LEXINGTON, Ky. - By siring the top-priced yearling at this week's Keeneland July selected yearling sale, Saint Ballado joined an elite group that includes the great Mr. Prospector, Northern Dancer, Nijinsky, and Storm Cat. Not just any sire gets the sale-topper at Keeneland July. But one of the distinctions between Saint Ballado and those other great proven sires is that he has the mountain of greatness yet to climb.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - A couple of familiar faces in central Kentucky's commercial Thoroughbred breeding community had major successes at the Keeneland July selected yearling sale, which ended Tuesday night.

Harriet Jones, the widow of the late legendary breeder Warner Jones Jr., and Catesby Clay's Runnymede Farm stirred memories for local horsemen when they sold yearlings for $3.6 million and $1.65 million, respectively.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - When hip 136, a dark bay filly with a white star in the center of her forehead, walked into Keeneland's July selected yearling sale ring Tuesday night, she created a ripple of anticipation in the audience.

People stirred in their seats and smoothed out the filly's page in their catalogs. Hip 136, widely believed to be the best filly in the two-day auction, was the first foal out of champion Escena, and by the fashionable sire Seeking the Gold.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - A $625,000 Dehere colt led a strong opening session Wednesday at the Fasig-Tipton July selected yearling sale.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - Pushed along by a $3.7 million Seeking the Gold-Escena filly and 10 other yearlings selling for $1 million or more on Tuesday night, the Keeneland July selected yearling sale ended its two-day run with a new record average price of $710,247. That beat last year's record by 14 percent.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - When timber magnate Aaron Jones and his wife, Marie, bought broodmare Charm a Gendarme in November 1998, they were purchasing a $290,000 lottery ticket. On Monday night, the opening session for Keeneland's two-day July yearling sale, they cashed that ticket for $4 million, when bloodstock agent Demi O'Byrne signed the receipt of purchase for Charm a Gendarme's Saint Ballado colt.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - Demi O'Byrne's $4 million final bid for a Saint Ballado colt added glitter to Monday night's opening session at Keeneland's July selected yearling sale, but it was not all good news for the prestigious auction house.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - As the select yearling season opens Monday with Keeneland's two-day July auction, enormous pressure will be on sellers to provide outstanding horses, both in pedigree and conformation. Buyers will be ready to spend astronomical sums - last year the average price was a record $621,015 - but they will be quick to reject a horse they feel is less than perfect.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - The average price at Fasig-Tipton Kentucky's July selected yearling sale, which will run on Wednesday and Thursday, has gone from strength to strength in the last five years. In 2000, the two-day auction averaged $77,704, a 4 percent gain from the year before and a notable achievement considering that the company offered 517 yearlings last year, an expansion of 43 percent over the previous catalog.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - Perhaps the most notable aspect of the 2001 Keeneland July selected yearling sale, which runs Monday and Tuesday in Lexington, is the debut of the final crop of yearlings from the late and legendary Mr. Prospector.