For the third straight session, total sales and average price dropped but the median improved at the Tattersalls autumn horses in training sale.

The sale company reported 240 of 285 horses offered as sold for $10,896,787 (6,338,400 guineas), a 9.8% decline compared with the corresponding 2008 session. Average declined 4.5% to $45,403 (26,410 guineas).

The clearance rate was 84.2% for the session as the rate has hovered between 82% and 90% in each of the three sessions. Median rose 45% to $24,928 (14,500 guineas).

Stakes winner Putney Bridge, a four-year-old Kentucky-bred Mizzen Mast colt who won the Prix Jacques Laffitte in April at Maisons-Laffitte, topped the session on a final bid of $515,751 (300,000 guineas). John McCormack purchased the bay colt on behalf of Saudi Arabia’s Prince Faisal bin Khalid from the consignment of Khalid Abdullah’s Juddmonte Farms.

Putney Bridge finished third in the 2007 Criterium de Saint-Cloud as a juvenile.  He finished second this year in the La Coupe de Maisons-Laffitte (Fr-G3) and third in the Prix Messidor (Fr-G3) for trainer Criquette Head-Maarek.

Putney Bridge is out of the stakes-placed Dixieland Band mare Valentine Band and is from the female family of European champion and English classic winner Commander in Chief, two-time English champion Warning (GB), Grade 1 winner Yashmak, and Group 2 winner and leading Chilean sire Dushyantor.

The four-day sale concludes Thursday.

For hip-by-hip results, click here.