LEXINGTON, Ky. – Kentucky experienced its first blast of winter, with light snowfall accumulating alongside the bright fall foliage in the final days of the Keeneland November breeding stock sale. Inside the sale pavilion, however, the temperature was hot, as the major-market fall mixed sale concluded on Tuesday evening with double-digit gains in key economic indicators, including a record average and median. The dial for that hot marketplace was set some two months prior during an unseasonably warm Keeneland September yearling sale. Although offering a different type of stock, that strong yearling marketplace carried momentum into the mixed sale, which offered broodmares, racing and broodmare prospects, weanlings, and stallions and stallion prospects. “Part of this growth from last November to now is reinvestment,” Keeneland vice president of sales Tony Lacy said. “People have had, in many cases, successful years through the market, through the yearling season. There's a need to reinvest, and there's equity with which to do some of that. So I think some of the growth is on the back of how strong September was.” Keeneland reported that 1,891 horses sold over eight days, from Nov. 4-11, for gross receipts of $237,456,400. With three full sessions remaining, the sale had already surpassed the final gross from 2024, and the final figure blew its predecessor out of the water, even with fewer horses sold. In 2024, Keeneland reported 2,050 horses sold over nine days for $187,557,400. Both sets of figures represent horses sold through the ring and do not account for private sales that will later be included in Keeneland’s official records. :: Access the most trusted data and information in horse racing! DRF Past Performances and Picks are available now. The top of the marketplace was very strong, with a total of 18 horses sold for seven figures, doubling the number to reach that threshold in 2024. Fueled by those sales, the cumulative average price was $125,572, up 37 percent from $91,491 last year.  The median, considered a stronger indicator of overall market health than the average because it samples a wider swath of activity rather than being fueled by high-ticket prices, spiked 50 percent to $60,000 from $40,000. The buyback rate, also considered a key figure, was relatively steady at a cumulative 20 percent, compared to 21 percent last year. The previous high-water mark for the average sale price was $102,842 in 2005. The $40,000 median last year was the prior record.  Among the racing or broodmare prospects who garnered the majority of headlines at the sale, Grade 1 winners Lush Lips, Vahva, and Kilwin sold for $3.7 million, $3.1 million, and $3 million, respectively, to lead Book 1 on Nov. 4 and the overall sale. At last year's November sale, the top price was $2.4 million for graded stakes winner Roses for Debra. Lush Lips and Kilwin, both 3-year-olds, were offered as racing or broodmare prospects and will remain in training for 2026, based here in Kentucky. Lush Lips was purchased by Dixiana Farm, which will eventually add the British-born daughter of the Scat Daddy grandson Ten Sovereigns to its broodmare band. For now, she will remain with trainer Brendan Walsh, with whom Dixiana already has horses. Five days after going through the sale ring, Lush Lips was back on the work tab with a half-mile breeze at Walsh’s Turfway Park barn.   Lush Lips, whose career earnings stand at $769,510 to date, did not finish worse than second this season. After runner-up efforts behind the standout Nitrogen in the Grade 3 Florida Oaks and Grade 2 Edgewood, she won the Tepin Stakes at Churchill Downs. Venturing into Grade 1 company, she was beaten a half-length in the Del Mar Oaks, then won the Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup on Oct. 11 at Keeneland. William Shively of Dixiana said the 2026 Breeders’ Cup, hosted at Keeneland, will “absolutely” be the major target for the filly next year. “I think the Breeders’ Cup should be up here all the time,” Shively said. “Can you put that out? The new philosophy, let’s just have it here, right?” :: Subscribe to the DRF Post Time Email Newsletter: Get the news you need to play today's races!  Kilwin, winner of the Grade 1 Test Stakes in August, is expected to remain with trainer Rusty Arnold after selling for $3 million to Rick Howard, who indicated that he intends to partner with the filly's owner, BBN Racing.   Vahva sold for $3.1 million to Boyd Racing, a newer player that intends to build a high-end broodmare band along with its racing stock. The 5-year-old Gun Runner mare, who won the Grade 1 Derby City Distaff in 2024 and was second in the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint three days prior to the sale, is expected to be bred in 2026.   Although entities from Japan and elsewhere were active at Keeneland, all of the seven-figure horses at the sale were purchased by domestic entities.   “American pedigrees have been very successful internationally, but it was really encouraging to see the domestic market being so strong when it came to retaining a lot of these higher-end mares and continuing the gene pool,” Lacy said.   Sale officials also pointed to the diversity of the buying bench. Only two entities came away with two seven-figure horses each – Alpha Delta Stables and the Raging Torrent Syndicate, which intends to support that Grade 1 winner in his first season at Lane’s End in 2026.   “There's depth to the market, both in the inventory in the range of what's available, but also the buyer base, and that's obviously the most rewarding part of all,” said Keeneland's senior director of sales operations, Cormac Breathnach.   The strength of the yearling marketplace in the summer and fall was also seen in the weanling marketplace, which Conrad Bandoroff of consignor Denali Stud described as “scalding.” A pair of weanlings sold for seven figures, led by the purchase a $2.2 million Gun Runner colt by Zedan Racing from the Denali consignment. The Gun Runner colt was the fourth-highest-priced weanling colt ever sold at Keeneland November and in the top 10 overall at this sale. Overall, 13 weanlings sold for $500,000 or more at Keeneland November, compared to just four to meet that threshold during the entire sale last year.  Changes in the tax code that benefit Thoroughbred owners, strong purse structures in many jurisdictions, and an increased interest in ownership fueled by celebrity participants and other influencers were all cited as factors in driving a record-breaking yearling marketplace at Keeneland September. Many of those same factors apply to the weanling marketplace. Lacy noted that supply and demand comes into play with a continually shrinking foal crop, and he theorized that some buyers saw an opportunity to get ahead of the curve.  “They knew those horses were potentially going to cost them more in September,” Lacy said. “They were trying to safeguard their position.”   Getting even further ahead of the curve, Breathnach added that he’d heard that some weanling-to-yearling pinhookers, who were getting pushed out of the marketplace by end users, had begun buying mares with well-bred foals in utero to raise and sell.   Bloodstock agent Donato Lanni, who signed the ticket on the $2.2 million Gun Runner colt, was attracted to the colt and said he wasn’t changing his strategy to specifically target weanlings for Amr Zedan, who typically buys yearlings and 2-year-olds. However, he did acknowledge that he probably got a better price for Zedan by buying the colt as a weanling.  :: Get the Inside Track with the FREE DRF Morning Line Email Newsletter. Subscribe now.  “I think this is the kind of horse who, in September, would probably have brought double,” Lanni said. “You’ve just gotta be open-minded at every sale when you see one that fits the profile.”  As the wheel keeps turning into the 2026 Keeneland January horses of all ages sale, offering more breeding stock and long weanlings, as well as next year’s September sale, Lacy is optimistic for continued positivity in the marketplace. Beyond that, he is hopeful that a positive commercial environment will encourage breeders to make long-term investments and acquire and breed mares to increase the foal crop.   “We see a lot more stability with a lot of positivity investing in mares,” Lacy said. “As we look at the short and medium term, if not long term, it gives us sort of a positive vibe that we maybe start to not only stabilize the foal crop, but maybe even start to tick up a little bit again. The only issue I think we have is a lack of inventory. I think that's sort of at the core of it all, that we just need more horses.”   The fall activity isn’t quite finished at Keeneland, which will host its single-session November horses of racing age sale on Wednesday afternoon. A selection of active racehorses and prospects became increasingly more popular in the second week of the traditional November mixed sale, leading Keeneland to break that selection of horses out into its own sale, with separately reported figures, beginning in 2022. With supplemental entries and, on the other side, catalog withdrawals continuing to take place, 129 horses were set to go through the ring as of noon Tuesday, exactly 24 hours before sale time.   “We’re very encouraged by the depth of quality that’s in the sale. It’s always a dynamic kind of catalog,” Breathnach said. “It’s a really nice group of horses, and you’ve got some headliners like [graded stakes winners] Bishops Bay and World Record – some really attractive prospects that people can go on with. We’re seeing the catalog books fly off the shelves and the catalog applications coming in.”  For hip-by-hip results from the November breeding stock sale, click here. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.