Keeneland November sale closes with record median, gains across the board

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Brain Graves, general manager of Gainesway, summed up the overall marketplace at the Keeneland November breeding stock sale simply.

“It is impossible to buy, and it is really fun to sell," Graves said with a grin.

The Keeneland November sale concluded a 10-day run Friday with improved figures across the board from its pandemic-hampered 2020 edition. Those figures included a sale-record median, a crucial figure for market health.

"The median is such a good guide of the health of the market, and the health of the middle market, in particular," said Cormac Breathnach, Keeneland’s director of sales operations. "It's very gratifying."

Keeneland reported that 2,470 horses sold during the 10-day sale, which was arranged into five books, for gross receipts of $203,585,500. During the 2020 sale, 2,197 horses grossed $151,017,300. Both of these figures represent horses sold through the ring, with private sales not yet factored in. Keeneland does factor private sales into the official figures published in its media guides for all sales beginning with the 2009 editions.

The average price for horses sold through the ring was $82,423, rising 20 percent from the comparable figure, $68,738, in 2020. The average finished at its highest mark since $83,948 in 2015.

The median price finished at a record $37,000, soaring 61 percent from $23,000 last year. The November sale's previous record was $35,000, first achieved in 2005 and matched in 2006, 2007, 2013, and 2014.

The median is “more representative of the bulk of the market, so the very high prices or the very low prices don’t play into the median," Breathnach said. "We’re not just dependent on two really high selling horses that spew the average for headline’s sakes. If you have a healthy median and a low RNA rate, that really indicates an active market, and that’s what we’re looking at behind the scenes to gauge where we are. From Book 1 of September to now, it is very encouraging.

“Oftentimes, we have conversations about how the market is selective and spotty, or how quality sells well but it’s soft in the middle, but what we are seeing now is a demand and a healthy appetite all the way through the market on every level of what we’ve been offering," Breathnach continued. "That’s where the median sort of comes from; there aren’t a lot of people going home with their tails between their legs. Most people are selling satisfactorily, and it’s just a healthy market, and long may it last.”

The overall buyback rate finished at 17 percent, slightly improved from 19 percent overall in 2020.

“I think it was really encouraging – the money is spread across the board a lot more,” said Tony Lacy, Keeneland's vice president of sales. “And people were protecting stock [with reserves]. They weren’t going to give it away. So again, a sign of strength."

The sale was led, overall, by seven broodmares sold for seven-figure price tags, all in the early days of the sale. Leading the way was Grade 1 winner Paris Lights, purchased for $3.1 million by Spendthrift Farm. General manager Ned Toffey said that the royally bred filly, who was offered as a racing or broodmare prospect, will be bred to Spendthrift’s two-time reigning leading sire Into Mischief in 2022.

“Very classic American racehorse,” Toffey said. “Big, scopey filly. I think she will fit Into Mischief really well. We are happy to have her.”

Paris Lights, a 4-year-old Curlin filly, was bred by WinStar Farm and was raced by its WinStar Stablemates partnership. The filly won a pair of graded stakes for the partnership, highlighted by the Grade 1 Coaching Club American Oaks last year at Saratoga. She was consigned to Keeneland by Elite Sales, as agent. The filly won 3 of 4 outings last year, including the Grade 1 Coaching Club American Oaks at Saratoga.

Paris Lights sports a stellar pedigree for a broodmare prospect, as she is from the immediate family of 1982 Kentucky Oaks winner and blue hen Blush With Pride. That mare, the dam of multiple classic producer Better Than Honour, the 2007 Broodmare of the Year, is herself out of 1982 Broodmare of the Year Best In Show.

Behind Paris Lights on the leaderboard was multiple graded stakes winner Pink Sands, a young Tapit mare sold for $2.3 million to Masahiro Miki of Japan while carrying her first foal, to the cover of Into Mischief.

Pink Sands, who was consigned by co-owner Gainesway, helped both Gainesway resident Tapit and Into Mischief finish on the leaderboards at Keeneland November. Tapit was the leading sire of the sale, factoring in horses from all categories – mares, weanlings, and racehorses. He finished with 35 lots sold for a gross of $8,194,500.

