Keeneland Day One shaky

Keenelands select session got off to a shaky start yesterday as proceeds were off $11 million dollars, the average price was down 14% and the number of RNA's was higher than last years session. The big story was the buyback of the AP Indy-Azeri colt by Micheal Paulson for a record $7.7 million dollars. I think too much is made of this as they seemingly had no intention of selling this horse and the whole thing is pretty immaterial except for wondering why they would pay Keeneland to 'appraise' their horse. There was no real money bid on this horse, the whole thing was a sham. Moving on, I was approached by several big consignors about horses that they may want to deal with later on in the sale. These guys are really nervous. (When I say deals I don't mean in an illegal way. They just want to reduce inventory and are worried already that the sale will be so weak at that point that some of the owners may wind up staying in for a piece of the horse if they can get a bit of cash to offset some of the expenses)

I spent most of the day looking at horses for Wednesday and Thursday and came out with a list of really good horses that hopefully will fall into our price range. I was surprised that hip #41, an Elusive Quality colt, was an RNA for $285,000 as I thought he was a star and had a lot of European appeal though we didnt vet him and there may be an issue there. #40, a Pulpit filly bought by Starlight Partners for $210,000 was a really nice filly. #59, a Dynaformer, was a nice horse though the $550,000 that he brought was full retail for him. We will have more thorough reports as the sale progresses and we look at more horses. If you have any questions on individual horses write them in the comments link.