Keeneland sale session sees Giant’s Causeway colt the early leader at $750K

A Giant’s Causeway colt out of an Unbridled’s Song mare who sold for $750,000 was the early session-topper at the Keeneland September yearling sale on Thursday, the final day of selling yearlings out of the sale’s second book.

The $750,000 colt, sold about two hours into the sale, capped a robust opening for the fourth session of the mammoth auction, which started on Monday. Through roughly one-third of the cataloged horses for the day, the buy-back rate was a respectable 26 percent, while the average ($173,000) and median ($150,000) prices were both running well above the comparable figures for the Thursday session last year.

The Giant’s Causeway colt, out of the winning mare Good Vibes, was purchased by Todd Pletcher, acting as agent for an unnamed partnership. Good Vibes is the dam of five winners, including the stakes winner Warning Flag, a career earner of $82,654 in Ireland and Hong Kong.

Two other horses broke the $500,000 barrier during the early hours of the session, including an Empire Maker colt out of the winning mare Inda, purchased for $625,000 by B. Wayne Hughes, the California owner and breeder who bought Spendthrift Farm in central Kentucky in 2004. Consigned by Gainesway, as agent, the colt’s second dam is Queena, the champion older mare of 1991 and a dam of three stakes winners, including Brahms and La Reina.

Earlier in the session, David Shimmon’s Fog City Stable purchased a $510,000 Tapit colt out of the Mr. Prospector mare Gold Canyon, the dam of the multiple-graded stakes-winning colt Adriano (by A.P. Indy). Shimmon was advised by the Florida-based pinhooking operation McKathan Brothers.