Keeneland November sale: Jane Lyon stays active with session-topper on Day 2

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Jane Lyon, who owns and operates Summer Wind Farm in Central Kentucky, went to $1.45 million on Tuesday to buy the 4-year-old racemare Park Avenue, the session-topper on day 2 of the Keeneland November breeding stock sale.

Park Avenue won a minor stakes race earlier this year and finished second in a Grade 3 stakes, but it was her breeding that attracted all the deep-pocketed attention. She is by top sire Quality Road, and her dam, Remarkable, is by Indian Charlie, who has developed a prodigious reputation as a broodmare sire. Her third dam is Mine Only, matron of a good family.

“I need some good mares,” said Lyons, who has been actively bidding at both Keeneland November and the one-session Fasig-Tipton sale held Sunday night. “I’ve been outbid on several I wanted, but I was pretty determined not to get outbid on her.”

Lyons said that Park Avenue will be retired, but she has yet to decide on a sire. Flightline, the eventual Horse of the Year who was retired after winning Saturday’s Breeders’ Cup Classic, was mentioned as a possibility.

“We’re going to debate that because there’s some close connections” to a lot of top-class commercial sires, Lyons said.

Park Avenue was one of two mares to sell for $1 million or more at the Tuesday session, capping a brisk afternoon of horse trading after somewhat subdued activity in the morning. In total, seven horses sold for $500,000 or more during the session, compared to five last year, when the session-topper was $650,000, less than half the price of this year’s session-topper. At this year’s second session, five horses sold in excess of last year’s session-topping price.

In total, Keeneland sold 197 horses on Tuesday for $35,073,000; last year, the company sold 226 horses in the second session for gross of $37,866,000. Average was $178,036, a 6.3 percent gain on the average for last year, while median rose 7.7 percent to $140,000.

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The number of horses that did not reach the reserves set by their consignors increased 18.8 percent to 76, up from 64 during the session last year. The percentage of RNA’s increased from 22.1 percent last year during the second session to 27.8 percent this year

The cumulative median edged up above the first two sessions of last year’s sale by the end of the day, settling at $190,000, compared to $185,000 through the first two sessions last year.

“Our average and median were both up about 6 and 8 percent today, and our RNAs were up a bit, but people are probably being a little more selective because replacement costs are high,” said Cormac Breathnach, Keeneland’s director of sales operations, after the session ended. “You’re going to roll on for another year if you can if you can’t replace with the same quality.”

Jim and Dana Bernhard, purchasing under the name Pin Oak Stud, spent heavily at the Tuesday session after buying two mares on Monday for a total of $925,000. The couple recently purchased Pin Oak Stud in Central Kentucky, following the death of the farm’s longtime matriarch, Josephine Abercrombie, at the age of 95 in January. Jim Bernhard is an investment manager from Louisiana.

At the Tuesday session, Matt Weinmann, representing the Bernhards, signed the tickets for four mares: Sweet Sami D, a 6-year-old mare by Arrogate, for $1 million; Querelle, a 6-year-old mare by Violence, for $700,000; Broadway Lady, a 5-year-old Constitution mare, for $550,000; and Cyrielle, a 7-year-old Animal Kingdom mare, for $135,000. Sweet Sami D is carrying a Gun Runner foal; Querelle is carrying a Constitution foal; Cyrielle is carrying a Charlatan foal; and Broadway Lady was sold as a racing and broodmare prospect.

“We’ve got the new farm and have plenty of stall space there,” Weinmann said. “We figure we might as well get as many good ones as we can.”

China Horse Club, the international racing syndicate that has been a partner in a handful of top-class horses in the past five years, including 2018 Triple Crown winner Justify, purchased four horses on Tuesday, including Ragged Rose, a 4-year-old mare by Union Rags. Ragged Rose, who is carrying a Quality Road foal, brought $750,000.

Michael Smith, who advises and represents China Horse Club at auctions in the U.S., said that Ragged Rose would stay in Kentucky and be bred back to Life Is Good, last year’s winner of the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile who went off second choice in Saturday’s BC Classic. China Horse Club is a partner in Life Is Good with Winstar Farm, where Life Is Good will stand.

“Very clean, strong, good limbs, and good action,” Smith said. “She’s got everything you can look for in a mare. She’ll complement [Life Is Good] beautifully.”

China Horse Club spent $600,000 on three other mares on Tuesday, and Smith said that all will be bred to Life Is Good. Tuesday was the first day that China Horse Club signed a ticket at the Keeneland sale.

“[The market] is strong, but if you do your homework, you can find value,” Smith said. “I think we’ve bought really well today, across the board.”

The highest-priced weanling sold on Tuesday was a $425,000 Quality Road colt bought by Brookstone Farm. The colt is out of the Smart Strike mare Daisy Miller, who was unraced.

Grovendale, a sales agency owned and operated by partners James Keough and Chance Timm, had a good day, selling both Ragged Rose, in foal to Quality Road, for $750,000 and Querelle, in foal to Constitution, for $700,000. The pair went through the ring three hips apart.

“We had a solid draft here that we felt confident in,” said Chance. “The buyers are being particular about covering sires for which horses they are interested in, Quality Road being one of them. … It’s so physically driven on all sides of the market, even for mares in foal. Those mares were superstar physicals. Black cats throw black kittens. That’s what buyers want.”

The sale continues for the next eight consecutive days. Book 2 of the sale will conclude on Wednesday.

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