Keeneland November sale: Trio of horses sell for $300,000 to pace opening session of Book 3

The young mares Quality Heat and Sex Symbol and a weanling colt by Mendelssohn each sold for $300,000 as the Keeneland November breeding stock sale opened its Book 3 portion with an improved average and steady median, encouraging figures after the upper-market portion of the sale trended downward earlier in the week.

Keeneland reported 227 horses sold for gross receipts of $13,153,000 during Thursday's session, the Book 3 opener and the fourth of 10 sessions in the sale overall. In last year's Book 3 opener, 272 horses sold for $14,951,200.

The day's average price was $57,943, ticking up 5 percent compared to $54,968 in the corresponding session of the 2019 sale. The median price was $42,000, finishing even with 2019.

The day's buyback rate in a marketplace that has become more selective in 2020 was a respectable 24 percent, compared to 23 percent.

Quality Heat and Sex Symbol were both consigned by Bluewater Sales, as agent. Quality Heat, a 3-year-old Quality Road filly who was offered as a racing or broodmare prospect, was purchased by Springbord Farm.

Quality Heat, who was multiple stakes-placed as a juvenile, is out of the stakes-placed Unusual Heat mare Rushen Heat, making her a full sister to multiple graded stakes winner Frank Conversation. Rushen Heat is a full sister to Grade 1 winners Golden Doc A and Unusual Suspect.

Later in the session, Sex Symbol was purchased by Green Lantern Stables, with Patrick Masson as agent. The 3-year-old daughter of Uncle Mo sold carrying her first foal, to the cover of City of Light.

Sex Symbol is out of the Grade 1-winning Empire Maker mare Icon Project, dam of graded stakes winner Fashion Business. Icon Project is out of Grade 1 winner La Gueriere, and this is the immediate family of Grade 2 winner and successful sire Munnings.

Larry Best's OXO Equine went to $300,000 to acquire the session's leading weanling, from the first crop of the globe-trotting Mendelssohn. The Scat Daddy horse, winner of the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf and multiple Grade 1-placed on dirt, is a half-brother to leading sire Into Mischief and has been popular early in his stud career. Mendelssohn tied for the lead among mares covered by North American stallions in 2019 and ranked third this year, according to The Jockey Club's Report of Mares Bred.

Best's purchase, consigned by Four Star Sales, as agent, is out of the unraced Olmodavor mare Abuntia, a half-sister to multiple graded stakes winner St. Joe Bay. The colt's fourth dam is champion Susan's Girl, the dam of Grade 1 winner Copelan.

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