Perfect Happiness Tops Keeneland October Digital Sale

Keeneland's digital-only sales format continues to evolve, with the latest virtual auction conducted Oct. 1 topped by impressive recent allowance winner Perfect Happiness bringing a top price of $200,000 when purchased by Flurry Racing Stables.

Consigned by her breeder, Brereton Jones of Airdrie Stud, Perfect Happiness is a 3-year-old daughter of Majesticperfection out of the winning Divine Park mare Divine Happiness and is from the family of multiple stakes winner Spring Rush.

Offered in 2018 at The October Sale, Fasig-Tipton's Kentucky yearling sale, Perfect Happiness went unsold on a final bid of $22,000. Trained by Larry Jones for breeder Jones (no relation), the filly has two wins and four seconds in eight starts with earnings of $139,444. Included in her victories was an 8 1/4-length romp in allowance company at Ellis Park, where she got six furlongs in 1:10. She went on to place second twice in Churchill Downs allowance tests.

Consisting of yearlings, horses of racing age, and racing/broodmare prospects, the October Digital Sale saw seven of the 60 offered sell for $243,000, an average of $34,714 and an $8,000 median price. That made for an RNA rate of 88.3%, while only two of the 46 yearlings offered were reported sold.

Keeneland officials said the auction represented another opportunity for sellers to move yearlings that had gone unsold at the recent September Yearling Sale, but they realize the inability of buyers to see the individuals in person could affect their purchasing.

"We just used the yearling aspect to give breeders another opportunity to see if we could help move them," said Geoffrey Russell, Keeneland's director of sales operations. "In the real world, digital sales aren't the best format for yearlings. Yearlings are tactile; you have to have that connection to them when you buy them. You can't buy them off (viewing) videos, and you can't buy them off photographs. With horses of racing age and broodmare prospects, they have past performances and people can see their races."

Four racing/broodmare prospects were sold from nine offered in that category.

The lone 2-year-old sold from five cataloged was Ames Mister, purchased by Paul Martin for $20,000, also from the consignment of Jones and Airdrie. Sold as a racing prospect, the 2-year-old colt by Summer Front  out of the Street Boss  mare Blushing Touch finished second in a maiden race at Ellis Park in August.

Mark Maronde, the director of sales development, said the digital sale was scheduled in close proximity to the Sept. 25 conclusion of the yearling sale to provide another selling option.

"We were going into the September yearling sale conscious of the fact it was going to be hard to sell yearlings, and we felt we had to do everything possible for those people to move product along," Maronde said. "We never felt comfortable they would move a lot, but the mission this year was to move as many yearlings as possible."

While Keeneland and other North American sales companies have successfully introduced online bidding into their live auction formats this year, ostensibly due to the COVID-19 pandemic's impact on buyer attendance at sales, the digital-only sales have been slow to gain traction.

The concept was modeled after a digital sales market that has matured in Australia and New Zealand.

"In 2020, people are looking at different ways of doing commerce, and the internet is obviously a good place to start," Russell said. "In the Southern Hemisphere, they have done it for years, and in talking to people down there, I learned it took a while to get traction down there. There are four companies doing virtual sales in North America, and it is something I think will take time to get some traction and to get people thinking about buying that way."

The October sale was the second auction conducted by Keeneland since establishing its Digital Sales Ring. The June Online Select Horses of Racing Age Sale was topped by Trapezium, a 3-year-old filly bought by St. Elias Stables for $327,000 as 12 horses changed hands for gross receipts of $829,500 for an average price of $69,125 and a median of $32,750. The 19 that went unsold represented 61.3% of the 31 offered. Seven were withdrawn.

Russell said the sales entity is already looking ahead to plan a digital sales schedule.

"For 2021, we will be sitting down and trying to have a campaign for our digital sales and when is a good time to have them," he said. "We are going to think of when is the most opportune time to have a sale, from attracting horses to promoting and marketing the sale."