$450,000 Unified colt tops session as Book 3 ends at Keeneland September sale

LEXINGTON, Ky. – A $450,000 colt from the first crop of Unified led Saturday's session as the bellwether Keeneland September yearling sale reached the midpoint of its marathon run.

Saturday's session was the sixth of the sale overall and concluded the Book 3 portion of the auction. The 12-session sale runs daily through Sept. 25 with Books 4-5. To this point of the September sale, Keeneland reported 1,098 yearlings sold for gross receipts of $208,919,700. The gross to this point compared to the first three books of the 2019 renewal is not comparable, as last year's first three books comprised seven total sessions, owing to an additional session in the top-market Book 1 portion.

The cumulative average price at Keeneland September currently sits at $190,273, a drop of 21 percent compared to the $240,511 Keeneland reported on the evening of the Book 3 finale in 2019. The median currently tracks at $125,000 compared to $170,000, a 26 percent change. The declining figures are largely attributable to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. In addition to the market restraint that is a common reaction to uncertainty in the world, travel restrictions due to the pandemic have caused this marketplace to be dominated by domestic interests. A number of major international buyers have been absent from the front end of the market, such as Godolphin, which led all buyers at last year's sale with 10 purchases for $16 million. The lack of broad international participation is likely to be seen in the results of the second week of the sale as well.

“Without European participation, you’re going to feel that on the front end, in Books 1 through 3, and without Korean and South American participation, you feel that on the back end, on really the bread-and-butter $20,000 to $30,000 horses,” Conrad Bandoroff of consignor Denali Stud said prior to the September sales.

The current cumulative buyback rate in a market that has become increasingly selective sits at 34 percent through Saturday. The buyback rate was 40 percent after Book 1 earlier in the week and has improved slightly through Books 2 and 3, dovetailing with comments Keeneland’s director of sales operations, Geoffrey Russell, made following Book 1. At the upper end of the marketplace, sellers may be more willing and able to retain and race horses themselves rather than parting with them for less than their perceived value. In the middle and lower markets, sellers may adjust their reserves to tip the scales in favor of a sale.

"As we go through the sale, those people, they're commercial breeders with commercial crops," Russell said. "They'll want to sell, so we hope that we'll see a change in” the buyback rate.

The Unified colt who led the session sold to bloodstock agent Donato Lanni on behalf of Three Amigos, a moniker for the team of Mike Pegram, Karl Watson, and Paul Weitman, longtime clients of trainer Bob Baffert. Unified, a son of Candy Ride, won the Grade 2 Peter Pan Stakes and Grade 3 Bay Shore Stakes as a 3-year-old, and the Grade 3 Gulfstream Park Sprint the following year. He also was second by a neck in the Grade 1 Carter Handicap.

Unified's session-leading colt, who was consigned by Four Star Sales, as agent, is out of the unraced Majestic Warrior mare Fay Na Na, who has produced one winner from two starters to date. Fay Na Na is a half-sister to Grade 3-placed The Truth and K G and stakes-placed Francesco Appeal. Grade 1 winner and popular young stallion Klimt appears on the catalog page, as does Peruvian champion Lolo Forever.

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