The marathon thirteen day Keeneland September Yearling Sale concluded on Sunday, September 22 with 2,855 yearlings (one year old horses) being sold for $360 million. Coming on the heels of the Fasig Tipton Saratoga Sale in August where 135 yearlings sold for $55 million and the Fasig-Tipton New York Bred Sale where 186 yearlings sold for $16 million, it’s clear their continues to be an interest in thoroughbred racing!
We (Woodford Racing) were active at the sales, buying two yearlings in August and five in September. The seven yearlings purchased were sired by many of the premier sires in thoroughbred racing. At the Fasig Tipton Saratoga Sale we purchased colts by Tapit and Curlin. At the Keeneland September Yearling Sale we purchased colts by Into Mischief, Quality Road, Candy Ride, Lemon Drop Kid and Speightster.
Flightline
Curlin yearling
Based on 2019 year to date earnings of their offspring, Into Mischief is the #1 thoroughbred sire, followed by Tapit at #2, Quality Road at #3, Curlin at #4 and Candy Ride at #8. Speightster’s first foals were born in 2019 so he currently has no runners but his sire (Speightstown) is #7. Hopefully in Speightster’s case it’s “like father, like son”!
In addition, we (Dorsman, Bouchey, Dalinka, Weintraub and Levine) bought a Lemon Drop Kid colt at the Fasig-Tipton New York Bred Yearling Sale. It will be interesting to see which surface (turf or dirt) the two Lemon Drop Kid colts prefer. On the racetrack, Lemon Drop Kid excelled on the dirt but his offspring have excelled on dirt and turf!
The yearlings will head to Ocala, Florida in the next few weeks to learn how to be racehorses and begin their racing careers sometime in 2020. Decisions regarding who will train each of the yearlings and their names will be made as they move through the breaking process.
I look forward to following the progress of our eight colts!