Last weekend marked the start of the NFL season, and while
most football fans were focusing on the NFL for the first time this season,
others were already well aware of rookies like Cam Newton and Randall Cobb—in
part because they had closely followed the NFL Draft back in April.
Thoroughbred racing has a “draft” as well. Actually we
have multiple drafts. The largest of these is the Keeneland September
Yearling Sale, which got off to a solid start Sunday night. The 13-day sale
continues through September 24. As I tweeted
earlier, I have been spending lots of time at Keeneland in the past few
days taking in all the excitement of the sales. These are some of our
top future prospects going through the sales ring so it’s exciting to follow
the action.
In fact, the 2009 Keeneland September Yearling Sale included
three yearlings that went on to sweep this year’s Triple Crown races:
Kentucky Derby winner Animal Kingdom was purchased for $100,000; Preakness
winner Shackleford did not meet his $275,000 reserve so he was bought back by
his breeders; and Belmont Stakes winner Ruler On Ice cost his owners $100,000.
A year before that, in 2008, a pretty special daughter of
Saint Liam was sold for $380,000 at Keeneland in September. That filly
was later named Havre de Grace, the #1 ranked horse in the latest NTRA Thoroughbred
Poll and a leading contender for 2011 Horse of the Year. I’m
sure owner Rick Porter of Fox Hill Farms is delighted that Havre de Grace has
already earned just shy of $2 million. But I bet he is especially proud
of the fact that he and his team of advisors zeroed in on her when she was one
of about 4,000 yearlings offered at that 2008 sale.
I’m always intrigued by these sales because both science and
art are involved in the selection process. Sure, buyers come armed with
detailed pedigree information and other data. Others focus on
conformation. But just as important are the intangibles. Listen to
buyers and their agents talk about a yearling’s attributes. “Classy,”
“athletic,” “attention-grabbing” and other similarly hard-to-define adjectives
are frequently used around the sales grounds. Are these seasoned
judgments or merely educated guesses? It’s hard to tell the difference
sometimes but one thing is for sure- if you buy the right horse, you can be
handsomely rewarded.
Keeneland has catalogued a total of 4,319 horses for this
year’s sale which attracts buyers from virtually every state and from countries
around the world. The sale is broken into six books. Traditionally, the
most expensive yearlings, those with the flashiest pedigrees, sell during the
first week, but this is one sale that has a long history of producing quality
stakes winners all the way through to the sale’s final day. You might say that
starters or even future Super Bowl MVPs can be had right up until the final
round of this particular draft.
Keeneland offers wall-to-wall coverage of the entire 13 day
through a high quality video stream at Keeneland.com. Check out the sales
coverage and let me know if you see an American Classic winner in the making.
