Without fireworks, weanling market bolsters strength of Keeneland November sale

LEXINGTON, Ky. – While the fillies and mares sold during Kentucky’s major November mixed sales draw top billing and top dollar, the weanling market, although it has not broken into seven figures, has been strong and steady.

That strength has been noted by many as a result of what has been a solid yearling marketplace in recent years, with buyers now looking to get ahead of that with their purchase of even younger horses.

“Some of these [weanlings], if they came back next year, they’re going to bring every bit as much next year,” Tony Lacy, Keeneland’s vice president of sales, said. “[Buyers] see the quality now, and they want to get it now.”

The table was set at the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky fall selected mixed sale on Nov. 7, which offers a highly selective group of weanlings as part of the single session. Three tied for the top price, with a colt by four-time reigning leading sire Into Mischief, a colt from the first crop of multiple Grade 1 winner Maxfield, and a filly by Munnings each selling for $500,000.

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The strength continued through the first two days of the Keeneland November breeding stock sale. Between Book 1 on Nov. 8 and the first session of Book 2 on Nov. 9, nine weanlings were purchased for $500,000 or more. Those were led by a $750,000 Gun Runner colt – one of three weanling purchases by Shadwell Racing, which also landed the co-topping Munnings filly at Fasig-Tipton.

“I thought it was a good price – we had a budget in mind, and we were happy,” Shadwell’s Jonathan Smyth said. “[The market is] strong. Everybody’s here. . . . It’s challenging, it’s not easy to get one, but we’re very happy.”

Shadwell, along with Stonestreet Farm and a major new player in John Stewart, were among those buying weanlings at the top end of the marketplace as “end users” – a colloquialism for buyers looking for stock to add to their own racing and breeding operations, rather than a pinhook prospect. This creates competition with the latter group, which is also helping to fuel the marketplace.

Among the leading pinhookers active in this week’s weanling marketplace is AAA Thoroughbreds, the weanling-to-yearling pinhook venture of Randy Hartley and Dean De Renzo, who are best known for their yearling-to-juvenile sale successes. AAA Thoroughbreds purchased two weanlings at Fasig-Tipton, and has purchased eight weanlings through the first two days of the Keeneland sale.

“If you find a good baby now, you’ve got to step up and pay,” Hartley said. “It’s up to us to come buy the babies and to get the best ones.”

Hartley noted that an additional result of the strength in the yearling marketplace is sellers opting to hold on to their stock for those sales a year hence. This creates even more competition for the top weanlings.

“I feel like there’s less of them,” Hartley said. “Everyone’s creeping up on the same ones. And when the yearling market is as good as it was this past season, people want to keep the babies, so there’s fewer of them.”

Keeneland sales officials are hopeful that the strong weanling market will continue into the second week of the November sale, which will have the opportunity to showcase a broad swath of sires as it runs through Nov. 16.

“We’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback from weanling buyers about the strength of the physicals in the sale,” said Cormac Breathnach, Keeneland’s director of sales operations. “It was an exciting group of stallions too, when you look at the younger sires that are represented in the weanling market. First-, second-, third-crop sires. Yaupon is having a very good sale with his first crop. Good Magics and Gun Runners and many other good young sires that are the next wave of the best sires around, those horses are being fought for pretty strongly.

“I feel like the weanling market is really robust. And hopefully, we’re getting the feedback that it’s going to stay that way through the next couple of books.”

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