NEWS
Still crazy after all these years
Posted: Saturday, July 29, 2000
Keeneland's July sale surpassed the record average for a yearling sale set in 1984
I met my old lover
on the street last night
She seemed so glad to see me
I just smiled.
And we talked about some old times
and drank ourselves some beers
Still crazy after all these years.
-Paul Simon, 1975
The Thoroughbred bloodstock industry met its old love again on July 17-18-not out on the street but at the Keeneland Association sales pavilion in Lexington. And though all the participants were a little older if not wiser than the last time they had seen her, there were plenty of smiles and plenty of celebratory beers.
Indeed, everyone was very glad to see the crazy old girl-this grande dame known as the Keeneland July sale of selected yearlings-in robust good health after all these years.
Although the smallest catalog in Keeneland July's selected sale history had led critics once again to proclaim the imminent demise of the July sale, the industry's renewed love affair with the grand lady who flaunts the most gaudy and expensive jewelry in the Thoroughbred world pushed the average for the sale to $621,015. That surpassed the official record average of $581,932 set last year by 6.7% and even soared beyond the actual but unofficial record of $593,109 set in 1984 before Keeneland removed buy-backs from calculations.
The 180 horses through the ring and 130 sold-both record lows for the sale-assured that total receipts of $80,732,000 would be nowhere close to the 1984 total of $175,932,000, but the total did surpass the 1999 gross by 5.1%. Buy-back rate remained virtually level at 27.8%.
"I don't think anybody thought it was going to be like this," said W. B. Rogers Beasley, Keeneland's director of sales. "It helps to have a great crop of yearlings, but the history of this sale-it's consistently the best sale to buy graded stakes winners anywhere in the world. The people who want to win those races, this is where they come."
Leading the parade of buyers who want to win graded stakes were Satish and Anne Sanan, owners of Padua Stables, who bought both the highest-priced colt and the highest-priced filly. The Sanans had been forced to sell 12 horses for $10.8-million at the 1999 Keeneland November sale when the value of stock in their IMRGlobal Corp. plunged, but by May its value had rebounded from around $8 to almost $20. That led Satish Sanan to warn before the sale that he would be a force once again after ranking as the July sale's leading buyer in each of the last two years.
Sanan, accompanied as always by partner and trainer D. Wayne Lukas, was more forceful than ever, buying 12 yearlings for $14.4-million, topped by a $3.6-million Mr. Prospector filly out of Molly Girl (a Seattle Slew full sister to leading California sire General Meeting). That price came within $150,000 of the world record for a filly set by the Seattle Slew filly Alchaasibiyeh in 1984. Alchaasibiyeh was winless in six starts but has thus far produced a multiple graded stakes winner and a graded stakes-placed winner for Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum's Darley Stud Management.
"She was my top filly of the sale equally with the Serena's Song," said Lukas, who bid for Padua. "It was a toss up. We'd like to have bought them both, but you're dealing with dear friends, and you have to give a little and take a little.
"The Mr. Prospector fillies-it's the end of the line, and they're already priceless as broodmares. That adds to the price, but we still went further on her than we anticipated."
"She's a beauty," said breeder John Mabee of the sale-topping filly, "but that's more than we expected for her."
"We have a lot of that family, and you can't keep all of a family like that," his wife, Betty Mabee, added. "It's very exciting to sell one for that much. It's just like winning a $1-million race."
Taylor Made Sales Agency consigned the sale topper.
Dear friends
The "dear friends" to whom Lukas referred were Irish agent Demi O'Byrne and his clients John Magnier of Coolmore Stud and Michael Tabor. Lukas trains for both Padua and Tabor and Magnier, and for Robert and Beverly Lewis, sellers through Craig Bandoroff's Denali Stud of the Storm Cat filly out of the Lewis's champion filly Serena's Song, by Rahy.
Although all concerned clearly admired both fillies greatly, O'Byrne left the Mr. Prospector filly for Padua and Padua in turn did not bid for the Storm Cat. Lukas, of course, is likely to train both regardless of the owner.
The Padua-Coolmore pas de deux left Lukas to outbid Aaron Jones, another survivor of the crazy old days at Keeneland, for the sale topper and O'Byrne to outlast Reynolds Bell, representing Jayeff B Stables, for the daughter of Serena's Song. The diminutive but very strong, broad-backed filly went to the Coolmore team for $3.4-million, joint-third-highest price for a filly in history.
Lukas, caught in the middle of the desires and ambitions of three close friends and clients, anxiously inquired, "Is Bob (Lewis) happy with the price?" until consignor Bandoroff arrived to reassure him that Lewis was his usual ecstatic self.
Padua's bankroll also proved thick enough to pluck the sale's highest-priced colt, a big, powerful son of Gone West out of multiple Grade 1 winner Lakeway, by Seattle Slew, consigned by Eaton Sales as agent. Trainer Bob Hess Jr., acting for David Shimmon, opened the bidding at $1-million, but that gambit failed to deter the determined Lukas, who steadfastly covered Hess's every move. After the young California trainer declined further bids with "safe" sign and walked away from his post near the press box, the auctioneers tried to induce his father, trainer Bob Hess Sr., to continue, but the hammer fell at $3.3-million in Lukas's favor.
