keeneland november breeding stock sale | Horse Racing Free Tips

PR Special Keeneland November: Familiar Stallions In New Places

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The Keeneland November Breeding Stock sale rolls on to Book 2, and the Paulick Report has the reading material you need in the latest edition of the PR Special.

Today's issue, like every edition of the PR Special, offers exclusive, detailed bloodstock content not yet seen on the rest of the website in a pdf format that's easy to read and print. Here is what's inside:

Front Page: A look at the veteran stallions moving to Kentucky for 2021, including the red-hot Laoban, and why stallions make the move to the Bluegrass State.
Stallion Spotlight: Tom Hamm of Three Chimneys on Funtastic.
Florida-Bred Leaderboard: Florida-breds in the 2020 Breeders' Cup.
INQUIRY: What is the most impressive debut win you've ever seen?
First-Crop Sire Watch: First-time sires of in-foal mares in the Keeneland November catalog.

CLICK HERE TO READ THIS EDITION OF THE PR SPECIAL

Thanks to the advertisers in this edition of the PR Special. Your continued support is crucial to the functioning of our publication.

CLICK HERE TO READ THIS EDITION OF THE PR SPECIAL

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Concrete Rose Tops Keeneland November’s Opening Session At $1.95 Million

Larry Best's OXO Equine paid $1.95 million for Grade 1 winner and millionaire Concrete Rose and $1.9 million for Indian Miss, the dam of champion Mitole who is in foal to Into Mischief, to acquire the two most expensive horses sold during a day of strong trade at Monday's Book 1 opening session of the Keeneland November Breeding Stock Sale.

With a total of six purchases for $5,015,000, Best led all buyers for the session.

Keeneland sold 128 horses on Monday for $49,775,000, for an average of $388,867 and a median of $280,000. Eight horses brought $1 million or more.

“Overall, we are really happy with how the day went,” Keeneland President-Elect and Interim Head of Sales Shannon Arvin said, noting that the energy created by this weekend's Breeders' Cup World Championships at Keeneland carried over to the November Sale. “It was a solid day of trade. We were pleased with the broad domestic and international participation. Japanese buyers bought three of the day's top-priced horses.”

Online bidding continued to gain popularity with buyers. During today's session, 62 bids were placed via the internet, resulting in nine purchases, one of them for seven figures, and gross sales of more than $6 million.

“It was very good to see the different platforms we put out there – internet bidding, phone bidding and the three different bidding areas on the sales grounds – were well utilized today,” Keeneland Director of Sales Operations Geoffrey Russell said. “One of the benefits of internet bidding is that the principal is back in control; they may go a little further than the agent would have been authorized to go. It's a different way of doing commerce in 2020, but we're all learning how to play with technology and get the best benefit out of it.”

Concrete Rose, a 4-year-old daughter of Twirling Candy out of Solerina, by Powerscourt (GB), was consigned as a racing or broodmare prospect by Lane's End, agent for Ashbrook Farm and BBN Racing. Trained by Rusty Arnold, Concrete Rose won six of seven starts, including the Grade 1 Belmont Oaks Invitational, G2 JPMorgan Chase Jessamine, G3 Edgewood Presented by Forcht Bank and G3 Florida Oaks, and earned $1.2 million.

“I didn't want to go quite that high, but honestly I didn't think I'd touch her below $2 million,” Best said about the purchase. “She's a beautiful horse and you can't take away that record from her. I'm just thrilled to have her. I have admired Concrete Rose for a long time. I have a multiple Grade 1 winner, Cambier Parc, and Concrete Rose beat her and I said, 'Wow, what a horse.'”

Indian Miss, an 11-year-old daughter of Indian Charlie, was consigned by Hill 'n' Dale Sales Agency, agent. Best said he planned to breed Indian Miss to Instagrand, a son of Into Mischief he raced to a Grade 2 win and a Grade 1 placing. Instagrand enters stud in 2021.

“That's my strategy: Try to get Instagrand going, and hopefully we'll get a nice Into Mischief foal, too,” Best said.

Narvick International paid $1.85 million for Cherokee Maiden, a 3-year-old daughter of Distorted Humor from the family of 2020 Japanese Triple Crown winner Contrail and Saturday's TVG Breeders' Cup Juvenile Presented by Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance winner Essential Quality. Consigned by Bedouin Bloodstock, agent, as a racing or broodmare prospect, Cherokee Maiden is out of champion Folklore, by Tiznow.

