This is hardly the place to debate whether American capitalism any longer aspires to the solidity of a pyramid; whether its apex of wealth can just keep growing taller and thinner. For the time being, an industry like ours–candidly dependent on investment by the most affluent–will settle for counting its winnings.At the equivalent point last year, the American yearling market had expanded by a barely comprehensible 23% on 2024. While that giddy rate could hardly be maintained, nor has the market topped out at those record levels. With its biggest auction now in the books, and combined with those staged by Fasig-Tipton during the summer, aggregate trade has climbed another 6.8% from $651,467,900 to $695,822,900. With slightly fewer animals changing hands in the ring, 3,352 against 3,416, the average transaction has realized $207,584, up 8.8% from $190,711.(The addition of sales completed back at the barn, incidentally, barely alters those percentages. Private sales, recorded for the past four years, are included for reference in the accompanying Table A.)By a coincidence almost as freakish as the growth it spans, the value of the American yearling market (with the fall auctions obviously still to come) has doubled almost to the cent since 2016, when 3,308 yearlings had sold for $347,889,900. It does not feel too contentious to remark that the fortunes of the rich under the current President appear quite legible in the growth cycles since, which have steepened with both his first and (especially) second terms.We are, after all, dealing in luxury goods. And it does seem as though the market surge is concentrated at its highest end, contested by breeders who can afford to pay $250,000 to cover a mare.Between 2022 and 2024, seven-figure yearlings accounted for between 11.2 and 12.8% of overall business. Last year, a leap from 48 to 81 sold for $1 million or more took their share of the market to 18.3%. This time around, there have been no fewer than 105 such transactions–and these weigh in at very nearly a quarter of total trade, at 24.2 percent. (See Table B.)These giddier plays have become proportionately more frequent at the Saratoga Select Sale. In 2023 and 2024, that catalogue produced one seven-figure yearling for every three at the Keeneland September Sale: 10 against 30, 12 against 36. This year, with 35 against 70, Saratoga has reduced the ratio to 1:2. Nonetheless the second day of Book 1 at Keeneland, in yielding 23 millionaires, has set a new bar; while there were four even in the fifth session, and one in the sixth (for the first time since 2000).If anything, the bedlam at Saratoga possibly contributed to a little hesitancy during the opening books at Keeneland, when as many as three in 10 were initially unsold. The volume of post-sale trade (ultimately worth over $21.5 million) suggested that some ambitious reserves were revised with due pragmatism. But the bottom line is that the September Sale comfortably beat the record it had set last year as the most valuable Thoroughbred auction in history.And, of course, what makes this particular sale unique is its sheer range. We say it every year: Keeneland September isn't a market so much as the market. And actually its second week suggested a very wholesome subtext to all the crazier spending.That's crucial, because the old argument about “trickledown” affluence makes it imperative for market strength to penetrate the basement. In theory, the last of Keeneland's dozen sessions is also the least significant: it contains the cheapest horses, the smallest yields. By the same token, it is perhaps as instructive as any. For the smaller programs, the swing of a few hundred bucks on these horses can add up to the difference between a good and bad harvest. And just look at the numbers: the median up by more than half, from $9,000 to $14,000; and the RNA rate crushed from 20% to 8%.The fact is that all the indices, especially from Book 3 onwards, consolidated very positively. The median climbed across the final half-dozen sessions, often substantially: from $75,000 to $90,000 in the seventh, for instance, and from $40,000 to $50,000 in the ninth. The overall median, advancing from $80,000 to $85,000, set a record for the third September running; the $187,934 average, meanwhile, represented a sixth consecutive record. All this, remember, from a giddily high base, while also repairing an RNA rate that had suggested some selectivity in the early books. By the end of the auction, the overall buyback rate was virtually identical with last year at a tick over 22%.Some attributed that hint of diffidence in the first week to certain major players forming new alliances. If that was a factor, however, it probably told only in the