Hidden Scroll tops Tuesday session at $525,000

Hidden Scroll sold for $525,000 to top Tuesday's penultimate session of the Keeneland November breeding stock sale, as the auction continued its final days with a selection of racing and/or stallion prospects.

Keeneland reported 216 horses sold in the ninth of 10 sessions overall in the November sale, for gross receipts of $5,697,700. Tuesday's average price finished at $26,378, while the median was $10,000. Year-to-year, session-to-session figures are not truly comparable as Keeneland November moves into its final days, because the placement of the active racehorses, a market segment that has come to attract strong interest at this auction, fell in different sessions from 2019 to 2020. The 2019 November sale also ran for 12 sessions, as opposed to 10 this year, meaning there will be no comparable figures for the final days of the sale, anyway.

The buyback rate in the final days of the sale contines to be strong, checking in at an outstanding 10 percent for the session, with only 25 horses going unsold in their trip through the ring. A figure under 20 percent is considered strong in an extremely selective marketplace that has become more so in the economic uncertainty of this season.

Hidden Scroll was purchased by Marc Detampel, with Fergus Galvin as agent. The 4-year old Hard Spun colt was listed as a racing or stallion prospect, and was consigned by WinStar Racing as agent for his owner and breeder, Juddmonte Farms.

Racing as a homebred for Juddmonte, Hidden Scroll has won twice from nine career starts to date for trainer Bill Mott. He was most recently seen finishing fifth in an allowance race on Aug. 1 at Saratoga.

Hidden Scroll is one of two winners from three starters out of the unraced Empire Maker mare Sheba Queen. Her dam is Group 1 winner Etoile Montante, the dam of Grade 2 winner Starformer. This is the extended family of outstanding Juddmonte runners such as multiple Grade 1 winners Sightseek and Tates Creek, European champion Special Duty, and Breeders' Cup Mile winner Expert Eye.

The highest-priced filly or mare of the session was Miss J McKay, who sold for $300,000 to Jackson Farms to also rank as the second-highest price of the day overall behind Hidden Scroll. The Maryland-bred filly was offered as a racing or broodmare prospect by Elite Sales, as agent.

Miss J McKay, by Hangover Kid, won the Anne Arundel County Stakes as Laurel as a juvenile last season, and picked up three additional stakes placings at Laurel, Monmouth, and Aqueduct. This year, she has placed in stakes at Belmont, Saratoga, and Kentucky Downs. She was most recently seventh in the Grade 2 Sands Point Stakes on Oct. 10 at Belmont in her graded stakes debut, the only time in her career she has finished worse than third.

A colt by Mo Town led all weanlings at the session, selling for $65,000 to P&B Stable from the consignment of Mulholland Springs, as agent.

This is the first crop for Mo Town, winner of the Grade 1 Hollywood Derby on turf and the Grade 2 Remsen Stakes on dirt. Mo Town is by Uncle Mo, who has made an outstanding start as a sire of sires with Nyquist, Outwork, and Laoban among this year's leading freshman sires.

The session-leading colt is out of the Sky Mesa mare Supplement, a half-sister to stakes-placed Christine Daae, dam of stakes winner Ready to Repeat. Another half-sister, Chausie, produced Grade 3 winner Thatlookonyerface.

For hip-by-hip results, click here.