In the day's highest price for an internet sale, K I Farm purchased Grade 1 winner Ollie's Candy, who ran in Saturday's Breeders' Cup Distaff, for $1.65 million. Taylor Made Sales Agency, agent, consigned the 5-year-old daughter of Candy Ride (ARG), who was cataloged as a racing or broodmare prospect.

“I thought she would bring that with the way the market has been going on high-end mares,” said Mark Taylor, Taylor's Made's Vice President of Marketing and Public Sales Operations. “She was only about 3 lengths off winning three additional three Grade 1 (races). If she had won a couple more that she had rough trips in, she could have brought twice that.”

Ollie's Candy was cataloged to last year's November Sale but was withdrawn from the sale and resumed her racing career in 2020. She ran in six graded stakes this year and placed in seven of them, including Keeneland's G1 Juddmonte Spinster.

“(Breeders and owners Paul Eggert and Karen Eggert) got to have a whole other year of racing her, and you can't put a price on that,” Taylor said. “For them, it was definitely the best decision.”

With sales of $9.61 million for 29 horses, Taylor Made was the session's leading consignor.

Taylor Made also consigned Grade 1 winner Lady Prancealot (IRE), who sold for $1.6 million to Shadai Farm of Japan. Fourth in Saturday's Maker's Mark Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Turf, the 4-year-old daughter of Sir Prancealot (IRE) was cataloged as a racing or broodmare prospect.

“I think we were expecting a strong showing today, and $1.6 million was a great result for everybody,” said Phillip Shelton, Racing Manager of co-owner Medallion Racing. “She's a 4-year-old and there is blue sky ahead. (Shadai is) going to breed her. If we couldn't get it done, we were happy to take her back and run her. We have to thank all of our partners for putting their faith in us.”

Two in-foal broodmares sold for $1.5 million apiece.

Spendthrift Farm purchased the first, Canadian champion and millionaire Holy Helena, who is carrying her first foal by Quality Road. Hidden Brook, agent, consigned the 6-year-old daughter of Ghostzapper who is a half-sister to Grade 2 winner Holy Boss.

Stonestreet Thoroughbred Holdings paid $1.5 million for Houtzen (AUS), a multiple group stakes winner in Australia. A 6-year-old daughter of Australian sire I Am Invincible, the mare is carrying her first foal by Curlin. She was consigned by Woods Edge Farm, agent.

“She was a really brilliant 2-year-old in Australia – super fast,” Barbara Banke of Stonestreet said. “She was in foal to my favorite stallion, so what is not to like?”

Claiborne Farm, agent, paid $1 million for the racing or broodmare prospect Gingham. Consigned by Brookdale Sales, agent, Gingham is a stakes-winning 3-year-old daughter of Quality Road out of the Pulpit mare Chapel. The Grade 2-placed filly is from the family of Grade 2 winner Owsley.

Two weanlings sold for $600,000 to lead the session.

The first is a colt from the first crop of undefeated 2018 Triple Crown winner Justify who sold to Donato Lanni, agent. Consigned by Hunter Valley Farm, agent, he is out of the Mr. Greeley mare Groton Circle and is a half-brother to stakes winner Supreme Aura. The colt is from the family of Grade 2 winners Miss Isella and Sir Cherokee.

“He's pretty cool; he looked just like Justify,” Lanni said. “We bought him to race; I wanted to buy a nice Justify. He was an amazing racehorse. (The weanling) looked just like him.”

M.V. Magnier paid $600,000 for a son of American Pharoah who is a half-brother to multiple Grade 1-winning juvenile Jackie's Warrior. Beau Lane Bloodstock, agent, consigned the colt, who is out of Unicorn Girl, by A. P. Five Hundred.

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Respite Farm, Breeder Of Uncle Mo, Sends Athletic Weanlings To Keeneland November Sale

If you've been following the North American bloodstock world in 2020, you're probably familiar with the handiwork of Dr. Michael Cavey and Dr. Nancy Temple's Respite Farm.

The Paris, Ky., operation bred champion Uncle Mo, whose quick-starting reputation as a sire of runners has been matched by his quick-starting reputation as a sire of sires. One of those young stallions making noise with his first crop is Grade 2 winner Laoban, whose freshman season was so brilliant, he earned a call-up from New York to WinStar Farm for 2021. Like his sire, Laoban was also a Respite Farm product.

Outside of that family tree, Respite Farm bred and sold Champagne Room, the champion 2-year-old filly and Breeders' Cup Juvenile winner of 2016.

Echoes of that success reverberate through the slate of weanlings Respite Farm has to offer at this year's Keeneland November Breeding Stock Sale, through the Denali Stud consignment.

