The Yearling Sales Are Coming!
The season for yearling sales is almost upon us. Photos of this year's Legacy Sale offerings are already beginning to flood my Facebook. My next few weeks will be spent weeding through dozens of yearling conformation photos and videos, narrowing them down to a short list of worthy prospects. So what is the facination with yearlings?
Yearlings bring hope.
Hope for the future, for successful futurities and derbies, and big time pay checks, for glory and excitement, and the thrill of the finals. And every year reining enthusiasts spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on that hope. The major sales of our industry are based around the sale of yearlings, and aside from the fact that you can better your odds by choosing a nice yearling and a good trainer, reiners are basically playing the lottery to the tune of $5,000 to $200,000+ per ticket. And we love it.
So what makes a good yearling? Five things:
Pedigree
Conformation
Movement
Soundness
Attitude
Buyers will scour catalogs looking for pedigrees filled with black type (bolded wording in the pedigree which indicates a horse who has won championships and prize money). They will look through an endless number of conformation shots, and view horses in person. They will watch videos and view horses at the sale watching them lope around the roundpen. Hundreds will be spent vetting each horse. What is important to not forget though is the attitude. Even if everything else adds up, a poor attitude can make the difference between a champion and being just out of the top placings.
So what's the best advice I can give when it comes to yearling sales and picking a winner?
Hire a consultant and go with their gut. Consultants and trainers with a good eye for a winner are worth the added expense at a horse sale. Often times they will have seen the horse before, know or have ridden its sire or dam or relatives, and can steer you towards horses that fit your budget and goals. They can advise you of a horse's value, help you to negotiate a deal if the horse is POed (Passed Out during the sale, meaning their is an opportunity to buy the horse at the stall or later), and can help you arrange shipping for your new yearling if needed.
It takes two years to take a horse from a yearling sale to entering the futurity pen. As I tell all of our clients: above all else choose a horse you like because it represents the next 2+ years of your training bills
Happy shopping!