second tier of the market. The number of entities buying seven-figure horses were operating along a very similar arc to last year, when 33 averaged 1.7 such horses apiece, compared with 38 averaging 1.8 this time round.Sires Round-UpGun Runner followed up the resounding statement he made last year by again topping the averages (57 sold at $766,176; higher volume actually bringing him down somewhat, from 40 at $877,125) from champion Into Mischief (40 at $752,625, up from 41 at $656,098) and Not This Time (56 at $729,777, up from 55 at $701,455). Flightline's second crop held up well in fourth, 52 sold at $594,231 (predictably down, without his freshman gloss, from 44 at $694,319 on debut). Nyquist made a big move in fifth (59 at $525,695, up from 37 at $395,811) and Curlin held steady with 22 sold at $519,410 (against 32 at $512,969 last year). But ageism frayed the returns of the venerable Tapit, who sold 16 collector's items at $443,750 (down from 17 at $620,883).A special mention for one of our favorites, Honor A.P., who vividly stressed a point I'm always making: namely, that if anybody used a young stallion because they truly believed in him, they would double down precisely as his fees and books are dwindling. Hopefully this fellow's stock has done enough to renew support, but that will take a while to cycle through. In the meantime, he was represented at Keeneland by just two of the 24 live foals he conceived at $10,000 in 2024. One of them realized $750,000. (Even more, then, than the $725,000 paid for a colt from the preceding crop at OBS in April: as Imperial Honor, an impressive winner on debut, that one lines up for the GI American Pharoah Stakes at Santa Anita this weekend.)But of course such tales won't alter the fact that the commercial market remains driven, at root, by new blood (see Table C). We know how slavishly the market tends to obey the pecking order implied in fees, and something has to go conspicuously wrong (or right) to deflect a slide-rule correlation in the sale averages. As things stand, the one to break ranks most positively is Up to the Mark: he's standing third in the averages to date, at $195,210, and fourth by median at $120,000. Importantly he also sold the highest ratio of yearlings offered, among the leaders, at nine in 10.While Cody's Wish duly tops the chart, in accordance with his class-high opening fee, he found a new home for only seven in 10. That's strikingly low, but of course may reflect his use by programs happy to retain horses for a strong racetrack division; or indeed a belief that his speed and strength will prove still more profitable under tack next spring. After all, the only pair to sell a higher ratio than Up to the Mark are actually the bottom two, by median: in their case, perhaps an attempt to cut losses.Expressing the median as a yield on fee is obviously a two-dimensional exercise, given that it costs the same to keep and prep a foal regardless of conception fee. The promising Loggins is multiplying his fee best, but of course at $7,500 a lot of his gains will be consumed by those intervening costs. Others to have performed well, however, include several whose yield amply covers costs: Up to the Mark again excels, batting 4.8 times his fee; Gunite, similarly, on 4.3; Forte at 3.7; and Cody's Wish, when selling, at 3.5. In other words, doing what they were paid to do.On a mischievous, back-of-an-envelope basis, I also made a calculation far too tenuous to include on the table, but idly interesting. Just for a vague snapshot of pinhook performance, I measured the difference between the median value of first-crop weanlings (as the feasible going rate for a rough diamond) and their average return as yearlings (using averages, stretched by their top sales, as a concession to the expertise of a pinhooker); and I subtracted from those gains $15,000, as a ballpark for the least you could get away with paying for keep/prep between sales. The outcomes are naturally slippery, being plainly flattering to those whose weanlings flopped. But let's give credit to some whose stock appear to have progressed as a pinhooker might hope: returning to Loggins, for instance, he appears to be jumping through his hoops quite nicely for those operating on tight margins: a $21,500 weanling can absorb another $15,000 or so quite well, if able to reach a yearling average of $75,685. Likewise Annapolis, whose $30,000 median weanling would represent a nice wager if bringing home a $72,016 average as a yearling.All too speculative for words, of course. But without speculation, we wouldn't have a bloodstock market at all.The post Average American Yearling Up Another Nine Percent appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.