"We knew he was a nice colt," breeder Mike Rutherford said, "but you never know what you're going to get when it goes over a million."
Rarefied air
The three $3-million-plus yearlings led a parade of 24 horses sold for seven-figure prices, equaling the third-highest total in the sale's history and highest since an equal number of seven-figure horses sold in 1985.
As shown in the accompanying decile chart, those 24 $1-million yearlings were a clear indication of the market's obsession with those horses perceived as the very best. The top 20% of the market rose more than 20% compared to 1999, but all other segments fell. Times were especially tough in the bottom 30%, where average price declined more than 20%.
Buyers were similarly focused on yearlings by the most expensive sires, as shown in the accompanying chart of returns by stud-fee range. Although percentage returns were, as always, higher for lower stud fees, the $1,477,113 and $846,286 averages for yearlings by stallions with six-figure stud fees are indicative of buyer preferences.
The two top-of-the-market pinhooks at the sale both came unstuck, however. A big, somewhat coarse full brother to Old Trieste, purchased for $1.3-million at 1999 Keeneland November by Paul Shanahan and consigned by Eaton Sales as agent, was led out unsold at $925,000. The very next horse in the ring, Eaton's Sadler's Wells colt out of Madame Est Sortie (Fr), by Longleat, purchased for $1.4-million by agent M. W. Miller III at the November sale, met the same fate at $1.45-million.
"I don't know what we're going to do with him," said the latter colt's co-owner, Tom VanMeter, who is also co-owner of Eaton Sales. "We might send him to Goffs (Premier sale in October) or put him in training and send him to Europe. We'll have to see what the other partners want to do.
"It's rarefied air, what we were trying to do. There's only two or three guys that were suspects to buy him-Demi, (John) Ferguson, maybe (Ahmed bin) Salman-and if you don't hook one of them, well ..." he said. "You have to overcome the stigma of people knowing they have to pay that much going in."
With those two buy-backs at the top, pinhookers failed to show an overall profit at the July sale. With $12,424,000 invested in 32 pinhooked yearlings that went through the ring, pinhookers were credited with $12,260,000 in sales at the fall of the hammer. While that figure cannot include the many aftermarket deals that take place, it is clear that top-level pinhooking is still a very risky business, even in the deepest market for yearlings in history.
As usual, several individual pinhooks were spectacularly successful, headed by Hartwell Farm's Saint Ballado colt out of Jettin Diplomacy, by Roman Diplomat. Purchased for $220,000 in the name of B.M.K. Equine at the 1999 Keeneland November sale, the racy, athletic colt was resold for $1.4-million to John Ferguson Bloodstock on behalf of Godolphin Racing.
Leader boards
Despite those oxygen shortages at the pinhooking peak, VanMeter's and Reiley McDonald's Eaton Sales agency led all consigning agents with 23 horses sold (of 42 offered) for $14,740,000. That outdistanced Taylor Made, consignor of the sale-topping filly, which sold 15-of-28 horses for $11,730,000.
For the seventh time in eight years, the late, great Mr. Prospector led all Keeneland July sires with seven yearlings sold for an average of $1,477,142. A.P. Indy and Seeking the Gold, hottest of the young-but-proven group of sires, tied for second with identical $1,193,750 averages. Leading sire Storm Cat ranked only fifth, with seven yearlings selling for a $1,067,857, topped by the Serena's Song filly and a powerful half brother to Gentlemen (Arg) snapped up by O'Byrne for $1.1-million. Gone West ranked fourth with four sold for a $1,135,000 average.
Pulpit was clearly the star among first-year sires, with six offspring averaging $550,833, led by a $1.45-million colt out of Grand Girlfriend, by Private Account, who bore a stunning resemblance to many of the top colts sired in the 1960s by his male-line ancestor, Bold Ruler. The offspring of Siphon (Brz), whose Brazilian pedigree might as well be written in Greek for all it means to most buyers, were nevertheless sufficiently impressive physical specimens to average $337,500 for two sold.
Still crazy
I'm not the kind of man who tends to socialize
I seem to lean on old familiar ways
And I ain't no fool for love songs
that whisper in my ears
still crazy after all these years
As the press corps gathered after the sale to interview Beasley, new Keeneland President Nick Nicholson called out from across the pavilion, "Rogers, I'll bet you don't get a single question about the demise of the July sale."
He was right. After average price for the final session of the sale soared to $855,444, far higher than any July session during the 1980s bloodstock boom, no one was prepared to infer that the July sale was on its last legs.
Although buyers clearly are still crazy about Keeneland's aristocratic grande dame with the most historic set of crown jewels in the game, consignors just as clearly have fallen out of love with the sale.
"There just is not that depth of horses anymore to choose from for this sale," Beasley said. "We didn't compromise on conformation, but it's hard to find the pedigrees you used to."
In addition to near-flawless conformation and exquisite pedigree, the July sale requires early maturity. Over the last 30 years, commercial breeders on the whole have been breeding almost exclusively for two-year-old speed and early maturity. What they have achieved instead, by the account of both trainers and yearling sales inspectors, is a later-maturing, less-precocious horse.
So who exactly is crazy here? Tune in next July.
Complete results of the sale appear on page 51.
John P. Sparkman is bloodstock/sales editor of Thoroughbred Times.
