cataloged for the 104th edition of the boutique sale on the evenings of Aug. 4-5.
“I can’t wait,” said Fasig-Tipton president Boyd Browning Jr. “I mean, I can’t wait. It’s an impressive collection of pedigrees, and what I’m really confident in saying is – if you like the pedigrees, wait til you see the physicals. That’s our DNA, particularly in our select sales. They’re going to be well conformed, they’re going to be athletic.”
By the time Flightline arrived in Saratoga for that year’s select sale, bloodstock agent David Ingordo was already quite familiar with him. Ingordo works as a bloodstock adviser for the Farish family’s Lane’s End Farm, which consigns the yearlings that breeder Jane Lyon elects to offer out of her star-studded broodmare band at Summer Wind Farm.
Ingordo first saw Flightline, then about 10 months old, in January 2019. The Tapit colt was out of the graded stakes-winning Indian Charlie mare Feathered, who had not yet had a starter. The bay was, at that point, playing somewhat of a second fiddle to another Tapit colt on the farm. That yearling was out of Littleprincessemma, the dam of Triple Crown winner American Pharoah and several other stakes horses, including Chasing Yesterday, a Tapit filly who had recently won the Grade 1 Starlet.
“She had two really good Tapit colts that year,” Ingordo recalled. “One was Flightline, who we didn’t know was Flightline at the time. And the other one was out of American Pharoah’s dam, and his name ended up being Triple Tap. We were brought out there [to Summer Wind Farm] to see Triple Tap, and Bill Farish and Jane Lyon were talking about maybe Jane would like to keep that horse, or do a partnership.
“We went out and looked, and they’re two different horses. Triple Tap was chestnut, Flightline was bay, and Flightline just caught my eye from the beginning. Whatever it was, I liked him. So we got back in the car, me and Bill Farish and [farm manager] Mike Cline and we talked about it. My opinion was always, ‘I like the Feathered colt.’ ”
The Lane’s End team revisited Summer Wind multiple times, every month to six weeks, as the yearlings continued to develop and Lyon made her decisions about the crop. As the youngsters grew up, Ingordo’s preference for Flightline over Triple Tap – who Lyon did end up training, and who went on to be stakes-placed – remained.
“They were like barn buddies, so they’d come out together,” Ingordo said. “And each time, I wasn’t being critical of Triple Tap, but he didn’t do it for me, and the other horse did. . . . I can appreciate all kinds of horses, but there’s some you like and I say, ‘Well I’d buy them or I’d invest in them.’ And Flightline was the one I preferred.”
Ingordo says he last saw Flightline at Summer Wind around May, when the Lane’s End sales team and Lyon were making their final decisions on which yearlings might go in the Saratoga sale, and which might fit better in the Keeneland September yearling sale. As luck would have it, Ingordo wound up on the same Tex Sutton horse transport flight to Saratoga as the Lane’s End consignment, and Flightline again caught his eye in transit.
When they arrived in Saratoga, Ingordo – who says he keeps things “church and state” between his involvement with Lane’s End and any other clients he might be shopping for – went right to the barn to get another, closer look at the yearling.
“You want to see a horse improve every time you look at him,” Ingordo says, citing a lesson imparted on him from top horsemen. “In a young horse, each time you inspect them critically, you want to see him move forward from the last time you saw him. . . . He was so balanced and had really done everything right. I said, from all those times I’ve seen him, he’s come forward each time, and man, he’s made a nice horse. He’s got it, that ‘it’ factor. He has a presence.”
The West Point Thoroughbreds partnership signed the $1 million ticket on Flightline, and a multi-pronged partnership, many with ties to Lane’s End and Ingordo, was formed. Lyon had already made it known she would like to stay in for a percentage of her colt if the buyer was amenable. Woodford Racing, of which Farish is a founder and which had frequently partnered with West Point, took a piece, as did Hronis Racing – a primary client for trainer John Sadler, who had asked Ingordo to keep his eyes open at the Saratoga sale. Siena Farm, which also had previous ties to West Point and Ingordo, completed the quintet.
Flightline did not debut until his 3-year-old season after cutting himself on a stall latch, and was carefully managed throughout a dazzling six-start career by Sadler, winning all of his outings, including four Grade 1 races, by a combined 71 lengths. He earned triple-digit Beyer Speed Figures in every start.
His career concluded with a pair of virtuoso performances at 1 1/4 miles. He rolled in the Pacific Classic by 19 1/4 lengths, stopping the clock in 1:59.28, just .17 of a second off the Del Mar track record set in the 2003 Pacific Classic by Candy Ride. The smashing effort earned a Beyer Speed Figure of 126.
According to Andrew Beyer, who makes the figures, it was the biggest number given to a horse since Ghostzapper won the Iselin in 2004 with a 128, and equaled the second-biggest number given to any horse since the Beyer Figures moved into the public domain, first with the launch of The Racing Times in 1991, and then with Daily Racing Form.
Flightline traveled to Keeneland for the 2022 Breeders’ Cup Classic, and was favored in a field in which all eight were Grade 1 winners. He romped by 8 1/4 lengths, posting a 121 Beyer.
Flightline was subsequently retired to Lane’s End for an advertised fee of $200,000, and demand was sky-high, as the farm limited his book to 150 mares, moderate by today’s standards. The mares in his first book included the aforementioned Littleprincessemma; Breeders’ Cup Distaff winner Unrivaled Belle, dam of champion Unique Bella; Grade 1 winner and Grade 1 producer Hot Dixie Chick; blue hens Special Me and Justwhistledixie, both dams of multiple graded stakes winners; Lady Shipman, dam of two-time Breeders’ Cup winner Golden Pal; and the dams of champions Arrogate, Caledonia Road, Essential Quality, Forte, Improbable, and Swiss Skydiver.
