Keeneland Launches Improved Buyer Portfolio

Just in time for its September Yearling Sale, Keeneland has launched a new, improved version of its Buyers Portfolio, which is accessible through www.keeneland.com. A browser-based service (that is, it’s accessible through the internet), the new portfolio works on iPads, Androids and wide range of other systems. 

“It’s available, it’s free, and we feel like it’s a good way for us to communicate with buyers, and with buyers to communicate with us,” said Keeneland’s Chief Information Officer Brad Lovell. 

In conjuction with Keeneland’s interactive catalog, the portfolio allows buyers to build a short list of prospects for any given sale, and saves all short lists for future reference. The strength of the software lies in its research capabilities. Through the use of filters, shoppers can easily whittle down a catalog by any number of criteria. Want to search for all New York-bred, chestnut Malibu Moon fillies in Book 2, session one, out of stakes-producing mares who are Breeders’ Cup eligible? No problem. 

There are plenty of other features, too. Clicking a dam’s name reveals her sales produce record at Keeneland. Click on a sire’s name and every horse of his in the sale will be listed. Meanwhile, buyers can personalize short lists by assigning vet grades or by adding comments.

Keeneland has enhanced many other features to speed the interaction process between itself and customers. Buyers can put in for credit, track purchases, order catalogs, and even request sales pavilion seating through a click of a button. 
Another interesting component of the system is email alerts. From the horses on your short list, you can be alerted if a horse is scratched, of catalog updates, when the horse is just about to enter the ring, of the hammer price and, finally, of summary info. Van releases can even be alerted. 

Signing up is easy. It took this reporter :49.14 seconds to fill out the form on Keeneland’s site, and another 3:24 for Keeneland to send a confirmation email. That’s it. 

“We feel like we have all the envisioned functionality that we need here,” added Lovell. 

So what’s the next step for this technology? Lovell said he envisions a process in which buyers, instead of signing a carbon copies in triplicate, register with Keeneland and are provided a card. Winning bidders would simply swipe his or her card, enter a pin number, verify the sale information, and hit an “I agree” button. The buyer would then be provided with a receipt, and would have all the relevant sales information emailed to him or her. 

“Results would be nearly instantaneous, because we wouldn’t have to read the chicken scratch on the bills and things like that,” said Lovell. “It will be a little bit of effort on the customer side of things before the sale, but functionality is simplistic and pretty straight forward.” 

There’s no current timetable for such a process, and in the meantime, Keeneland is encouraging customers to learn and take advantage of its latest technological rollout. To sign up for the Keeneland Buyers Portfolio, visitwww.keeneland.com/sales/keeneland-portfolio, or to access a PDF’d users guide, click here. -LM