Keeneland sale stronger near end

The Keeneland September yearling auction's next-to-last session Monday in Lexington, Ky., featured a $122,000 half-sister to Dream Rush and continued a pattern of dramatic gains in the sale's closing days.

Monday's session, the 14th in the two-week sale, sold 243 yearlings for $2,630,500, almost double the $1,466,300 in receipts for 180 horses at last year's equivalent day. The session average of $10,825 was up 33 percent from last year's $8,146, and the median of $7,000 was up 52 percent.

Dual Grade 1 winner Dream Rush's half-sister topped the session on a $122,000 bid from Halvorson Bloodstock. Lonnie Owens's Katalpa Farm consigned the filly, a daughter of Salt Lake and the Unbridled mare Turbo Dream. When the sale catalog was printed, Dream Rush was Grade 1-placed, but afterwards she took both the Prioress and the Test stakes.

Sunday's session also recorded double-digit increases across the board, selling 249 yearlings for $3,664,200, an increase of 66 percent from last year. The $14,716 average was up 53 percent, and the $9,000 median was up 39 percent. But cumulative figures for the auction's first 14 sessions continued to be mixed. Through Monday, the auction had sold 3,627 yearlings for $383,467,100, down 4 percent from last year, when 3,556 horses sold. The cumulative average of $105,726 was down by 6 percent. But the median gained 4 percent to reach $47,000.