So, have Flightline’s yearlings shown the same pattern of improvement throughout their first year of life as their famed sire?
“Yes,” said Ingordo, who estimates he has personally seen around 70 offspring by the stallion, and who was active in the weanling marketplace for various clients. “It’s up to him now, but he’s been given every opportunity possible.”
Demand is expected to be strong for Flightline’s first yearlings in the North American marketplace, as shown in other commercial offerings for the stallion over the past few years. A few days after the stallion’s career finale, a 2.5 percent interest in him sold for $4.6 million at the 2022 Keeneland November breeding stock sale, helping to establish his lofty stud fee. Another share in the stallion topped the inaugural Keeneland Championship sale last November, purchased for $2.5 million.
In the fall of 2023, 13 mares carrying foals from Flightline’s first crop sold at public auction for an average price of $1,074,231 – more than five times the stallion’s stud fee, although, to be fair, buyers were also purchasing stellar mares along with the foals they were carrying. Last year, just eight weanlings from the stallion’s first crop were traded for an average of $655,897.
Japanese interest in Flightline has been strong, and in July’s Japan Racing Horse Association yearling and foal sale, three yearlings by Flightline were sold for a combined 470 million yen – more than $3.1 million in U.S. funds, resulting in a seven-figure average.
Flightline had 10 yearlings selected for the boutique Fasig-Tipton Saratoga catalog. Two were bred by Summer Wind and are in the Lane’s End consignment – a filly out of stakes winner Key To My Heart, a daughter of Galileo out of Grade 1 winner A Z Warrior; and a colt out of the stakes-winning Quality Road mare Park Avenue.
“What’s interesting is that they’re very mare dominant, so you’re going to see a lot of different physical types, different physiques,” said Allaire Ryan, director of sales for Lane’s End. “I would say the consistencies we see in them are their mental constitutions and the way they carry themselves. And the way they move – their range of motion is pretty impressive.”
Another standout by Flightline in the Saratoga catalog is a colt out of Grade 1 winner Hot Dixie Chick. Consigned by Gainesway for breeder Stonestreet Farm, the colt is a half-brother, and bred on the same cross, to Grade 1 winner Pauline’s Pearl, who is by Tapit. He is also a half to stakes winner Union Jackson. Hot Dixie Chick is a half-sister to Kentucky Derby winner Always Dreaming.
Flightline’s 10 yearlings in Saratoga are out of mares by eight different broodmare sires.
“They’re very classy individuals, but it is interesting – you’ll see different shapes and sizes, you’ll see different colors,” Ryan said. “But you can definitely draw the line and connect to whoever the mare is by, or her sireline.”
Ingordo, who has often cited Flightline’s resemblance to his own broodmare sire, Indian Charlie, agreed with Ryan that the mares have an influence on Flightline’s progeny while sharing their sire’s class. He sees other similarities between the foals, as well.
“They favor him in a lot of ways,” he said. “Their bone structure, their feet, they’re correct. I haven’t seen any of them I can really recall where there were conformational issues. He’s producing a correct horse. And then the hip is there – he’s stamping them with that powerful hind end. It’s his hallmark. You’re like, wow, he’s putting this engine on these babies, and they have that class.
“They’re all very athletic, and they all seem to have his class, which to me, is important. . . . He picks up the good parts from the mare, and he imparts his good qualities.”
Alongside proven stallions like six-time reigning leading sire Into Mischief, prominent classic sire Curlin, young phenom Gun Runner, and Flightline’s own sire Tapit, the first-crop class is well represented in its first test in Saratoga. The group includes multiple Grade 1 winner Life Is Good and Kentucky Derby winner Mandaloun, both promising sons of Into Mischief; champions Corniche, Epicenter, and Jackie’s Warrior; Dubai World Cup winner Mystic Guide; two-time Breeders’ Cup winner Golden Pal; and additional Grade 1 winners Cyberknife, Drain the Clock, Idol, Jack Christopher, and Olympiad.
Several of these stallions had a strong debut at the season’s first auction, the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky July selected yearling sale. A $350,000 Jack Christopher colt topped the sale, and the sire was by no means a one-hit wonder, with nine of his 10 yearlings led to the ring selling, three of them for more than $200,000. The stallion averaged $162,778 against his introductory fee of $45,000 at Coolmore’s Ashford Stud.
Overall, first-crop yearling sires finished with four of the sale’s top five prices. Jack Christopher put another in that group with a $270,000 colt; Spendthrift Farm stablemates Cyberknife and Jackie’s Warrior recorded a $330,000 colt and a $310,000 filly, respectively. Cyberknife had a strong 10 of 11 horses sell for an average of $116,500, against his $30,000 fee. Jackie’s Warrior averaged $177,500 for four sold after debuting for a $50,000 fee.
The Fasig July sale, designed to feature precocious physicals, not breakout pedigrees, gave the yearling marketplace “a good start that should provide a level of confidence,” Browning said.
While the average price dipped 4 percent, the median was $90,000, equaling a sale record set in 2006 and matched in 2022 and 2024, a good sign of market stability. The buyback rate in a selective marketplace was 28 percent, an improvement from 33 percent last year.
Now it’s time for the Saratoga sale, which set a high bar for itself to clear statistically. The 2024 edition finished with record figures for gross, average, and median, and its lowest buyback rate since 2015.
“It’s one of my favorite sales for the year, for a lot of reasons,” Browning said. “We’ll go into the sale with a high level of confidence that the market is strong, and there is demand for quality.”