Regally bred Juddmonte filly tops inaugural Keeneland online sale at $327,000

Trapezium, a three-year-old Hard Spun filly from the female family of champion Empire Maker was purchased by St Elias Stables for $327,000 (£261,470/€289,395) to top Keeneland's June Online Select Horses of Racing Age Sale, the first online sale conducted by the sale company's Digital Sales Ring platform.

A homebred for consignor Juddmonte Farms, the sale-topping filly (lot 26) had been placed second in two career starts for trainer Bill Mott prior to her sale Tuesday.

Produced from the unraced A.P. Indy mare Mesmeric, Trapezium is a half-sister to Honorable Duty, the Grade 2 New Orleans Handicap winner whose multiple Graded placings include two runner-up finishes in the Grade 1 Stephen Foster Handicap.

The filly's second dam is Toussaud, a Grade 1 winner who was Broodmare of the Year in 2002 and the dam of Belmont Stakes winner and prominent sire Empire Maker, the champion three-year-old colt of 2003, and Grade 1 winner and sire Chester House.

Toussaud also produced Grade 1 winners Honest Lady and Chiselling, and the Grade 2 winner and Grade 1-placed Decarchy. Honest Lady has also been a prolific producer and is the dam of Grade 1 winner First Defence and three additional stakes winners.

"She jumped out at us because of her pedigree," said John Sparkman, pedigree consultant for St Elias Stables. "Most of the Juddmonte horses are grass-oriented. This family is mostly dirt-oriented, with Empire Maker and Honest Lady, and that is primarily what we are looking for. Tom Evans of Trackside Farm was able to go by and look at her for us and he liked her. So that sealed the deal."

Of the 38 lots entered in the virtual sale, Keeneland reported 12 horses were sold for gross receipts of $829,500 for an average price of $69,125 and a median of $32,750. The 19 that went unsold represented 61.3 per cent of the 31 offered. Seven were withdrawn.

"It was a pretty good start," said Bob Elliston, Keeneland's vice president of racing and sales. "To bring a new product to the North American market we had some tremendous quality. To see a Juddmonte filly out of a beautiful family sold to St Elias demonstrates how we envision the kind of folks coming to our marketplace that epitomize racing and sales in the US"

Bidding began at 9 am ET and began closing at various intervals starting at 2 pm

Elliston said there were more than 404 total bids placed during the sale, with almost 2,800 visitors to the sale site during the peak closing bid period between 2:30-3:00. There were 100 buyers who registered and obtained credit to participate in the sale. He said the steep RNA rate could be attributable to a decision by Keeneland not to charge a commission on buy-backs.

Among the horses that went unsold was Tempers Rising, a three-year-old filly by Bayern who finished second in the March 21 TwinSpires.com Fair Grounds Oaks at Fair Grounds Race Course and Slots and ranked 12th with 47 qualifying points toward the Grade 1 Longines Kentucky Oaks. Seventh in a subsequent allowance race at Churchill Downs on May 29, the filly was bought back by owner Mark Stanley on a final bid of $150,000.

Also, with many of the sales horses stabled at racetracks, Elliston said he received reports of some potential buyers or their agents being unable to get access to inspect the horses.

Elliston praised the technology used for the sale that was developed by Horseco and said the process went relatively smoothly. He said Keeneland officials had received some feedback from buyers on small areas that could be tweaked to improve the buying process.

Juddmonte general manager Garrett O'Rourke said the sale topper was typical of the Toussaud line that had been among the best mares for the farm and that the filly closely resembled her second dam.

"Definitely this has been one of our absolute best families and the Toussaud line was very special to Prince Khalid and extremely lucrative," O'Rourke said. "I thought Trapezium resembled Toussaud in a lot of ways, with the same markings and rear end. For Vinnie's sake I hope she is at least somewhat as productive as Toussaud. She was one of the greatest broodmares in modern times."

O'Rourke said Trapezium was sold as part of a culling process at Juddmonte.

"We have a reduced broodmare band and are culling more aggressively now," he said. "It means sometimes you sell something you would have preferred to have kept in the past. It is bittersweet but you have to stay disciplined and she didn't hit the criteria of what we had to keep. We may be wrong and if we are wrong that will be to the new owner's benefit."

With all five Juddmonte horses offered in the digital sale finding new homes, O'Rourke said most sold at their expected levels.

"All the others sold up to expectations and we put them in the sale without reserve," he said. "Some were a little bit slower getting going but it being the first sale maybe it took some people a while to adapt to the whole bidding process. Ultimately, they all made what I felt like was their value, maybe some a little below their value but close enough. I think they found good new homes."

Eloquent Speaker, a New York-bred three-year-old filly by Flatter who won her June 12 maiden at Belmont Park, brought the day's second-highest price when purchased by Anthony Mitola from Niall Brennan Stables for $200,000.

Bred by Fred W Hertrich III and John D Fielding, the filly is out of the unraced Broken Vow mare Spoken Not Broken, a half-sister to stakes winners Stormy Novel and Bridgehampton.

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