Can anyone tell me about the Keeneland Sales?
 

I was curious about this and turned it on.

Are people really dropping $300k-$400k just based on horses lines and little else? Or are there more factors at play? Have any of the buyers seen these horses run or anything like that or some other inside info? It seems like quite an expensive gamble.

Yearlings
 

No one has seen these yearlings run.
Yes, it's a very expensive gamble based on bloodlines.

There is another important factor at work, though.
Conformation.

There are experts - some better than others - at spotting the cream of the crop.
The shrewdest of those keep opinions to themselves - until the hammer falls.

I have fond memories of attending bloodstock auctions in Ireland as a kid.
Being afraid to nod, or scratch myself, in case they thought it might be a bid.
Fun times. :ThmbUp:

Yearlings have to be nominated to and inspected by the sales company prior to most sales. Especially at Keeneland September, the yearlings are already broadly "ranked" both by their inclusion in the sale to begin with and the "book" they are assigned to (i.e., the early books have the higher ranked prospects). So there is at least some assurance of potential quality there.

In addition, a lot of veterinary information is collected and made available on each yearling. Some of this is provided by the sales company and the consignors already, but most serious buyers tend to hire their own team of consultants to evaluate potential purchases.

http://www.salesintegrity.org/pdf/cba_sales_booklet.pdf

A couple of years ago, my uncle went to a Barrett-Jackson car auction in Arizona. I was pretty excited, and really wanted to here his story. When he came back, I ran over to his place and sat down with him. Talked about his experience. His quote was, "If you want to feel really poor, go to one of these auctions." Same goes for a horse auction.

Conformation plays a big role as does x-rays legs etc.. How a horse walks in addition to the bloodlines. A lot of yearlings go for cheaper (i.e. 5k-20k) because they may have a conformation issue or bone chips. All recoverable but may take time...

Majority of the time it is a wild ass gamble. There are so many 500k+ 1m+ yearlings that never race or win a maiden.

Someone dropped $2,000,000 on Hip 435 today. Unbelievable. If that horse doesn't win one of the Triple Crown races or isn't some amazing sire, it's a guaranteed loser.

Just a few minutes ago in another thread, I was musing about breeders' reluctance to linebreed to A.P. Indy. This colt is linebred to A.P. Indy and Unbridled as well.

He's certainly well-bred! But $2 million is an obscene amount for a yearling. That said, it's not unprecedented, either.

http://apps.keeneland.com/sales/Sep20/pdfs/431.pdf

My bad. Not linebred to A.P. Indy.

The horse is linebred to Mr. Prospector, Northern Dancer, and Secretariat.

If one goes further back Fappiano appears on both sides of the pedigree as does the important broodmare Ruby Slippers.

Nevertheless, despite any theoretically advantage to all this subtle inbreeding, the horse has to buck his recent family in order to be successful.

His full brother, a 2yo this year, has just 3 works to his credit at this point.

Even worse, his 3yo half-brother (by Curlin) has yet to start and has yet to put more than a couple of works together in a row without large gaps in between. Started breezing in April of last year and his last recorded work was over a month ago at a training center.