Prior to the start of the second night of the Lexington Selected Yearling Sale at the Fasig–Tipton Sales Pavilion on Tuesday (Oct. 6) at 6:45 p.m., a special auction will be held to benefit the Standardbred Transition Alliance.

Renowned Swiss timepiece manufacturer Ernst Benz has donated the first of a special Tim Tetrick Hall of Fame limited edition watch series to be auctioned off with all proceeds being donated to the STA. The first watch in the series of only 20 produced will kick off the sale’s second evening as Hip No. 127.

“The limited-edition Tim Tetrick Hall of Fame watch is a 47-mm Chronoscope and boasts the Tetrick Racing logo, all while utilizing the traditional green and yellow colour scheme,” explained Ashley Tetrick. “This will be a limited edition of which only 20 will be created in honour of Tim’s Hall of Fame class of 2020.

“Ernst Benz is an internationally recognized ‘high end’ watchmaker and they were gracious to donate the number one watch to be auctioned for charity at the Lexington Sale.”

But the Tetricks have the bigger picture in mind to make this more than a one-time event to raise money for horse aftercare.

“Our goal, Tim and I, we would love for this to become a trend, every sale, there’s one item that supports aftercare,” said Tetrick.

She would like to see others in the industry participate and grow the idea.

“If somebody came and said, ‘why would you sell a watch, when you could sell a $25,000 item?’ Well that would be great, if someone could outdo us. We welcome it and we would love it if each year one or two people could make a donation of a large item that could be auctioned with proceeds benefiting aftercare,” added Tetrick. “And if each sale did one thing for aftercare, that’s a lot of money that we could raise.”

But wait, there’s more.

Since Standardbred aftercare has been very important to both Tim and Ashley for a long time, they have had a longstanding relationship with New Vocations, a national horse rescue organization that also will benefit from the Tetricks’ generosity.

The fundraiser is much bigger than just the one watch being auctioned at the Lexington Sale benefitting STA. There’s a second watch, a sleek 44-mm Ernst-Benz Chronoscope that Tetrick describes as having “a sophisticated black and gold theme, but geared toward the equestrian enthusiast.”

The watches will be available for sale starting around October 1 at ErnstBenz.com and TetrickRacingGear.com with “a large portion of each watch sold being donated to New Vocations Racehorse Adoption Program,” according to Tetrick.

(USTA)