The Fasig-Tipton Midlantic Fall Yearlings Sale, featuring a catalogue of 225, will be held in one session beginning at 11 a.m. Tuesday at the Maryland State Fairgrounds in Timonium.“This sale has been good to a lot of people and it is on their calendar as a sale that they are not going to miss,” said Fasig-Tipton Midlantic sales director Paget Bennett. “We had a person last year that was up at the sale and they brought the horse back in the May sale and they were very successful, so they were already asking during the May sale about the October sale. It's a feel good story when you have that much support.”The $165,000 top-priced lot at last year's Midlantic Fall sale, Project Maximus (City of Light), romped by seven lengths in his Aug. 20 debut at Parx, while, at $125,000, the sale's third-highest priced offering, Vekomasan (Vekoma), debuted with a wire-to-wire victory at Colonial Downs Sept. 10. The auction produced its latest stakes winner when Live Stream (Long River), a $2,000 purchase last fall, won the Fitz Dixon Jr Memorial Juvenile Stakes at Presque Isle Downs.The sale has also rewarded pinhookers. Scanlon Training and Sales purchased the auction's second-highest priced offering, going to $150,000 for a yearling by Nyquist, who resold for $1 million at this year's OBS March sale.“Some people are looking for the Kentucky sires and other people are looking for athletes to take to the races,” Bennett said. “We've had a win-win for both categories this year.”The Maryland State Fairgrounds is situated at the crossroads of several racing jurisdictions, making the sale attractive to buyers from multiple regional markets.Looking to capitalize on the auction's proximity to Pennsylvania, Crane Thoroughbred Services is bringing a group of five homebreds, led by colts by Independence Hall (hip 53) and Complexity (hip 105), to Timonium.“We prefer to sell them in Maryland so they are more likely to stay in the region and run in Pennsylvania, so we can collect breeders awards,” said Clovis Crane. “When we sell them in Kentucky, a lot of times those horses don't come back. If Fasig doesn't have [this sale], I'm going to build a sale somewhere. I think it's vital to the industry in Pennsylvania and Maryland, so you can sell these regional horses.”The success of the Crane Thoroughbred Services-bred Morning Matcha (Central Banker), who sold $18,000 at the 2020 Midlantic Fall sale, led the operation to reinvest in its Pennsylvania-based breeding program.“Morning Matcha has done so well for us,” Crane said. “She has made $1.1 million at this point. She has made us a huge amount of money in breeders awards, so it prompted us to buy more mares and have more babies.”The Midlantic Fall sale was shortened to one session last year when its catalogue fell from 412 yearlings in 2023 to 284 in 2024. There are 225 horses catalogued for this year's auction.“The whole Maryland foal crop has changed so much over the years, we don't have that many breeders left,” Bennett said of the decline in numbers. “It's sad really, but I hope the people who believe in [the Maryland program] and believe in their product, will be rewarded. Hopefully Maryland racing will get going again and they will be rewarded with good breeder awards.”With the demolition and rebuild of Pimlico Race Course underway, the state of racing in Maryland could also impact buyers, according to Bennett.“It's a little tough right now because of the whole Maryland racing being a little uncertain, folks aren't loading their barns full of horses,” she said. “I am hoping more people will jump in and get back in it, but there is a lot of uncertainty in Maryland. We are still in the tear down process, but once they see Pimlico being rebuilt, I think it will give people something to be hopeful for.”Pinhookers will also have more to consider when putting their short lists together this year. In July, Fasig-Tipton announced it was eliminating timed works at its Midlantic May 2-Year-Olds in Training Sale next spring.“I will be honest with you, everybody is kind of up in the air on what will happen,” Crane, who annually offers a 2-year-old consignment in Timonium, said. “Sure, it changes a little bit of what you can buy and what you should buy to resell, but the verdict is still out. This is what I do for a living and I don't know exactly what I should or shouldn't buy differently. I know a little cracker jack who can go really fast probably won't work as well as it has in years past, but at the end of the day, those horses win races. All I know is that if you buy a good, solid horse, everything will be all right. Find the right horse and the rest of it will work out.”Demand has been high at the previous yearling sales this year and buyers who were shut out at earlier sales may be shopping harder in Timonium this year.“From what I am hearing, a lot of the agents have a lot of people that they are buying for, so they need to make all the stops at the sales,” Bennett said. “There are people who reached out looking for help with hotels, names that don't normally frequent our sale.”Asked if he thought the strength of previous sales will help bolster results in Timonium Tuesday, Crane said, “Absolutely, that's going to have a trickle down effect. It will have a trickle down effect in the whole industry. I think it will effect the sales in Europe and everywhere. Horses are just valuable. There are not enough of them. There is still lots of racing and people need horses to get in the starting gate. That was another catalyst for us to be breeding more. I think this is the first time–in my lifetime at the very least–that owning a broodmare, as a whole, can have a positive outcome.”The post Fasig-Tipton Midlantic Fall Yearlings Sale Tuesday in Timonium appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.