Keeneland January sale posts 'solid' gains in 1st day

Keeneland kicked off its January horses of all ages sale Monday with a strong Book 1 session that produced across-the-board increases in results, highlighted by a 103% jump in median price and the sale of graded-stakes winners Delahaye and Pretty Birdie, who is carrying her first foal by Candy Ride, for $700,000 each.

Keeneland sold 200 horses through the ring for $18,087,000, up 3.07% from $17,547,500 recorded for the first session in 2024, when 225 horses sold. Average price of $90,435 rose 15.96% from $77,989 last year, while the median of $65,000 increased 103.13% from $32,000.

“Overall, it was a good, solid day of trade for quality horses,” Keeneland vice president of sales Tony Lacy said. “It’s a continuation of November (breeding stock sale) in large part. Demand was high, which was reflected in the median, which was fantastic. We surpassed last year’s gross for session 1, which was nice as well. Up in all three major indices, which is encouraging. A bit of a tick up in the RNA rate. But there definitely has been a little protectionism as we mentioned during the November sale. And it’s been evident here again.

“We were really encouraged by the traffic in the barns,” Lacy said. “In addition to the great domestic participation, we saw a strong presence of buyers from Europe and the Middle East. We go back to the diversity in the marketplace. The top 15 highest-priced horses were bought by 15 different entities and sold by 11 different consigners. That is an indicator of the great diversity throughout and a sense of the health of the marketplace.”

“The median was a pretty spectacular increase and shows real activity,” Keeneland senior director of sales operations Cormac Breathnach said. “For a long time, the January sale has been sort of the little brother to the November sale, but this is a really strong median and huge growth from last year when we had seven-figure offerings in the first session. We had a big crowd here today, and we had positive feedback over the weekend from consignors despite weather and travel disruptions. People have come in droves.

“I thought the yearling market seemed particularly strong. But when you look, that median went up the same as the broodmare sector of the market,” Breathnach said. “People picked through what was here and they found a lot that they liked. We were told by some buyers that there were a lot of good horses on offer and that they liked the quality of the yearlings, and they came to play.”

Session-topping Delahaye and Pretty Birdie both were supplemented to the January Sale.

Delahaye, a 5-year-old daughter of Medaglia d’Oro who won the Grade 3 Mint Julep in 2024 at Churchill Downs, sold to Three Chimneys Farm for $700,000. Consigned by Four Star Sales, agent, she is from the family of Grade 1 winners Malibu Prayer and Swagger Jack along with Grade 2 winners Valid and Tap Dance. Her dam is Bella Carina, by War Front.

“Great price for a Grade 3 horse,” Kerry Cauthen of Four Star Sales said. “She is beautiful. And as has consistently happened year-round and year after year, if they are as pretty as that and show the performance, there are plenty of people who want to buy them. (The price) was a little better than I thought she would bring. I thought she was a $500,000 to $600,000 (price), but I really felt like she could have gone on a little bit. It is just a matter of finding two people who want the same thing.”

“That is the nice thing about having the supplements,” Cauthen added. “(The owners) felt like the time had come to retire her and send her to the breeding shed. It is a partnership, and one of them breeds and one doesn’t. So that is why we supplemented her.”

Avenue Bloodstock paid $700,000 for 6-year-old Pretty Birdie, a Grade 3 winner by Bird Song carrying her first foal by Candy Ride. From the family of champion Bird Town and Belmont (G1) winner Birdstone, she was consigned by Gainesway, agent for the Estate of John Hendrickson.

“She was a lovely mare,” buyer Adrian Wallace said. “She was a very precocious racemare and coming from the estate of the late John Hendrickson, we’re privileged to buy into one of his great families and that of Mary Lou Whitney’s as well. She was a mare we loved from the moment we saw her. She’s young, and she’s been bought for David Nagle of Barronstown Stud. I think the plan is for her to stay in America (at Ashford Stud). She’s very well covered at the moment, so we’ll see what the foal is like, but hopefully you’ll find that she’ll go to Justify.”

“(She is) a high-quality mare, just a beautiful mare, brilliantly fast at 2 years old, and she represented about four generations of Whitney breeding,” Gainesway’s Brian Graves said about Pretty Birdie. “It’s one of those bittersweet kind of moments, but she was a lovely mare and we wish the buyers a lot of luck with her.”

Three Chimneys Farm and Avenue Bloodstock each spent $700,000 to be the session’s leading buyers, and seller Gainesway led consignors with sales of 18 horses for $2,214,000.

The January sale continues Tuesday and Wednesday.