Barretts sale ends with gains

The two-day Barretts January mixed auction ended Tuesday on a positive note, with gains across the board at the final session and for the entire sale.

Both sessions sold a combined 438 horses for $4,180,400, up 17 percent from last year's auction. Last year, 441 horses brought $3,481,300. The average and median prices also increased this year, by 21 percent and 29 percent, respectively, to reach $9,544 and $4,500.

The numbers got a boost from Selvatica, who sold for a sale-record $560,000 at Monday's opening session. The 6-year-old mare was consigned by Haven Bloodstock Agency as the selling agent in a dispersal of Granja Vista Del Rio, which led all sellers at the auction with 21 horses sold for $995,900.

Another dispersal, that of Pepper Oaks, produced Tuesday's session-topper, the $53,000 broodmare Retained. JMJ Racing Stables purchased mare, a 12-year-old daughter of Star of the Crop and Grade 1 winner Prize Spot. She is the dam of stakes winner Ambition Unbridled. Retained was not pregnant.

Tuesday's session sold 214 horses for $1,605,800, producing an average price of $7,504 and a $4,000 median. Those figures were up 49 percent, 40 percent, and 33 percent, respectively, from last year.