Though Cavey is a commercial breeder, and he sells his entire crop at auction as weanlings, the breeder said he does not breed or raise his young horses through the typical means for a commercial prospect. Instead, he brings them up as though he planned to race them himself. The horses have to end up in the right hands, of course, but the high-level results of the Respite program prove it works.

“I had an agent who was selling horses for us who came to our farm, looked at our young horses, and told us we were making a mistake because we were raising and prepping them like racehorses, not sale horses, and he thought we should change our program,” Cavey said. “We didn't change our program. We still try to raise racehorses.

“Our philosophy is to hopefully sell sound weanlings,” he continued. “If a pinhooker buys them, hopefully they'll make money with them, then come back and buy another one. Uncle Mo and Champagne Room are both really good examples. People bought them reasonably as weanlings, they sold them again as yearlings, and then those people sold them as 2-year-olds, and everybody made money. I'm happy about that.”

Champagne Room

The process of raising a racehorse for the sale ring begins with a carefully planned mating.

Cavey takes a great influence from the methods of John Nerud's Tartan Farms program, going so far as to buy broodmares from Nerud's dispersal that serve as the pivot points of today's Respite Farm broodmare band.

From Nerud and others, Cavey said, he learned it's okay for the two components of the mating to have flaws, as long as the partner's strengths complement them.

“[Nerud] said he looks at their hip, their hind leg, the strength of their back, the layback to their shoulder, and the quality of their head,” Cavey said. “That's pretty much the way I look at it. The motor is the hip. The strength is carried through the hip and back. They have to have a nice length of neck to provide balance, and that's what we look for.”

When it came to breeding Uncle Mo, Cavey said the outcross potential he presented was carefully crafted, and advanced through the Indian Charlie/In Excess sire line. This, in turn, has helped his appeal as a stallion in a marketplace increasingly saturated by a smaller group of bloodlines.

“We bred five generations of his family, and we avoided most of Mr. Prospector, Storm Cat, most of the more popular horses, attempting to improve his pedigree with what we call in the cattle business, hybrid vigor,” Cavey said. “His success now, I think, is based on the fact that he can be crossed back to any of those families, and he's bringing something to those families that they don't have.”

Laoban (Uncle Mo) and jockey Jose Ortiz win the Jim Dandy

Nobody knew Uncle Mo or his pedigree like Cavey did when the champion retired to Ashford Stud, so when it came time to plan the mating that would produce Laoban, the breeder knew what he needed to see in a stallion to mesh with the Speightstown mare Chattertown.

“She was very attractive, well-muscled, not overly large,” he said. “She had a good, solid female family. We knew he would put some daylight under her, because he's a big horse, but not heavy-bodied. He's a big, athletic horse. We felt Speightstown would cross well with the female family, and it worked. It doesn't always work, but here, it did.”

Using the philosophy he has developed over decades of cultivation, Cavey shared the thought process behind the matings for two of his standout Keeneland November weanlings, and how the end product matched his expectations.

Hip 943
Dk b. or br. f., Nyquist x Cayman Sunrise, by Petionville
Barn 36 & 37 – Sells Wednesday, Nov. 11
Catalog Page

“We crossed Nyquist to a family we've been working with for a few years. It produced a big, good-looking filly with a good way of going, well-balanced. We just like everything about her, and the Nyquists are obviously running.

“Cayman Sunrise was a late-developing mare herself. She was a spectacular-looking animal and had lightning speed, but unfortunately, she got hurt. Her foals that we've produced prior to this one, they needed some strength and daylight, and Nyquist brought the strength that we were looking for and put a little more leg under them. Her Bodemeister colt (Empire Power) was a stakes-placed winner at two, and he's still racing.

“We're hoping that breeding her to a precocious 2-year-old in Nyquist, who brings some strength and precocity to the pedigree, will produce a precocious 2-year-old filly that then will run on. We were just looking for something to improve the slowness of the maturity, and have her mature a little faster, and get a little more speed into her.

“This filly is very different from the other foals the mare has produced. She's just stronger. She has a little bit more size, more hip, and more strength to her back.”

Hip 1572
Gr. or ro. f., Liam's Map x Rooms, by Giant's Causeway
Barn 5 – Sells Friday, Nov. 13
Catalog Page

“This is Rooms' first foal, a really well-balanced, big, strong filly. She's really impressive.

