2018 Keeneland January Sale – Runway Doll (hip 977)
Keeneland concluded its four-day January Horses of All Ages Sale January 11 with improved figures over last year and big boosts for Triple Crown winner and third-year sire American Pharoah.
The January sale serves as one of the last opportunities for breeders to pick up broodmares and broodmare prospects before the breeding sheds open in mid-February. It’s also an opportunity for breeders to bring short yearlings — those which just became yearlings as of New Year’s Day — to public sale at a good time for those who may not have been ready to go as weanlings during the November bloodstock auctions. November is typically the spot for the most expensive mares and weanlings, and as a result prices are more reserved at the sales early in the calendar year.
Photos by Z/Keeneland Keeneland Photo
Mrs. McDougal, a multiple graded stakes-winning mare and daughter of Medaglia d’Oro, fetched the top price at $1.6 million.
Keeneland January is never devoid of significant prices, however. This year’s sale saw two seven-figure entries. The most expensive was Mrs. McDougal, a multiple graded stakes-winning mare who ran most recently in November for trainer Richard Mandella. The daughter of Medaglia d’Oro was purchased for $1.6 million by bloodstock agent Steven Young, who declined to identify the buyer. Eaton Sales consigned the mare, who was a late addition to the catalogue.
The other seven-figure entry was a $1 million yearling by Triple Crown winner American Pharoah, which was an important sale for the international breeding and racing operation Coolmore. The colt, a half-brother to Grade 1 winner Caravaggio, was bred in Kentucky by Richard Imbert of Windmill Manor Farm and Charlie O’Connor of Petaluma Bloodstock. O’Connor is the director of sales for Coolmore America.
Coolmore was also the purchaser of the yearling, who was consigned by Paramount Sales.
Caravaggio stands at Coolmore’s Irish stud.
“American Pharoah doesn’t need any explaining and (trainer) Aidan O’Brien always believed Caravaggio to be the best sprinter he ever trained, so when our team considered this colt the best individual in the sale it was an easy decision for us to make,” read a statement from Coolmore’s M.V. Magnier. “We’re incredibly lucky to have two great partners in Michael Tabor and Derrick Smith who are fully committed to finding the next Caravaggio. We’ll leave it until later in the year before we discuss where this colt will be trained.”
The sale will boost the buzz around American Pharoah going into what is typically a difficult time in a stallion’s career. By his third season, a stallion is no longer novel, but his first foals are not yet old enough to be on the racetrack, proving their abilities. For studs to become successful, they need the best quality mares they can get, and competition for those mares’ genes is tight. Owners of accomplished mares don’t often want to send them to unproven stallions, and until a stud’s first couple of crops hit the track, there’s no guarantee he will pass on his winning ways to his offspring.
For stallions whose racetrack accomplishments are more modest than those of American Pharoah, years three and four are often when the stallion has the greatest chance of losing momentum and being shuffled to a less competitive regional market like Florida or New York. Although that’s not likely to happen with the famous Pharoah, opening the year with a strong yearling price could go a long way toward convincing breeders with accomplished mares that he is a good risk, especially if they plan to sell their mares’ foals anyway. The average price for Pharoah weanlings at public auction last year was $445,500 — a very good start indeed.
American Pharoah’s 2018 stud fee is listed as private.
In total at this year’s Keeneland January sale year, 909 horses sold for $34,996,000, making for an average price of $38,499. Gross sales were up 22 percent over last year, while the average rose 29 percent. The median price of $12,000 was also up 14 percent. The auction surpassed its 2017 gross figures on the sale’s third day.
The rate of horses not attaining their reserve price was 26 percent, an improvement from 31 percent last year.
The next Thoroughbred auction in Central Kentucky will be Fasig-Tipton’s Kentucky Winter Mixed Sale Feb. 5-6.
Natalie Voss is an Eclipse Award-winning writer and features editor for the Paulick Report, an independent horse racing news and business publication. Voss is a five-time nominee for the Stanley Bergstein Writing Award for investigative reporting. Her coverage of the equine industry has appeared in Business Lexington, the Chronicle of the Horse, The Horse magazine, The Blood-Horse, and Acreage Life, among others