London, ON – Greg Blanchard can point to several reasons why he thinks the London Classic Yearling Sale (LCYS) may be a record-breaking auction. Chief among them, said the sale manager, is U.S. tariff and border concerns that led more consignors to sell more of their horses in London. This year, some 290 Standardbred yearlings will go through the sales ring between Oct. 14 and 15 at the J-AAR Expo Centre (formerly the Agriplex) at Western Fair District.
“With the political climate the way it was when we opened for entries (in the spring) – and so much uncertainty around the potential of tariffs and how they were going to impact things – we had consignors reach out and tell us that they were going to enter everything (in the London sale), and then kind of see how it played out,” Blanchard said. “They are still taking their American-breds south to Lexington and Harrisburg. But some consignors have brought better quality yearlings here this year than maybe normal.
“When the entries were coming in, and we started to go through them, I could tell that the quality was at a different level this year than we had seen. Since then, I’ve had several people give me an unsolicited opinion that, if not the strongest, it’s one of the strongest catalogs ever offered in Canada.”
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