Uncle Mo offspring command high prices at Keeneland January

Juvenile champion and young classic sire Uncle Mo sired both the most expensive mare and the most expensive newly turned yearling at last week's Keeneland January horses of all ages sale, finishing as one of the mixed auction’s leading sires.

Enaya Alrabb, a 4-year-old daughter of Uncle Mo, sold for $640,000 to bloodstock agent James Schenck to lead Book 1 and the Keeneland January sale overall. The filly, consigned as a broodmare prospect by Paramount Sales, as agent, won just once from four starts before being sidelined by injury, but kept outstanding company. In the filly's third start, she finished second in the Grade 1 Starlet Stakes, edged just a head by Chasing Yesterday. She then finished second in the Grade 2 Las Virgenes Stakes, beaten three-quarters of a length by multiple Grade 1 winner Bellafina.

“She was a lovely filly," Pat Costello of Paramount Sales said. "That was on the top end, but she was lovely, she didn’t turn a hair, and she was a great racehorse. We were delighted, the owners are delighted."

Enaya Alrabb is out of the Grade 2-placed stakes winner Lotta Rhythm, who also produced Grade 3-placed Hattaash. The Rhythm mare is a half-sister to stakes winners High Blues and Lotta Kim. Lotta Kim is the dam of Horse of the Year and Hall of Fame racemare Rachel Alexandra, as well as Grade 3-placed Dolphus and stakes-placed Wooderson.

Rachel Alexandra further showed the ability of this female family to produce through the generations when she became the dam of Grade 1 winner Rachel's Valentina. Another of Lotta Rhythm's half-sisters, No Blues Today, is the dam of stakes winner Big Blue Caboose.

Book 2 of Keeneland January was led by a $400,000 Uncle Mo colt, sold to Springhouse Farm as a pinhook prospect to lead his segment of the market. The colt was conceived on Uncle Mo's $125,000 stud fee in 2018 at Coolmore's Ashford Stud - the stallion's second year standing for a six-figure fee after his first-crop champion Nyquist captured the 2016 Kentucky Derby.

The colt, offered by Taylor Made Sales Agency, as agent, is the second foal out of the stakes-winning Big Brown mare Red Sashay, a half-sister to Group 3 winner Shamaal Nibras and stakes winner New Edition. Graded/group stakes winners Brushed Halory, Halory Hunter, International Star, Key Lory, Prory, Seahenge, and Van Nistelrooy appear on the catalog page.

“He’s a beautiful foal, to me, the nicest foal on the grounds,” Springhouse's Gabriel Duignan said. “Uncle Mo, his sire, couldn’t be any hotter. It’s a lot of money, but he’s a great horse.”

Thanks to siring both the top mare and top yearling, Uncle Mo finished as the leading sire by gross, with 14 horses sold for a total of $2,058,200, at Keeneland January, which posted solid figures despite having a high bar to clear.

The 2019 edition of Keeneland January was fueled by the sale of Kentucky Oaks winner and champion Abel Tasman, who brought a record-tying $5 million to power double-digit gains in the sale's economic indicators, including a record average price. This year’s five-session renewal of the sale, which lacked that major firepower, finished with 1,106 horses reported sold, including private transactions, for gross receipts of $42,480,500. Last year's four-day sale finished with 951 horses sold for $48,280,100. Despite offering more horses, the buyback rate showed only moderate change, finishing at 21 percent compared with 19 percent.

The January sale's average price finished at $38,409 – a decline of 24 percent from $50,768 in 2019. However, removing Abel Tasman from the mix, the 2019 average would have been $45,558. The prior three editions of the January sale, from 2016 to 2018, averaged $33,392, $29,992, and $38,146, respectively.

The median price finished at $14,000, a drop of 30 percent compared with the strong $20,000 in 2019. The three prior editions of the sale checked in at $11,000, $11,000, and $12,000, respectively.