Keeneland Racehorse Portion Spirited but Diminished

Led by the sale of Strava  for $825,000 to retired University of Louisville basketball coach Denny Crum, the Horses of Racing Age portion of the November Breeding Stock Sale at Keeneland produced a spirited but diminished final run to culminate the 10-day sale.

For the first time this year, Keeneland sold an entire session of racehorses on the final day, a move largely embraced by consignors. Some of them were eager to showcase racehorses in a specific session, not combined with broodmares and weanlings. However, just 149 of the 290 cataloged horses (51%) made it into the ring following outs.

Twenty-three horses sold for $100,000 or more, highlighted by Strava (Hip 3631), a 2-year-old Into Mischief   colt who scored in his lone start last month. His sale-topping price contributed to WinStar Racing leading all consignors with 22 head sold for an aggregate $2,506,500, a tally that included five horses WinStar consigned for Juddmonte. All of the WinStar racehorses met their reserves.

"The market is really good, racehorses are attractive, purses are good, and these horses are ready to run in two or three weeks," WinStar Farm president/CEO Elliott Walden said after Strava's sale.

KING: Crum Teams With Stewart, Buys Strava for $825K

Twenty-two of the 149 HORA horses that went through the ring Friday were unsold, an RNA rate of less than 15%.

Tony Lacy, vice president of sales for Keeneland, said an early entry period for the November Breeding Stock Sale contributed to outs from HORA entries.

"What we did with the horses of racing age section was logistically difficult for sellers, and for the breeding stock, it placed a lot of horses out of spots, into later slots," he acknowledged. "The original entry date was too early, which led to a lot of scratches, but having it be more dynamic will be beneficial."

The high percentage of outs was also the nature of HORA sales, to an extent. Sound horses coming off promising races are coveted by buyers, leaving some consignors to remove those not fitting that bill.

"We obviously want to put a horse through the ring that is going to vet well for people, and that is going to be in form, and those are variables that sometimes change even a day before the sale," said Liz Crow, who heads ELiTE Sales with Bradley Weisbord.

Despite numerous withdrawals from its consignment, ELiTE was the second leading HORA consignor, selling 21 head for $1,707,000

Keeneland "provided Daily Racing Form (past performances), Thoro-Graphs, Ragozin Sheets. I felt like that really helped," Crow said. "I felt like buyers had more information than they've ever had.

"I thought it was a good market across the board from top to bottom. We had horses sell for $10,000 up to $240,000. So we got 'em sold on all different areas of the market. It felt like a really good sale."

For the HORA session, which followed an initial broodmare and weanling group of horses on Friday, Keeneland reported 127 horses sold for $8,029,000. The median was $32,000 and the average $63,220.

After Strava, the three highest sales prices during the session were Gold for Kitten  (Hip 3756), bought by Vineyard Racing for $350,000 from the St George Sales, agent, consignment; Stolen Base  (Hip 3628), who went to trainer Mike Maker, as agent, for $335,000 from consignor Bluewater Sales; and Realm of Law  (Hip 3600), bought by bloodstock agent Jane Buchanan for BBA Ireland for $325,000.

A maiden win by 4 1/2 lengths at Keeneland Oct. 15 provided an update to Realm of Law's form coming into the sale.

WinStar Racing consigned him for Juddmonte, who bred and raced the colt with trainer Chad Brown.

"He broke his maiden on the dirt. So he can run on the grass or the dirt, and he's just gorgeous," Buchanon said. "I love the pedigree of Juddmonte's."

In each case of the session leaders, encouraging recent form from the runners sparked interest from buyers.

"I think people are always looking for that instant action. That really helps," Crow said.