Look at 2026 alone and the story seems simple: fewer horses, stronger prices. Five years of results make it more interesting. The completed-sale average fell from about $19,824 in 2022 to $16,207 in 2024, steadied at $16,629 in 2025, then jumped 45.7% to an implied $24,236 in 2026 - the highest average in this five-year window.
But 2026 was also the smallest sale we studied. Only 36 horses were reported sold, compared with 67 to 74 in each of the previous four years. That kept total completed-sale dollars well below earlier peaks. And the apparent 33.3% no-sale rate was not unusual. Across the five years, the average was about 30.4%. So the real story is not that 2026 was simply the "best" sale. It was a smaller market in which the horses that sold brought considerably more money.
Five Years Changes the Picture
| Year | Priced / resolved horses | Sold | Sell-through | No-sale rate | Completed-sale gross | Completed-sale avg. | High seller |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 96 | 74 | 77.1% | 22.9% | $1,467,000 | $19,824 | $160,000 |
| 2023 | 99 | 70 | 70.7% | 29.3% | $1,300,500 | $18,579 | $210,000 |
| 2024 | 104 | 67 | 64.4% | 35.6% | $1,085,900 | $16,207 | $100,000 |
| 2025 | 107 | 74 | 69.2% | 30.8% | $1,230,550 | $16,629 | $75,000 |
| 2026 | 54 | 36 | 66.7% | 33.3% | $872,500 | $24,236 | $87,000 |
Note: 2026 uses 54 observed ring prices and NSBA’s reported 36 sold. The $872,500 completed-sale gross is inferred from 36 × the published $24,236.11 average. NSBA’s article currently states $827,500, which does not reconcile with its own stated average.
Figure 1. Sale volume fell sharply in 2026, while the number sold declined at a similar rate.
The Sale Got Smaller
The clearest change in 2026 was scale. Priced or resolved horses fell from 107 in 2025 to 54, a 49.5% drop. Completed sales fell almost in step, from 74 to 36, down 51.4%. However, we should all take note that this was the first year that the NSBA Markel Yearling Sale required radioagraphs on-file for each sale horse.
That matters. The sale did not lose half its buyers while offering the same number of horses; it offered roughly half as many horses and completed roughly half as many transactions. Volume changed dramatically. The proportion finding buyers did not.
Buyers Did Not Disappear
About one-third of the 2026 yearlings appear to have been no-sales. On its own, 33.3% sounds significant. Historically, it is not especially unusual.
Sell-through ranged from 64.4% to 77.1% over the five years, with 2026 at 66.7%. Despite major swings in catalogue size and price, that measure has been relatively steady. The 2026 result looks less like buyers disappeared and more like a smaller sale operating within a familiar sell-through range.
Figure 2. Sell-through ranged from 64.4% to 77.1% across the five-year period.
A roughly 30% no-sale rate is therefore not an outlier in recent NSBA Yearling Sale history. The five-year average no-sale rate is approximately 30.4%.
The Number That Makes 2026 Different
Figure 3. Derived completed-sale average shows a sharp 2026 rebound after three softer years.
| Year | Derived completed-sale average | YoY change |
|---|---|---|
| 2022 | $19,824.32 | — |
| 2023 | $18,578.57 | -6.3% |
| 2024 | $16,207.46 | -12.8% |
| 2025 | $16,629.05 | +2.6% |
| 2026 | $24,236.11 | +45.7% |
This is where 2026 separates itself. The completed-sale average reached approximately $24,236, up 45.7% from 2025 and the highest of the five years studied. It was also about 22.3% above 2022, previously the strongest year by this measure.
That does not make 2026 the strongest sale by every measure. It does tell us that, among horses that reportedly changed hands, buyers were completing transactions at substantially higher prices.
That distinction matters because a single expensive horse can make a sale look stronger than it was. The broader 2025-to-2026 analysis also showed sharp gains in the median and quartiles, suggesting the improvement reached well beyond the sale topper.
Stronger Prices, But Fewer Dollars in the Ring
Figure 4. Total ring/bid activity and completed-sale gross both declined as sale volume contracted.
| Year | All recorded / gross bids | Completed-sale gross | Bid value not realized as sales | Realized share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | $2,082,500 | $1,467,000 | $615,500 | 70.4% |
| 2023 | $2,130,300 | $1,300,500 | $829,800 | 61.0% |
| 2024 | $1,819,000 | $1,085,900 | $733,100 | 59.7% |
| 2025 | $1,814,000 | $1,230,550 | $583,450 | 67.8% |
| 2026 | $1,371,600 | $872,500 | $499,100 | 63.6% |
Higher prices did not produce a higher-grossing sale. The likely 2026 completed-sale gross was approximately $872,500, the lowest in the five-year comparison, while 2022 reached about $1.47 million. There is no contradiction. In 2026, more money was paid per completed transaction, but there were far fewer transactions over which to multiply that stronger average.
Average price tells us about price strength. Gross tells us about the size of the marketplace. In 2026, those two measures moved in opposite directions.
At the Top of the Sale, We've Seen Bigger
| Year | High seller | Top 5 avg. | Top 10 avg. | Top 20 avg. | Top 30 avg. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | $160,000 | $113,000 | $80,150 | $57,600 | $46,433 |
| 2023 | $210,000 | $95,400 | $67,850 | $45,547 | $35,293 |
| 2024 | $100,000 | $69,800 | $56,920 | $44,335 | $37,306 |
| 2025 | $75,000 | $58,500 | $49,400 | $38,075 | $30,540 |
| 2026 | $87,000 | $71,000 | $58,000 | $44,825 | $36,975 |
Figure 5. Published top-group averages fell into 2025 and rebounded in 2026.
