Keeneland

The third day at Keeneland's September sale, the first of two Book 2 sessions, kicked off with a bang Wednesday when April Mayberry signed for a Tapit colt to the tune of $1.3 million before the first hour had passed. Consigned by Gainesway as hip 413, the gray colt is out of the placed Manki (Arch). The mare has already produced GI Woody Stephens Stakes winner Drain the Clock (Maclean's Music), a young stallion who has his first yearlings this year and stands alongside Tapit at Gainesway. Bred by Nick...

by Jessica Martini, Christina Bossinakis, and Jill Williams LEXINGTON, KY - The Keeneland September Yearling Sale, which opened with a record-setting session Monday, continued with an action-packed second Book 1 session Tuesday, establishing yet another September session record average and median. Twenty horses sold for $1 million or more during the session, led by a colt by Gun Runner and a filly by Flightline who brought matching $2.2 million price tags. "It was a good day at the sale, for sure," said Keeneland President Shannon Arvin. "We built on what...

About three-quarters of the way through the second session of the Keeneland September sale's Book 1 Tuesday, a filly by Horse of the Year Flightline out of MGSW & GISP Four Graces (Majesticperfection) hammered for $2.2 million to the Sarf family's LSU Stables. Consigned by Gainesway, hip 338 was bred in Kentucky by Mandy Pope's Whisper Hill Farm LLC. A half-sister to MGSW McCraken (Ghostzapper), Four Graces was purchased by Whisper Hill at the 2022 Keeneland November sale for $2.3 million. Tuesday's $2.2-million dark bay filly, a March foal, is...

Mike Repole, huddled with his team at the reserved seating tables at the back of the pavilion, went to $1.5 million to acquire a colt by Gun Runner out of multiple Grade I winner Cavorting (Bernardini) (hip 278) from the Indian Creek consignment Tuesday at the Keeneland September sale. The colt, a half-brother to last year's $5-million September topping son of Curlin, as well as to Grade I winner Clairiere (Curlin), was bred by Barbara Banke's Stonestreet. Repole was active during Monday's first session of the auction, but kicked into...

A colt by Not This Time out of Wembley (Bernardini) realized a $1.7 million from agent Pedro Lanz early in Tuesday's second session of the Keeneland September Sale in Lexington. Consigned by Taylor Made Sales, Hip 211 is a grandson of Grade I winner Game Face (Menifee). The Apr. 15 foal is bred by Albaugh Grand Stables.

6th-DMR, $100K, Msw, 2yo, 5 1/2f, 7:11 p.m. ET. A pair of pricey colts under the care of Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert make their first starts as the seaside oval closes out its summer meet on Sunday. BOYD (Violence) is a Fasig-Tipton Midlantic May auction buy for Zedan Racing, who made the chestnut the second topper at the sale when they went to $1.05-million to acquire him. Initially, this future Baffert trainee was an $82,000 Fasig-Tipton Fall Mixed sale grad then went for $280,000 during Keeneland September. A...

When Practical Joke and Life Is Good--both by Into Mischief and out of Distorted Humor mares--each racked up multiple Grade I victories and retired to major stallion farms in Central Kentucky, the cross they share surely earned a second look. After three 3-year-olds of 2025--Eclipse champion Citizen Bull, Patch Adams, and Tappan Street--added another five combined Grade I victories to that same cross in the last 11 months, anyone savvy enough to have a yearling on offer at Keeneland's September sale on the 'Midas Touch' nick looks positively inspired. Three...

The mission was simple: go to the Keeneland September Sale with half a million dollars and come back with a horse that could get to the Kentucky Derby. Easy, right? Tom Benson had been out of the sport ever since he purchased the New Orleans Saints back in 1985. But now it was 2014 and he was ready to get back in the game. He recruited three trainers he knew from the Louisiana circuit--Dallas Stewart, Al Stall and Tom Amoss--and laid out the assignment. The outcome surpassed even the most...

6th-DMR, 80K, Msw, 2yo, f, 1mT, 8:32 p.m. Don Alberto had to stretch to $950,000 to acquire YURAK (Tapit) as a yearling at Keeneland last September. Debuting Friday for John Sadler, the filly is exceptionally well-bred with no fewer than four black type earners as half-siblings led by GI Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile victor and Gainesway stallion Spun to Run (Hard Spun). First dam Yawkey Way, who sold for $600,000 to Gaineway/Whisper Hill Farm in 2020, has also produced SW/MGSP Informed Patriot (who topped the 2024 Fasig-Tipton July Horses of...

Central Kentucky Riding for Hope, a 44-year-old nonprofit that offers a variety of equine-assisted therapies and activities for people of all ages, hosts its inaugural Benefit Match featuring Lexington Polo and tailgating at the Secretariat Field at the Kentucky Horse Park on Sunday, Sept. 28. "We are extremely grateful to Lexington Polo for presenting this benefit, which will be their final polo event of the season," CKRH Executive Director Pat Kline said. "We look forward to outstanding polo action and the chance for us to enjoy a beautiful fall afternoon...

George Connolly is set to join Four Star Sales as a Bloodstock Sales Associate, the company announced Wednesday. From County Carlow, Ireland, Connolly grew up on his family's Burgage Stud, a successful National Hunt stallion farm that has produced multiple Grade 1 winners. He holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from University College Dublin and was selected for the Godolphin Flying Start program - graduating with distinction in June 2025 as the leading student of his class. Connolly's early career has spanned top trainers, sales companies and stud farms around...

"There are decades where nothing happens," said Lenin. "And there are weeks when decades happen." By the notoriously slow-burning standards of Thoroughbred breeding, however, for Amy Moore it has felt more like a decade when centuries have happened. The way it began, in a sprint maiden at Saratoga on 16 August 2015, could hardly have been less auspicious. The previous September, as she prepared to surface from a 30-year immersion in employee benefits law in Washington D.C., Moore had bought a Blame filly at Keeneland. The idea was that someday...