Into Mischief was both the second-leading sire of the sale behind Tapit, and the second-leading covering sire of the sale – bested by only his champion son Authentic. The 2020 Kentucky Derby and Breeders' Cup Classic winner and Horse of the Year now stands alongside his sire at Spendthrift, and finished with 20 mares carrying foals from his first crop sold for a sale-leading gross of $7,840,000.

Led by his purchase of Pink Sands, Miki also finished as the sale's leading buyer by gross, spending $3,675,000 for three mares. Various Japanese entities made a major impact on the top of the market, purchasing four of the top 12 lots. With a number of COVID-19-mandated international travel restrictions lifting recently, buyers from Korea, Europe, Australia, Turkey, and South America also made an impact on the marketplace.

"It was nice to have the international folks back," Keeneland president and CEO Shannon Arvin said. "We saw internet bidding go down [in Book 1], which I think is because there were so many international folks that were able to be here in person, which was great to see. And the domestic buying bench stayed very strong and steady, as well."

Online bidding did account for grosses of $11,697,000 overall, with that activity spiking during the second week of the sale. After 34 horses were sold via the internet in Books 1 and 2, the final three books of the sale accounted for 219 online purchases.

In keeping with the international theme of the sale, the highest-priced weanling was an $800,000 filly by unbeaten two-time European Horse of the Year and standout young international sire Frankel, who Lacy gave the credit to Keeneland Europe representative Ed Prosser for recruiting.

The filly is a half-sister to Arizona and Nay Lady Nay, both Grade/Group 2 winners who also are Grade/Group 1-placed. She was purchased by Matt Dorman's Determined Stud, with trainer Phil Schoenthal as agent, from the consignment of Four Star Sales, as agent.

"Obviously, a Frankel," Dorman said. "It's a great page, great family, and she's got great conformation, so she ticked all the boxes. She'll be in the racing program and hopefully improve her page and go from there. She's long-term for us."

Led by Dorman's purchase, the top five weanling lots of the sale also represented long-term investments for those who intend to race or even eventually breed their purchases, as opposed to pinhookers. Following on the leaderboard were a $625,000 Justify colt purchased by Coolmore's M.V. Magnier; a $600,000 Quality Road colt purchased by Donato Lanni for Baoma Corp.; a $510,000 Into Mischief filly purchased by Jim McIngvale; and a $480,000 Into Mischief colt purchased by Tracy Farmer.

The activity in the weanling marketplace by end users represented a carrying of the momentum from a strong edition of Keeneland's September yearling sale, as buyers who struggled to fill their orders in a competitive marketplace seek to jump ahead in the line for the yearlings of 2022.

Lacy noted that the broodmare marketplace also can rise in response to the yearling marketplace, as breeders feel confident to reinvest in mares who will produce commercial success.

"When you have a vibrant yearling market, the reaction is, people say, 'Okay, it is viable to breed these horses,’ " Lacy said, also noting strong purse structures and enthusiasm for racing as factors in market enthusiasm.

While broodmares and weanlings make up the traditional offerings, and the majority of the offerings, at the November sale, Keeneland began offering a selection of horses of racing age in the second week of the sale several years ago, in response to demand from consignors and buyers.

That section of the sale has grown in popularity and scope with the success of its graduates, and this year, Keeneland consolidated these offerings into their own dedicated session on the final day of the sale. Leading the way to close the auction out on a high note was recent maiden winner Strava, who sold for $825,000 to lead 127 racehorses who contributed $8,029,000 to the gross.

Strava, a 2-year-old Into Mischief colt, won his debut Oct. 9 at Keeneland for trainer Dallas Stewart and breeder WinStar Farm, which co-owned him with Siena Farm. Denny Crum purchased the colt from the consignment of WinStar Racing and will keep him in training with Stewart.

“I’ve decided at my age there is no reason to save any money,” said Crum, the 84-year-old former University of Louisville basketball coach. “So I wanted a good horse, and I think we got one. He cost us a little more than I thought he would, but still is the best horse here.”

Stewart said Strava would go to Fair Grounds for the winter.

Taylor Made Sales, which consigned all types of horses offered through all five books of Keeneland November, finished as the sale's leading consignor for the fifth straight year, with 236 horses sold for $23,080,200.

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