The $87,000 high seller improved on 2025's $75,000 topper, but five-year history puts it in perspective. The sale reached $160,000 in 2022, $210,000 in 2023 and $100,000 in 2024.
The same is true across the top groups. The 2026 Top 5, Top 10, Top 20 and Top 30 all rebounded from 2025, but each remained below its corresponding 2022 average.
That makes the most interesting part of 2026 less about one headline horse and more about the broader market. The top end recovered, but the stronger story appears to be how much more buyers were willing to spend deeper into the offering.
What Numbers Can Tell Us
There is one important wrinkle in a five-year comparison: NSBA's historical summary sheets do not appear to use the label "overall average" in exactly the same way every year.
To keep the comparison consistent, we calculated completed-sale average as completed-sale gross divided by horses sold for every year. For the top-group comparison, the broader all-head figures are used where that is the comparable measure across the historical summaries. This avoids comparing figures that look alike on paper but were calculated differently.
In 2022, NSBA explicitly published two sets of summary statistics: one across all 96 head and another across the 74 completed sales. The all-head Top 5, Top 10, Top 20 and Top 30 averages were $113,000, $80,150, $57,600 and $46,433; the sold-only equivalents were $90,900, $64,850, $45,300 and $36,450. For the top-end comparison in this report, the all-head 2022 figures are used because the later summary sheets’ top-group figures appear to describe the broader bid-price distribution. Separately, for overall average price, this report consistently derives completed-sale average as completed-sale gross ÷ horses sold. In 2024, for example, the published $17,490 “Overall Average” reflects broader recorded bid activity, while $1,085,900 ÷ 67 sold yields a completed-sale average of approximately $16,207.
For the cleanest five-year comparison, this report therefore derives completed-sale average as completed-sale gross ÷ horses sold for every year, rather than blindly comparing the published “overall average” labels.
The Graduate Purse Adds Another Piece to the Story
| Year | Estimated graduate purse | Purse as % of all recorded/gross bids |
|---|---|---|
| 2022 | $210,995.00 | 10.1% |
| 2023 | $218,121.50 | 10.2% |
| 2024 | $186,622.50 | 10.3% |
| 2025 | $185,877.50 | 10.2% |
| 2026 | $135,861.50 | 9.9% |
The estimated Graduate Purse held between roughly $186,000 and $218,000 from 2022 through 2025 before falling to $135,861.50 in 2026. Given the much smaller sale, that decline is not surprising. More interesting is its consistency as a share of activity: across all five years, the estimate remains very close to 10% of recorded gross bid value.
So, How Strong Was 2026?
Was 2026 the strongest NSBA Yearling Sale of the past five years? It depends on what we mean by strong. It was not the largest sale, the highest-grossing sale or the year with the most expensive horse. Its apparent no-sale rate was not unusually low. But the horses that reportedly sold brought more money on average than in any other year we examined.
That makes 2026 less a story about a booming sale and more one about a smaller market supporting stronger prices. The next question is whether those prices can hold when, or if, more horses return to the catalogue.
Verification note: Figures were re-audited against the supplied 2022–2025 summary charts and official NSBA result documents on August 24, 2026. The 2022 top-group comparison was corrected to use the all-head figures rather than the sold-only figures. The 2025 gross-activity total was also reconciled to the official result sheet: $1,230,550 in completed sales plus $583,450 in no-sales = $1,814,000. The 2026 $872,500 completed-sale gross remains an explicitly labelled inference because NSBA’s published $827,500 total does not reconcile with 36 sold at a $24,236.11 average.
Data Notes & Sources
2022–2025 summary statistics were supplied in charts attributed by the user to Daniel Balys and cross-checked against NSBA’s official Yearling Sale result files and related published reporting where available. Where the official result files provided both purchase-price and no-sale totals, those official totals were used for the five-year gross-activity comparison. 2026 statistics were cross-checked against NSBA’s “Next Generation Takes Center Stage at Markel Insurance BCF Yearling Sale” article and StallionCompare’s observed sale results.
NSBA historical result library: https://www.nsba.com/component/rsfiles/files?folder=Yearling-Sale
NSBA 2026 article: https://www.nsba.com/archives/next-generation-takes-center-stage-at-markel-insurance-bcf-yearling-sale
2026 caution: NSBA currently states 36 sold for $827,500 and an average of $24,236.11. Those figures are internally inconsistent. 36 × $24,236.11 = approximately $872,500, so this report uses $872,500 as the likely intended completed-sale gross and clearly labels it as inferred. The observed 54-horse ring-price total of $1,371,600 is used only for broader ring-activity comparisons.
2023 caution: published commentary reports $2,130,300 in gross bids on 99 yearlings while the official result summary reports 70 sold for $1,300,500 and an $18,578 average. This report treats $18,578 as the completed-sale average because it reconciles to completed-sale gross ÷ sold count. For 2024, the official results resolve 104 priced horses (67 sold and 37 no-sales), although separate show-close coverage reported 102 yearlings passing through the ring; this report uses the 104 resolved outcomes for sell-through calculations.
