Keeneland November sale: Kilwin set for another trip through ring

Hip No. 114 on Tuesday’s first day of the marathon November breeding stock sale at Keeneland is a familiar filly at the famous auction venue.

Kilwin, a four-time stakes winner, including the Grade 1 Test Stakes at Saratoga in 2025, is being offered as a racing or broodmare prospect, 12 months after she sold for $3 million at the same sale. She was purchased as a yearling for $225,000.

Kilwin’s value may change before the sale begins at 1 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday. She is entered in Saturday’s Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint at Keeneland.

The nine-day Keeneland November sale includes 3,397 prospects of all ages. The sale continues through Nov. 11. A horses of racing age sale will be held Nov. 12.

There has already been a notable defection from Tuesday’s session. Super Corredora, the champion 2-year-old filly of 2025, will be withdrawn, trainer John Sadler said last weekend.

Super Corredora, who won the Grade 2 Zenyatta Stakes on Sept. 27 at Santa Anita, is entered in Saturday’s BC Distaff. She won the BC Juvenile Fillies at Del Mar last October.

“We’re going to campaign her next year,” Sadler said of the partnership that owns Super Corredora.

There are scores of impeccably bred broodmares and weanlings, as well as several notable racing prospects, in Tuesday’s segment of the auction, which encompasses the first of six catalog books.

This year’s entire sale has a tough act to follow. The 2025 auction had an all-time record gross of $237.4 million, with 18 horses selling for $1 million or more. In 2024, gross sales were $187.5 million, with nine horses selling for seven figures.

The average last year was $125,572, a gain of 37 percent from $91,491 in 2024. The median rose from $40,000 in 2024 to $60,000 in 2025.

Last year, the opening session saw 122 horses sell for $72.2 million, compared to 143 horses selling for $62.3 million in 2024. The average in the first session soared from $436,154 in 2024 to $596,205 last year. The median also rose, from $350,000 in 2024 to $422,500 last year.

Kilwin, trained by Rusty Arnold, is owned by BBN Racing and Rick Howard. BBN Racing has campaigned Kilwin throughout her career. Howard was listed as buyer at the 2025 sale.

Kilwin has started twice this year, winning the Twin Bridges Stakes at Ellis Park in July and finishing second in the Grade 1 Ballerina Stakes on Aug. 29 at Saratoga.

She is not alone as a Breeders’ Cup runner soon to be offered for sale.

The BC Filly and Mare Sprint field includes Tuesday sale prospects Foie Gras, a three-time stakes winner this year, and the millionaire multiple stakes winner Majestic Oops, who was second in the Zenyatta.

The Filly and Mare Turf field includes Thought Process, winner of the Grade 1 Gamely Stakes at Santa Anita in May; Stellify, who won the Kentucky Downs Ladies Marathon this year; and Expensive Queen, who won the Grade 1 Jenny Wiley Stakes on turf at Keeneland in April.

They are all part of Tuesday’s sale along with Usha, winner of the Grade 1 La Brea Stakes at Santa Anita last December.

Thought Process won the Grade 2 Rodeo Drive Stakes on Oct. 3 at Santa Anita. She is part of a BC Filly and Mare Turf field that includes Lush Lips, who was the most expensive hip of the 2025 Keeneland November sale at $3.7 million.

Through the entirety of Tuesday’s opening session of the sale, there are first-crop weanlings by such notable stallions as Arabian Knight, Cogburn, Dornoch, Muth, National Treasure, Prince of Monaco, and Seize the Grey. The first day of the sale includes mares bred to first-year stallions such as Mystik Dan, who won the 2024 Kentucky Derby, as well as Citizen Bull, Fierceness, Sierra Leone, and Straight No Chaser.

Some notable broodmares in Tuesday’s sale include Ma’am, the dam of Mystik Dan; Sterling Silver, the dam of BC Mile hopeful Rhetorical; and Sippican Harbor, the dam of Commandment, who won the Grade 1 Florida Derby in March.

Sippican Harbor won the Grade 1 Spinaway Stakes for 2-year-old fillies at Saratoga in 2018. Rhetorical, a four-time stakes winner who was fourth in the 2025 BC Mile at Del Mar, won the Grade 1 Coolmore Turf Mile at Keeneland for the second straight year on Oct. 3.

There are weanlings offered on Tuesday who are half-brothers to The Puma, a candidate in the BC Classic; Bacio, the morning-line favorite in the BC Turf Sprint; and Commandment.

The overall auction includes a dispersal of Aaron and Marie Jones, which consists of five broodmares and four weanlings, and 40 horses of all ages from Laurence Leavy’s Starship Stable.

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