Keeneland November sale: Book 4 ends with $610,000 topper but overall declines

LEXIGNTON, Ky. – The young broodmare Act Now, dam of an exciting recent maiden winner, brought a gaudy $610,000 to top Book 4 of the Keeneland November breeding stock sale, which is moving into its homestretch with declines in its year-to-year figures.

Through seven of nine sale sessions – comprised of a single-session Book 1, then two sessions each of Books 2, 3, and 4 – Keeneland reported 1,615 horses sold for gross receipts of $170,860,000. Last year at this same point, through the identical books, 1,566 horses had sold for $201,383,300. All these figures represent horses sold through the ring, not factoring in later private sales.

The cumulative average price sits at $105,796, down 18 percent from $128,597 at the comparable point of the sale last year. The median is trending down 17 percent, at $50,000 compared to $60,000.

After the buyback rate was high in the upper marketplace to open the sale, it has stabilized in later books and currently sits at an unchanged 24 percent.

Act Now sold to Mark McStay’s Avenue Bloodstock, for an undisclosed client, in Monday’s opening session of Book 4 and easily held the lead for the book throughout its two days. Her price was exceptionally high for this point in the sale, as last year’s Book 4 topper sold for $290,000. The highest price for Book 4 in the previous five editions of the Keeneland November sale came in 2019, when the colt Liam’s Legend, part of a supplemental selection of racehorses, sold for $325,000.

Act Now, a winning daughter of Street Sense, is emerging as a solid young producer, with her first two foals both winners. Her first foal is the Kitten’s Joy colt Dr Oseran, twice stakes-placed earlier this year at Gulfstream Park. Her second foal is the Quality Road colt Coach Prime, who was a $1.7 million purchase by Zedan Racing at last year's Keeneland September yearling sale. After finishing third on debut at Santa Anita, the colt was a 7 1/4-length maiden special weight winner on Nov. 10 at Del Mar.

Further increasing Act Now’s value, she sold in foal to City of Light, a son of Quality Road, for a foal bred on the same cross as Coach Prime. The mare more than quadrupled her purchase price from her last trip through the auction ring, when she was purchased by Springwood and Bill Werner for $150,000 at the 2020 Keeneland January horses of all ages sale. The mare was consigned this week by Nardelli Sales to dissolve a partnership. Dr Oseran was bred in the names of Kim Nardelli, Rodney Nardelli, and William Werner, with Coach Prime bred by that same trio, along with W.S. Farish.

The Keeneland November breeding stock sale concludes with a two-session Book 5 – that book has been three sessions for the last several years – on Wednesday and Thursday. Keeneland will then host its November horses of racing age sale, broken out starting last year into its own event with separate figures, on Friday.

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