The Keeneland September yearling sale will present a catalog of 4,407 horses over 12 sessions. Where does an owner, trainer, or bloodstock agent begin the mammoth job of sorting through that catalog to find the horses who will be successful in their program?
“Barn 1,” trainer Kenny McPeek said.
The Keeneland September yearling sale is the bellwether for the North American marketplace and also brings global buyers to Lexington, Ky. It offers a wider variety of horses than any other yearling sale in North America. A little less than a year ago, The Jockey Club reported a North American foal crop of 18,143 for 2023. Accounting for supplemental entries through Aug. 27, Keeneland has cataloged a little more than 24 percent of the crop to this sale.
The 187 individual sires represented in the auction are led by five-time reigning North American champion sire Into Mischief, who last year led Keeneland September by gross sales for the fourth straight year while siring 12 seven-figure yearlings – matching a mark last achieved by the late, great Storm Cat in 2005.
Also represented in the sale are perennial leading sires Candy Ride, Curlin, Medaglia d’Oro, Munnings, Quality Road, Tapit, Uncle Mo, and War Front; newly minted Hall of Famers and star young sires Gun Runner and Justify; rising stars Good Magic and Not This Time; breakout freshman sires Complexity and Vekoma; the late Kitten’s Joy, More Than Ready, and Speightstown, with some of their final offspring; and international standouts like Dubawi, Kingman, Lord Kanaloa, No Nay Never, and Wootton Bassett.
Horse of the Year Knicks Go, two-time Eclipse Award champion Essential Quality, and Grade 1 winners including Charlatan, Maxfield, and Yaupon are among the stallions represented by their first crop of yearlings.
The horses are organized into six books by Keeneland’s inspection teams, theoretically making the process of sorting potential talent easier. The 12-session sale begins Sept. 9 and 10 with Book 1 – the smallest section of the sale, with the yearlings judged by the inspection team to be the finest individuals based on conformation and pedigree.
A two-session Book 2, a little more than twice the size of Book 1, follows on the next two days before the sale’s single dark day on Sept. 13, which allows buyers to inspect the largest number of horses possible without interruption. Books 3 through 6 run over two sessions each, with no break through closing day on Sept. 21.
But it’s not as simple as top horses selling early in the sale and less-accomplished horses selling late. Books 3 through 6 have produced a number of champions over the years. Citing examples only from recent sales, in 2024 the later books of the Keeneland sale have produced Grade/Group 1 winners Vahva (Book 3), Muth (Book 4), Du Jour, and Kabirkhan (Book 5), and Tuz (Book 6).
And although the prices for these horses may be less than the seven-figure fireworks achieved earlier in the sale, price is not necessarily a harbinger of success or failure. Trainer Larry Demeritte famously often repeated his motto, “I don’t buy cheap horses, I buy good horses cheap,” while approaching this year’s Kentucky Derby with West Saratoga, who he selected for $11,000 out of the final day of the 2022 September sale.
“Spanning two weeks and six books, the September sale caters to buyers at every level, offering yearlings that fit various price points in each session,” said Tony Lacy, Keeneland’s vice president of sales. “As the quality of entries continues to rise, so does the competition. Shopping on the grounds from Book 1 to Book 6 provides buyers the chance to find everything on their short lists and more.
“Last year, we were excited to see prominent buyers signing tickets not only on the first day of the sale but all the way through to the final day.”
Parsing through the thousands of yearlings is a huge job, particularly considering the mathematic principles of success in the Thoroughbred industry. If a jockey or trainer is winning at a 25 percent clip, that is considered outstanding – but, as they will point out, that means they’re still losing 75 percent of the time. Likewise, the sales industry is a numbers game.
McPeek, who was among the trainers and agents speaking at an August sales panel hosted by the Consignors and Commercial Breeders Association, said that he figures Keeneland September produces about 7 percent stakes winners.
“It’s a huge game of failure,” he said.
The pedigree page, in black and white, is the first interaction with a sales yearling when the catalog is formally released. Most buyers are clear on what they’re looking for.
“By the best, out of the best,” trainer Steve Asmussen said succinctly.
