Riding the momentum of the spring meet, Keeneland's April Selected Horses of Racing Age Sale brings together top industry professionals on the final day of the meet, April 24. The auction bridges the excitement from the racetrack to the sales ring, serving as the ultimate venue for purchasing ready-to-run horses.
Keeneland will showcase some of its top performers from the meet Friday evening, including Lexington Stakes (G3) winner Trendsetter. The 3-year-old son of Modernist upset the field to win by a dominating 2 1/4 lengths for trainer Ben Colebrook.
The colt, who is owned by Davant Latham's Midway Racing, has hit the board in five of his eight career starts, racking up earnings of $421,962.
"Trendsetter is exactly the kind of horse the April Sale was designed for," Tony Lacy, Keeneland vice president of sales, said earlier this week. "It's a timely marketplace where a horse can move straight from a performance like his in the Stonestreet Lexington into a live auction environment, putting him in front of the sport's top domestic and international buyers."
Another top offering in the catalog is Queen Azteca, consigned as Hip 34 by RB Bloodstock, agent for Queen Azteca LLC. The 4-year-old filly by Sharp Azteca showed that she is in top form, winning an allowance optional claiming race and recording a career-high 86 Beyer Speed Figure April 17 at Keeneland.
At 3, Queen Azteca won the Cocoa Beach Stakes by 8 lengths at Meydan, before taking the UAE Oaks (G3), where she won by three-quarters of a length. Since coming to the United States, she has twice been stakes-placed for trainer Rodolphe Brisset.
"It's pretty rare in the market to find a mare at that level," Brisset said. "She's a group 3 winner, just won at Keeneland, and plenty of racing left in her this year. She is a gorgeous physical."
Brissett said she came out of the winter very well and has flourished this spring.
Beyond her talent as a racehorse, the filly boasts strong residual broodmare value.
Queen Azteca was bred in Kentucky by Three Chimneys Farm, and is out of the stakes mare Princesa Helena, who is a half sister to multiple graded stakes winner Teresa Z. She is from a deep Phipps family that includes multiple grade 1-winner and Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies (G1) winner My Flag, who is the dam of Storm Flag Flying.
"I think the most appealing thing to me is her pedigree," Brisset said. "When you look at all of that, the racing is kind of the cherry on top."
Brisset said if the filly was to stay in training with him after the sale, the goal for Queen Azteca would be to win a graded stakes in America.
"This sale and this mare really fit together at the right time," he said.
"As a trainer and as a bloodstock agent, I always thought it was a brilliant sale. Just the fact that you're a week out from the (Kentucky) Derby, you get a lot of International clients on the grounds, and you are able to show the horses. We always look forward to trying to buy one or sell one, and maybe one day, somebody will be gutsy enough to sell a piece of a Derby horse."
Despite a slightly smaller catalog, Keeneland's senior director of sales operations Cormac Breathnach emphasized that the quality remains exceptionally high.
"There's somewhat of a reluctance for people to sell in the current market, purses are good, and racing is attractive," Breathnach said. "Overall, we're very happy with the quality of the catalog and the response from buyers."
Amid the lingering buzz of the spring meet and with the Kentucky Derby (G1) in sight, this sale offers the ideal place for industry leaders to gather.
"This meet has been fantastic," Breathnach said. "Linking the pavilion to the racetrack, the way that the new construction has, everyone is going to file past the sales pavilion doors and see the activity. I'm really excited about bringing racing and sales together on the same day and showing some of our fans and customers how big the industry is."
Among the other top prospects are Dare to Fly (Hip 5), a stakes-placed daughter of Daredevil who has won back-to-back allowance races at Oaklawn Park, recent Keeneland starter allowance winner General Graham (Hip 14), graded stakes-placed Megalodon (Hip 18), Sweet Scorecard (Hip 29), a filly by Vekoma who won a starter allowance April 9 at Keeneland, and the recently-supplemented Radar Lock (Hip 39), who ran second in a maiden special weight to the highly-regarded Final Story.
"There is a lot of variety in the catalog in terms of ages, surface preference, sprinters, milers, etc.," Breathnach said. "It's not a big catalog, but there's really good variety and depth in it."
Last year's sale saw 47 horses change hands for gross receipts of $4,329,000, including private sales. The average price was $92,107, with a median of $65,000. Just three horses failed to meet their reserve, resulting in an RNA rate of 6%.
The 2025 sales topper was Normandy Coast, who sold for $355,000 to Steven Judy from the Kenneally Racing consignment.
ELiTE Sales sold 25 from their draft for a clearance rate of 100% and receipts of $2.3 million, to be the sale's leading consignor by gross. After outs, ELiTE has three horses on offer at this year's sale.
A total of 38 horses have been cataloged for the sale, which begins at 6:30 p.m. ET., following Keeneland's last race. As of April 23, Keeneland had reported 13 outs.
