Implications of record Keeneland September prices are far-reaching

What does it all mean? Darned if I know.

Events of the size of Keeneland's "super Tuesday" sale on the second day of the September 11-23 yearling sale take awhile to digest.

A few implications are too obvious to miss, however, even for the most myopic of us.

1) William S. Farish, owner of Lane's End, will have little motivation to return to the traditionally more lucrative Keeneland July marketplace. Lane's End's $45.7-million haul on super Tuesday, September 12, smashed every record in the books for a consignor on a single day. Those who questioned the wisdom of Farish's decision to retain his July yearlings for September and looked for more sinister and controversial motivations behind the decision were nowhere to be found the following day. Always the diplomat, Farish will not say definitively that he will no longer bother with the expense and pressure of selling yearlings in July. But why should he after the reception his horses received on September 12?

2) Anyone who owns a yearling with a top pedigree, exceptional conformation, and a late foaling date may no longer feel the pressure to push the horse to be ready for the July or August selected auctions. The $6.8-million sale topper is a June 2 foal. In July he was not mature enough to sell. By September, he had grown and matured into a powerful, well-developed colt bigger than many of his contemporaries that are a few months older. Waiting two months made a huge difference in his value.

3) Farish's huge day may have the effect of a double-edged sword for the Keeneland July sale. On the one hand, super Tuesday demonstrated that the first two days of the September sale have replaced Keeneland July as the world's best yearling sale, so other consignors may be tempted to make the same decision Farish did. On the other hand, Lane's End is clearly the 500-pound gorilla whose presence in September may force some other consignors who have concentrated on the September sale in the past to rethink their strategies.

One of the motivations that led some consignors to sell only or primarily at Keeneland September over the last decade was that their yearlings with "summer sales" pedigrees and conformation stood out in the less-glitzy, less-competitive September context. That is no longer the case. With Lane's End-the leading consignor at Keeneland July five times in the 1990s-now pointing for Keeneland September, those horses may now be overshadowed. Some of them might actually get more attention-and bring more money-in the boutique atmosphere of July.

4) Keeneland July may not survive. The July sale has long been the best place to sell a precocious, well-conformed yearling with a top pedigree, but commercial breeders seem to be producing fewer and fewer of that type of horse these days. Buyers no longer care where they spend their money. If they attend a sale and find a horse that meets their qualifications, they will pay whatever it takes, and Keeneland September attracts more buyers than any other sale in the world. Still, the 2000 July sale was undeniably spectacular, setting a world record average, so it is obviously a bit early to write its obituary.

Interestingly, the rise in prices at Keeneland September may have begun the same process that led to disaster in the last half of the 1980s at Keeneland July. English agent Charles Gordon-Watson told Racing Post, "Europeans have found it very hard to buy. I've been very lucky to get four. But this sale is becoming less and less for us, because the strength of the dollar means we've not got the money, and there are less and less horses being sold that are suitable for European racing."

Fifteen years ago, American owners and trainers were saying exactly the same thing about Keeneland July. European and Middle Eastern buyers had driven July prices so high that American buyers were forced to turn their attention to September, a fact that led more and more consignors to concentrate on that sale. Over a ten-year period, that trend resulted in super Tuesday.

Whether the same forces will eventually have a similar disastrous effect on Keeneland September is impossible to predict.