“The mare is by Giant's Causeway, who is a leading broodmare sire. You just can't go wrong with a Giant's Causeway. The mare herself ran fourth by a neck to Champagne Room in a graded stakes race at two. She showed a great deal of ability. She was then trained by Peter Eurton, who trained Champagne Room. There's really nothing about her I don't like. She's just a good quality mare who has a good female family.

“Liam's Map is a big, stretchy, athletic horse who could really run, and the Giant's Causeways can be a little compact and small. So, I was looking for something that could put a little more size on her, and her first foal is surprisingly good-sized for a first foal.”

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Veronique a Timely Purchase for Holmes

Tony Holmes has enjoyed sales success with mares he has purchased in partnership with employees of his Marula Park Stud in the past, but next week the native New Zealander and a 22-year veteran of the farm may have success on the next level when they send Veronique (Mizzen Mast) (hip 244D) through the ring during Monday’s first session of the Keeneland November Breeding Stock Sale. Holmes purchased the mare, in foal to Mastery, privately after she RNA’d for $22,000 at last year’s Keeneland November sale. It was 10 months later that her son Nashville (Speightstown) made a smashing debut at Saratoga (video), earning the ‘TDN Rising Star’ designation. When the 3-year-old colt romped home by an effortless looking 9 3/4 lengths in a Keeneland allowance (video) Oct. 10, Holmes and his partner decided to supplement the mare to the November sale.

“There is a really nice man who has worked for us for 22 years and I was looking for a mare for us to own together,” Holmes explained of Veronique’s purchase last fall. “I financed the mare and that was the whole objective. He’s been the backbone of our operation and he’s a really nice guy. The plan was to sell babies out of this mare for an income. But things have swung around in our favor, so you’ve got to take them when they do that.”

While Nashville hadn’t made it to the races yet, the colt had made a good impression in the sales ring where he sold for $460,000 to WinStar Farm and China Horse Club at the 2018 Keeneland September sale.

“Obviously, her babies had sold well and I knew that, at that time, Nashville was having a spell,” Holmes said of the mare’s appeal. “I had heard that he had ability and I knew he was at WinStar and having a spell there. I knew there was still hope.”

Nashville was pre-entered in both the GI Breeders’ Cup Sprint and GI Breeders’ Cup Big Ass Dirt Mile, but it was announced Monday he would instead target Saturday’s Perryville S. on the championship undercard.

Holmes said Nashville’s impressive victories, and more importantly his potential successes, will likely take his dam’s popularity to the next level in the sales ring.

“I think it’s huge,” he said of Nashville’s promise. “I’ve had mares before and sometimes they win a nice race, but with him, it’s just the way he’s done it. And then Elliott Walden said he’s one of the fastest horses WinStar Farm has ever had. I’ve been in the position before, but not with a horse with this much talent.”

Veronique’s page received another update last week when her 2-year-old Market Cap (Candy Ride {Arg}) graduated by seven lengths at Laurel Park Oct. 30 (video).

The 9-year-old Veronique will sell Monday in foal to GI Pacific Classic winner Collected (City Zip).

“He was a horse who had won nearly $3 million, he was a good-looking horse that [Bob] Baffert trained,” Holmes said of the choice of matings. “I thought he was attractive at that price with his looks and his race record.”

Veronique’s weanling filly (hip 885) by Mastery will sell during Wednesday’s third session of the auction.

“She’s beautiful,” Holmes said of the weanling. “The man that works for us–he obviously owns half of her too–and we have four weanlings in the sale, but she gets the most grooming. Put it that way.”

The unraced Veronique is out of Styler (Holy Bull), a full-sister to GI Kentucky Derby winner Giacomo, and she is a half-sister to stakes winner Almond Roca (Speightstown) and graded placed Calistoga (Speightstown). She will be consigned to the November sale by Paramount Sales.

Holmes purchased Crystal Shard (Mr. Prospector) for $23,000 at the 2010 Keeneland November sale, also on behalf of a partnership of his farm workers. Her yearling colt at that time would go on to be GI Wood Memorial S. winner Gemologist. The mare was sold privately at a hefty profit.

Asked what another success would mean for his longtime employee, Holmes laughed and said, “I hope he shows up the next day.”

He continued, “There was another time there we bought a mare together and it was the dam of Gemologist. So he’s been on a bit of a home run, but after he sold that mare, the next night he was out there working overtime. But it could be a real life changer for him. They are nice people. So, hopefully. Could be.”

The Keeneland November sale opens with a single Book 1 sessions beginning at noon Monday. The auction continues through Nov. 18 with sessions beginning daily at 10 a.m.

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