By Jessica Martini
Keeneland will host its first-ever online auction when its digital sales ring opens for bidding at 9 a.m. Tuesday. The initial June Select Horses of Racing Age Sale features an offering of 31 horses and, while bidding begins on all lots at 9 a.m., closing on each lot is staggered. Bidding on Juddmonte Farms' Breithorn (Into Mischief) (hip 1) will close at approximately 2 p.m. and bidding on Summer Love (Summer Front) (hip 37), a recent maiden winner and half to stakes winner Mihos (Cairo Prince) consigned by Niall Brennan, will close at approximately 3 p.m.
Hidden Brook will consign eight horses of racing age to the online auction on behalf of D J Stable and partners.
“Horses in training or of racing age is the first step in trying this out as people don't actually see the horses,” said Hidden Brook's Dan Hall. “This is the first level of it and we are going to give it a try and see how it goes.”
Each catalogue page includes a location where the horse can be inspected. The Hidden Brook offerings have been available for inspection at Hidden Brook's Florida farm for the last 10 days.
“There hasn't been a lot of action that way,” Hall said of inspections. “But with racehorses, people are primarily shopping based on the PPs and they can see what the purchase price was as yearlings and as 2-year-olds and in the vetting. Bidding online is just an advanced level of claiming, so to speak, because you have the vetting in front of you as well.”
With the many disruptions to the sales season brought on this year by the coronavirus pandemic, Keeneland moved up the launch of its online auction platform to accommodate people impacted by travel restrictions. The new format provides another outlet for sellers in uncertain times, according to Hall.
“I would still prefer seeing them on the sales grounds,” Hall said. “It is the best possible way to sell a horse, but given what we've been dealt this year, this is another avenue to try and see how successful we can be at it.”
Among horses up for sale Tuesday is Tempers Rising (Bayern) (hip 25), runner-up in the Mar. 21 GII TwinSpires.com Fair Grounds Oaks. Also in the catalogue is Juddmonte homebred 3-year-old Juror (Tapit) (hip 8), runner-up in his June 1 debut at Tampa Bay Downs; 2-year-old filly Queen Arella (Speightster) (hip 17), a first-out winner at Gulfstream Park May 29; and Wondrwherecraigis (Munnings) (hip 30), a two-for-two sophomore gelding.
Buyers have two options for bidding Tuesday, either direct bidding manually throughout the sale or by establishing a maximum bid with the software automatically bidding on the buyer's behalf up to the top price.
Late Monday, Del Mar announced they would offer a $2,000 bonus to horses who sell in the Keeneland Digital Sales Ring Tuesday who go on to run during the Del Mar summer meet.
Visit keenelanddigital.com for more information.
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