Keeneland April Sale Today

The Keeneland April 2-Year-Olds in Training Sale gets underway Monday afternoon at 4 p.m. The boutique sale’s already slim catalogue of 125 juveniles had been whittled down nearly in half by 62 outs as of Sunday afternoon. 
“The catalogue’s never been very large; it’s a boutique sale, and it’s set to a higher standard,” said Keeneland’s Director of Sales Geoffrey Russell. “The consignors realize that, and they only send their top horses.” 
The historic auction does boast an impressive list of graduates, including last year’s GI Belmont S. winner Palace Malice (Curlin), who returned to capture this term’s GII Gulfstream Park H. and GII New Orleans H. In New Orleans, he got the better of fellow April graduate Normandy Invasion (Tapit). 
    “At the moment, this sale has produced more graded stakes winners than any other, which is impressive for a sale of its size,” Russell said. “We have the leading older horse Palace Malice–a Classic winner last year–on our cover, as well as another top older horse in Normandy Invasion. We also sold Vinceramos (Pioneerof the Nile), who will run in the [Apr. 12 GI Toyota] Blue Grass S. 
    The juvenile sales season started strongly at Barretts and built momentum with a record-breaking OBS March sale, but hit a bump in the road with the similarly boutique Fasig-Tipton Florida sale two weeks ago. 
“I think the market in general is good,” Russell said. “It’s a strong and healthy market. But like every market, it’s not perfect, and has its ups and downs, but the quality horses have sold very well.” 
Consignor Eddie Woods admitted the large number of outs from an already small catalogue was a concern heading into Monday’s sale. 
    “It’s disappointing to see the number of outs,” Woods said. “I think numbers draw a crowd. It doesn’t matter where you are. When you have the smaller numbers, i.e. our boutique sales, they seem to be struggling a bit to bring in a crowd because of the lack of chances to buy a horse from a shopper’s point of view.” 
From his own consignment, Woods pointed out, “I think we had 21 catalogued. Unfortunately, we came here with 12 because we had some bad luck at home when horses who were particularly pointed for this sale came up with issues. Nothing really major, but nothing we could ship. Then we had a couple for clients that we’d never seen and they had decided to keep them. And there was a little bit of attrition after the breeze show. I suppose you can’t have everything–a really really fast racetrack and everything be ok after it.” 
    Thursday’s undertack show took place over an exceptionally fast racetrack and with a strong tailwind. An even dozen juveniles worked a furlong in under :10, including the bullet work of :9 2/5 turned in by hip 69, a colt by Sky Mesa from Becky Thomas’s Sequel Bloodstock consignment. 
    Action at the sales barns has been steady, according to consignor Kip Elser. “This morning we had to run to Kinkos to get more cards made,” Elser said. “We had ordered the usual number, but by this morning, we needed more.” 
Last year’s April sale was topped by a $700,000 daughter of Unbridled’s Song. Consigned by Ciaran Dunne’s Wavertree Stables, the filly was purchased by John McCormack Bloodstock. In all, 59 juveniles grossed $11,640,000 a year ago, for an average of $197,288 and a median of $150,000.”