Keeneland January Sale Starts Monday

The Keeneland January Horses of All Ages Sale begins its four-day run in Lexington Monday morning, with bidding scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. A total of 1,583 horses, including 678 broodmares and broodmare prospects, 628 short yearlings, 264 horses of racing age, and 13 stallions and racing or stallion prospects, have been catalogued for the sale.

“This is always a very useful sale for a lot of folks,” said Keeneland Vice President of Racing and Sales Bob Elliston. “It brings together some very solid horses and some at the top end of the market. We've got Mrs McDougal (Medaglia d'Oro) (hip 781A), who is a multiple graded stakes winner, who I think would be fancy at any sale. We've got Minks Aprise (Northern Afleet) (hip 391A) in here who is also multiple graded stakes placed. So you've got that kind of type in here. And then you've got some exceptionally well-covered broodmares who are coming to hand, when you look at the likes of American Pharoah, Bernardini, Candy Ride (Arg) and Empire Maker.”

The January sale also boasts some impressive recent graduates. Mind Your Biscuits (Posse), winner of last year's G1 Dubai Golden Shaheen and 2016 GI Malibu S., sold for $47,000 at the 2014 auction, multiple Grade I winner Practical Joke (Into Mischief) brought $135,000 in 2015, and GII Remsen S. winner Catholic Boy (More Than Ready) RNA'd for $170,000 in 2016. Giant Expectations (Frost Giant), a 2014 graduate of the sale, recently won the GII San Antonio S.

“You've got some horses that have demonstrated, by what they've accomplished on the racetrack, that there are opportunities here to find hidden treasures that end up really working out on the racetrack,” Elliston said of the sale's graduates. “So it really is a very useful sale and it's got good stock in there this year.”

The January sale follows on the heels of a strong renewal of the Keeneland November Breeding Stock Sale and those results, plus current societal economic conditions, have Elliston looking forward to a strong renewal of the auction.

“Hopefully the trends from the '17 season will carry over into the New Year,” Elliston said. “Each sale builds upon the next. As hard as it was to get a horse bought in November, you've got to believe there remains pinhook demand.”

He continued, “And if you look at the stock market and the passage of the tax reform act, I think there are a lot of folks who have some optimism about the economy and they are willing to invest. I think there were some beneficial things that occured in the tax reform law that will treat depreciation matters and other things for horse owners in a positive way. All of that goes into what I think is a dynamite environment right now.”

During last year's five-day January sale, 961 horses sold for $28,785,500. The average was $29,954 and the median was $10,500. Don Alberto Corp. purchased the auction's most expensive offering when paying $1.025 million for the broodmare Siren Serenade (Unbridled's Song).

This year's sale has been pared down to four sessions and includes 1,583 catalogued offerings, down from 1,796 in 2016.

“I think if you look at the quality of the book, I would probably say that we have, on average, better stock in here in terms of the quality offerings,” Elliston said of the smaller catalogue. “We had significant outs last year and the averages were down for the January sale. I am looking for a couple of those trends to reverse. I think our median and average will probably go up and hopefully we'll get more commerce done and the clearance rate improves. We sold just short of 1,000 horses last year. We have a couple hundreds outs [so far this year], so we are down to around 1400 horses, a little less than that, so I think there is a potential that we'll sell more horses and I think the average and the median are looking up.”

The January sale runs through Thursday with sessions beginning daily at 10 a.m.