The I Love Canadian Harness Racing Fan Club hosted a Behind The Scenes Tour at Sunday's Canadian Yearling Sale.

Fan Club Ambassador Garnet Barnsdale has provided us with his experience as a participant in the Tour.

On a glorious sunny day I joined 10 enthusiastic Fan Club members (and prospective yearling racehorse buyers) at SC’s Sales Pavilion at Flamboro Downs for a “behind the scenes” tour that included tutorials and demonstrations on conformation and pedigrees.

After checking in and getting a breakfast voucher in a package from Standardbred Canada that included a sales catalogue, some pedigree and conformation information, a copy of this month’s Trot Magazine and some ILCHR Fan Club swag we were off on our tour.

As our conformation expert for the morning, veteran owner-breeder Brian Webster led us to our first stop. We saw many prospective buyers looking over yearlings at various barns and it seemed obvious by this beehive of activity that horsepeople were in a buoyant mood now that the industry has finally seemed to gain some traction based on recent funding announcements.

We stopped at Peninsula Farms (manned by Carter Duer) which Webster described as a place where many sellers send yearlings 30 or 60 days prior to the sale for preparation. A caretaker walked a magnificent-looking Windsong Espoir colt, Hip #42 'Cool Creek Victory' out and Webster noted some of the potential flaws that buyers look for in conformation while mentioning that this particular colt didn’t appear to have many flaws. Cool Creek Victory indeed did seem very well put together even to an untrained eye, and it was no surprise when he beat the median sales price by more than $17,000 when he sold for $30,000 to Eddie Green of Oshweken, Ontario.

Next we moved to Twinbrook Farms, where the caretaker walked out a stunning chestnut Badlands Hanover pacing filly Twin B Virtue who would enter the ring as hip #42. Webster, who has been a long time mentor to the Standardbred Breeders Association of Ontario’s New Owners Syndicate, explained to the tour group how the filly’s conformation was “finer” when compared to the trotting colt we had looked over at Peninsula Farms. Indeed, Twin B Virtue looked built for early speed and she also sold well, bringing $32,000 from buyer Michael Guerriero from Puslinch, Ontario.

Webster’s tutorial was certainly educational as many of the prospective buyers in our group asked questions. He even provided some amusing anecdotes. “Bill Wellwood loved a horse with a bit of grey in its tail,” he chuckled, while noting these types of idiosyncrasies sometimes came into play with certain trainers.

Our next tutorial was provided by Ken Middleton, more commonly known as the Woodbine Entertainment Group’s track announcer, acting as one of the sale’s Pedigree Readers. Middleton ran us through the pedigree page of Hip # 117 Rothwell, a Camluck son of the super-producing dam Mystic Mistress who had already thrown millionaire Mystician and top performers Camystic, Lucks Mistress and several other winners from the same pairing with Camluck. Middleton mentioned some of the ingredients that buyers look for in pedigrees while noting that based on the obvious previous success of the Camluck/Mystic Mistress breedings it was a no-brainer to expect Rothwell to be one of the sale toppers and indeed he went for $61,000 when the gavel dropped to Gino Toscani of Mount Hope, Ontario.

Tour group members engaged in a question/answer session with Middleton who noted that the supply/demand of wildly successful 2014 first-crop sire Sportswriter was sure to lead to his offspring selling well and his prophecy came true when regally-bred Sports Cowboy walked into the ring and brought $100,000 as the sales topper.

Following Middleton’s pedigree reading seminar we were given a sporty Ontario Sires Stakes cap which brought a comment from the member of the group: “Wow! This $10 (registration fee) sure goes a long way!” We then sat and watched the sale and some in our group may have even bid or bought a yearling.

All in all it was a great day and a very worthwhile event for prospective buyers to attend and learn from experts some of the many aspects to consider prior to raising a hand and bidding on a yearling.