Courtesy of Trainer Magazine

More than a decade ago, a small group of committed consignors and commercial breeders pooled their resources of capital, imagination, and dedication to address some of the issues that were consistently proving an impediment to the conduct of business, especially at yearling auctions.

The group took the name of the Consignors and Commercial Breeders Association (CBA), and they created a mission statement to work “democratically on behalf of every consignor and commercial breeder, large and small, to provide representation and a constructive, unified voice related to sales issues, policies, and procedures. The Association’s initiatives are designed to encourage a fair and expanding market place for all who breed, buy, and sell Thoroughbreds.”

At this beginning, Bayne Welker, who was a founding member and the CBA’s first president, said, “One of the reasons the CBA was formed was to provide a voice and to have a trade association for North American consignors.” The others aligning with Welker, then of Mill Ridge Farm and currently vice president of sales at Fasig-Tipton, in the formation of the CBA included Mark Taylor of Taylor Made Sales, Pat Costello (Paramount Sales), Kerry Cauthen (Four Star Sales), and breeder Rob Whiteley, with Mike Cline of Lane’s End joining them quickly in forming the organization.

“This was a small group that drew up articles of incorporation,” Welker recalled, “and then we formed a calling tree where we rang up other consignors with a call to get on board. It was a straightforward call to action and it worked out.”

Pat Costello noted that the CBA is “an amazing group. We are all competitors in business but leave our hats at the door for the CBA. At this stage, I believe both [Keeneland and Fasig-Tipton] look to us for input at their sales.”

One of the fundamentals of the organization was that the founders and the board work on the principle that constructive dialogue and a fair-minded approach are good for the sport and for the business in the long-term.

The group has managed to live up to its ideals through the first decade of its existence and has prospered by providing an organizational voice for consignors and breeders on large and small issues. The CBA describes itself as “your seat at the table” when addressing thorny and sometimes controversial subjects like scoping, OCDs, the yearling sale process, and most recently, steroids.

The initial vision for the group

From the start, the leaders of the CBA envisioned it as far more than a promotional agency. That function is already well managed by the sales companies and breed groups. Instead, Welker said, “One of the founding tenets in putting the group together was education. The CBA saw a large part of its role as being there to educate all members who are involved at the sales, and through the hard work of Rob Whiteley, there were booklets produced that help people become more educated, involved, and comfortable with their investments in Thoroughbreds.”

With these educational approaches, the scope of the CBA was both broader and more focused, and among the first undertakings of the group was to create a series of brochures that explain to the buying public in plain language the practice and terminology of vets, consignors, and auction houses.

The CBA’s first educational project was to create a booklet for distribution at the sales that addressed endoscopic examinations (scoping) in yearlings. Its purpose was to explain “What is scoping, what does the procedure tell buyers, and how can they best use that information to inform their buying decisions?”

Author: Frank Mitchell