Keeneland September’s Book 1 makes that endeavor the easy part of the short-listing process. Those two days include a full brother to Hall of Fame racemare Rachel Alexandra; half-siblings to Eclipse Award champions Accelerate, Arrogate, Gamine, Good Magic, Jackie’s Warrior, Malathaat, Midnight Bisou, Nyquist, and Swiss Skydiver; a colt out of Hall of Famer Songbird; and yearlings out of champions Lady Eli, Take Charge Brandi, and Unique Bella. And those elite performers are only a handful of the Grade/Group 1 winners represented on the pages.
However, most of the trainers participating in the Consignors and Commercial Breeders Association panel said they place greater emphasis on a horse’s conformation and potential athleticism than pedigree.
“I think the physical has to be there,” said Cherie DeVaux, who trains Vahva. “Pedigree is great, but if the horse doesn’t suit what you’re looking for physically, or has some conformational blemish you don’t feel comfortable with, it’s going to be a lot harder to train as opposed to the pedigree.”
DeVaux, who is married to bloodstock agent David Ingordo and works closely with him, added that in considering a horse as a future trainee, she likes to watch their behavior on the sale grounds – particularly in busy environments.
McPeek is known for selecting horses from unfashionable pedigrees at bargain prices, then developing the budding athletes into top runners. Among those he selected for just five-figure tags are future Hall of Famer Curlin for $57,000 out of the seventh session of the 2005 September sale. The colt, who was later privately sold, was born prior to sire Smart Strike’s breakthrough and was out of an unraced mare.
Eventual Preakness Stakes winner and champion Swiss Skydiver was from the first crop of Daredevil, who was sold overseas before his foals even raced. McPeek purchased her for $35,000 out of the ninth session of the 2018 September sale.
Less than two years ago, he purchased a filly by the late, lightly accomplished Fast Anna and out of an unraced mare for just $40,000 out of the 2022 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky fall sale. That filly is Kentucky Oaks winner and Travers runner-up Thorpedo Anna.
“I think it’s all physical,” McPeek said. “I don’t put much emphasis on the page. . . . Go for the physical, maybe beat the market to the punch. . . . I focus in on the individual.”
McPeek noted that in evaluating a yearling’s physical, some imagination is involved, as young horses at that stage will continue to grow and develop. That’s an aspect of the marketplace of great interest to pinhookers, who are looking to buy a yearling to re-sell as a juvenile.
“I have to visualize what this horse is going to look like in a year or two years,” McPeek said. “I think buying yearlings is perfect, because you’ve got a general idea of what the package is going to look like. . . . I think they don’t change as much on the angles as much as they change in size.”
Different buyers will prefer different types of horses based on their learned experiences or the type that fits their respective program – for example, geared toward classic success, international racing, or a certain statebred circuit.
“What everybody looks for is what they’ve had success with” in the past, Asmussen said.
Adding to the puzzle of sorting out the sale for trainers and bloodstock agents is that they are often juggling multiple owners, who may have different types of programs or different price limits. Agents can find themselves buying horses for multiple clients in a single session – or even brokering a partnership between clients when they’re interested in the same horse, as was the case when bloodstock agent Jacob West helped Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners and Repole Stable team up on eventual champion Nest for $350,000 in 2020.
“We try to see what is realistic for each client,” DeVaux said.
Last year’s Keeneland September sale was strong at the top end, and consignors and buyers said that created a ripple effect through the later books. Keeneland reported 2,754 yearlings sold through the ring for gross receipts of $394,127,900. In the 12-session sale of 2022, 2,847 yearlings sold for a record $405,495,700, the only time the sale has ever topped the $400 million mark. The figures do not include horses who failed to meet their reserve in the ring and later sold privately, numbers Keeneland ultimately factors into later-published results.
With 30 horses sold for seven figures in the early books to lead the marketplace, the sale’s cumulative average price finished at a record $143,111. That ticked up less than half a percentage point from $142,429 in 2022. The median price finished at $67,000, down 4 percent from 2022’s record $70,000. The cumulative buyback rate finished at 20 percent, compared to 18 percent in 2022.
“This time of year energizes Keeneland and our entire industry as we prepare to showcase an outstanding collection of quality yearlings and welcome many domestic and international horsemen and horsewomen to Lexington to participate in a vibrant marketplace unlike anything in the world,” Keeneland president and CEO Shannon Arvin said in a press release.