Keeneland closed the book on another successful September Yearling Sale on Sept. 22, highlighted by an $8.2 million filly who changed hands during its first week.
Keeneland Photo
The filly, a daughter of 2015 Triple Crown winner American Pharoah, was purchased by Mandy Pope’s Whisper Hill Farm, which has been the name on many big tickets at public Thoroughbred auctions over the last few years. Pope first made headlines in 2012 when she paid $10 million for Horse of the Year Havre de Grace and again in 2017 when she bought champion Songbird for $9.5 million. Her public auction investments now top well over $50 million in seven years, and are primarily focused on fillies and mares she can add to her band of broodmares.
The price tag was a record price for a filly at this auction, and the fourth-highest yearling price in the September Sale’s history. It was a life-changing figure for Fred Mitchell of Clarkland Farm, which bred and consigned the filly. The yearling is out of Leslie’s Lady, who is also the dam of top runners Beholder and Mendelssohn.
“I don’t have any words,” Clarkland’s Fred Mitchell told media after the hammer dropped. “It’s unreal.
“We dream of breeding a nice horse, and this is what it’s all about for the little consignors and the small guys. The farm has been in the family since 1774, and it’ll be there for the children for the rest of their lives. We’re keeping two fillies out of the old mare; this is the last one to sell out of her. The fillies will stay there for the kids and grandkids.”
Total receipts for the two-week sale were the second-highest since 2007 and just behind last year at $360,004,700. Average price for the 2,855 horses who went through the ring was $126,096—down 2.5 percent from last year. Median price of $45,000 was down 10 percent. The percentage of horses not meeting their reserve remained even at 24 percent.
Those strong results may be somewhat surprising, given the bomb that dropped on the breeding industry just before the sale began. The Jockey Club, which is the official breed registry for American Thoroughbreds, announced Sept. 6 that it is considering imposing a limit on the book sizes for stallions beginning as soon as 2021. If the group’s board of stewards passes the rule, it will be the first time in the organization’s 125-year history that it has placed limits on registration based on the number of horses from one stallion.
A press release highlighted concerns from the stewards about stallions who cover 140 or more mares in one breeding season, pointing out that the percentage of recent foal crops sired by these high producers has increased considerably in the past ten years. In 2007, 37 stallions bred 140 or more mares from a total of 3,865 active stallions overall. The number took a dip three years later to 24 but has since gone up to 43, and the population of active stallions is now less than 50 percent of what it was in 2007. This has the stewards worrying about whether the breed’s gene pool is shrinking too much.
If passed, the resolution would limit book sizes to 140 or fewer mares per year, tapering in the requirement for new stallions. In their first three or four years at stud, stallions are particularly in need of as many mares as they can get to increase their chances of getting good runners on the track. It takes three seasons before a stallion’s first foals will run at all, and four or five before his offspring really have a complete opportunity to succeed. With new competition in the stallion market coming in each year, some managers figure the best way to counteract uncertainty is to give the stallion as many chances as possible at success.
It remains unclear how The Jockey Club may choose to enforce this book limit—whether it will only register up to 140 foals per year from each stud or whether it will somehow oversee stud farm operations to ensure that the stallion sees no more than 140 mares to begin with. If they choose the latter, miscarriage and illness among newborns may reduce a stallion’s foal crop to less than 140. At some point, it’s possible this could impact sale prices. The value in multimillion-dollar yearling colts is usually their potential for syndication when they retire to stud themselves, and that valuation may be based in some cases on how many mares they can breed in those crucial early years.
For now though, it seems the sales market is opting to live in the moment—at least until we have more details.
The next public Thoroughbred auction in the Lexington area will be Fasig-Tipton’s Kentucky October Yearlings, Oct. 21-24.