Holy Bull mare tops Adena sale

LEXINGTON, Ky. - A pair of six-figure broodmares led the 11th annual Adena Springs broodmare auction Thursday night at Fasig-Tipton Kentucky's Newtown Paddocks in Lexington.

Agent Eugenio Colombo paid the top price of $130,000 for Silent Bull, a 6-year-old Holy Bull mare offered in foal to Awesome Again. Leonard Riggio's My MeadowView operation purchased the night's other six-figure mare, 4-year-old Prom Dancer, in foal to Macho Uno.

The one-night auction sold 101 of 104 horses for a total of $1,726,000, resulting in an average price of $17,089 and a $10,000 median. At last year's edition of this sale, 88 horses brought $2,313,500, for a $26,290 average and an $18,500 median.

This year, Adena Springs changed the auction's format by offering only mares who were in foal for the first time and by dropping its tradition of selling broodmares with return breeding seasons to Adena Springs stallions. Farm officials said that there was less promotional needed this year now that such sires as Awesome Again, El Prado, Touch Gold, and Macho Uno have become established, and they cited the complexity of managing the breed-back program in an operation that now stands 18 stallions at farms in Kentucky and Florida.