Santa Anita Handicap winner Combatant among stallion prospects selling at Keeneland November

Graded stakes-placed Combatant was a $220,000 purchase by Hronis Racing out of the 2019 Keeneland November breeding stock sale, ranking as one of the more noteworthy purchases in a market segment that has grown in recent years, as Keeneland offers a selection of racing and stallion prospects in the second week of the auction. Combatant went on to increase the profile of the sale segment when he won the Grade 1 Santa Anita Handicap earlier this year – and now he’s back at Keeneland November as one of four Grade 1/Group 1-winning stallion prospects on offer as the focus of the market in the second week of the annual sale turns to these racehorses.

Accounting for outs through Friday morning, there were still more than 120 colts, stallions, and geldings on offer as racing prospects or racing/stallion prospects, plus two active stallions, set to go through the ring at Keeneland November. This segment of the marketplace has always been a fertile shopping ground for international and regional stallion prospects, but has also become more popular with active racing stables, both domestically and internationally. In addition to Combatant, last year’s sale graduates included New York Central, a $240,000 purchase by Khalid bin Mishref who went on to win the $1.5 million Saudia Sprint.

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Millionaire Combatant will be consigned by Lane’s End as agent for Hronis Racing. In addition to his signature victory in the Santa Anita Handicap in March, the son of Scat Daddy finished third in the Grade 2 San Pasqual earlier this year, and was most recently third in the Grade 3 Tokyo City Cup in September. The Hronis team will also offer another Grade 1 winner with recent form at Keeneland in Cistron. He won the Grade 1 Bing Crosby and Grade 2 Kona Gold in 2019, and the Grade 3 San Simeon earlier this year.

Voodoo Song won the Grade 1 Fourstardave Handicap in an outstanding run at Saratoga in 2018. He won or placed in six other stakes. Rounding out the quartet of top-level performers is Brazilian-born Lamartine, a dual Group 1 winner in his home country.

Sir Dudley Digges won the 2016 Queen’s Plate and won or placed in eight other stakes. The prospects in the catalog also include graded/group stakes winners Backyard Heaven, Current, Delaware, Have At It, King Zachary, Moon Colony, Olympico, and Van Beethoven; graded-placed stakes winners Blind Ambition, Bob and Jackie, and Seismic Wave; stakes winners Blue Gator, Build to Suit, and Explorationist; graded stakes-placed Gozilla, Hint of Roses, Irish Territory, Much Better, Ragtime Blues, and Succeedandsurpass; and stakes-placed Vanbrugh and Wondrwherecraigis.

The active stallions on offer are led by Flashback, who most recently stood at Diamond B Farm in Pennsylvania. The graded stakes-winning Tapit horse is best known as the sire of Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies winner and Eclipse Award divisional champion British Idiom. The other stallion on offer is Grade 1 winner We Miss Artie, who was standing at Ramsey Farm in Kentucky. He sired his first stakes winner this year in Artie’s Princess.