LEXINGTON, Ky. – Keeneland’s January horses of all ages sale started and ended with a bang as all four sessions rang up hefty gains, buybacks fell, and the number of horses selling for $200,000 or more more than doubled, from 16 last year to 37 in 2012.
Teruya Yoshida, the Shadai Farm owner whose brother recently bought $1.4 million Keeneland January sale-topper Topliner, has privately purchased two outstanding turf mares: Stacelita and Sarafina.
Yoshida bought Stacelita, a finalist for the turf mare championship, from Martin Schwartz after her 10th-place finish in the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf; he plans to send her to Smart Strike this year, according to Dell Ridge Farm, the Lexington, Ky., farm where Stacelita, a French champion, currently boards.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - Mares returned to the fore Thursday at the Keeneland January all-ages auction, which ended with robust gains despite a smaller catalog.
The four-day auction closed with 1,003 horses bringing $37,991,900, a 50-percent increase over the 2011 sale's gross for 1,021 horses sold over five days. The 2012 cumulative average price billowed up by 53 percent, from $24,731 last year to $37,878, and the median performed even better, doubling its $7,500 figure in 2011 to $15,000 this season.
Oratory, winner of the Grade 2 Peter Pan in 2005, has relocated from Maryland to stand at Eureka Thoroughbred Farm in Fredericksburg, Tex., in 2012, Eureka has announced. He will stand for $3,500 fee. The 10-year-old Pulpit horse is the sire of such stakes performers as Myrtle’s Gray, D’Oratory, and Grandiloquent. He’s out of multiple stakes winner Arrested Dreams, by Dehere, and is a half-brother to stakes winner Preach It.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – A colt by two-time Australian champion Fastnet Rock added momentum Thursday to Australia’s Magic Millions Gold Coast yearling sale, bringing the day’s highest price of about $988,800.
Coolmore Stud’s agent Demi O’Byrne and Australian bloodstock agent James Bester bought the colt, whose price in Australian dollars was $960,000. The colt is the first foal out of two-time winner Rose of Cimmaron, by Bite the Bullet.
LEXINGTON, Ky. - Yearlings were all the rage Wednesday at Keeneland's January all-ages sale on a day that saw more big upswings over last year's figures.
The day's highest price was the $180,000 that Glen Hill Farm paid for a Kitten's Joy yearling filly out of stakes-placed Garden Spot, by Danzig. Taylor Made's agency consigned the bay filly, an April 8 foal.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Keeneland’s January all-ages sale came into its penultimate session Wednesday off big gains at its first two days, but six-figure horses were more rare by Wednesday afternoon.
The session-leader at 3:30 p.m. Eastern was a $140,000 Candy Ride yearling colt, a May 17 foal, that Coolmore associate and Camas Park Stud owner Tim Hyde bought from the Taylor Made agency. The bay colt is out of the winless Dixieland Band mare Princess Consort and is a half-brother to two-time winner Arcina.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Keeneland’s January all-ages sale continued to post dramatic gains Tuesday at its second session, where $600,000 Magnificent Honour – a daughter of former Broodmare of the Year Better Than Honour and full sister to champion Rags to Riches –
was the day’s most expensive horse.
Her sale to an anonymous client of Blandford Bloodstock was one of many strong prices that, along with a smaller overall catalog, allowed the 2012 sale’s first two days to gross more than last year’s entire five-day auction.
