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Record gross and median recorded and Australians active.

When the Kentucky Winter Mixed Sale concluded in Lexington on Wednesday, a record gross and median was recorded while the average was the highest in sale history in a non-dispersal year and the second highest overall. 

The Grade One placed Brilliant Cut (Speightstown) topped the final session when bought for US$750,000 by Katsumi Yoshida. First-time consignor Highgate Sales, agent, offered the four-year-old as a racing or broodmare prospect. Twice a winner and multiple graded stakes placed, Brilliant Cut has earned US$164,360 to date and she was campaigned through 2021 by owners Boom Racing, ERJ Racing, Dave Kenney and William Strauss and trained by Doug O'Neill.
Excluding dispersals, Brilliant Cut is the second most expensive filly or mare in sale history, second only to Better Begin, who sold in foal to Northern Dancer for US$900,000 at the 1984 Kentucky Winter Mixed sale. 
Australian-based buyers were active at this year's sale. Sheamus Mills Bloodstock bought winning and stakes placed four-year-old Road To Romance (Quality Road) for US$160,000. She was sold by Bluewater Sales as Lot 592 while Brett Howard's Randwick Bloodstock Agency bought one lot, Lakerball (Lakerville) for US$35,000. Sold as Lot 354 the six-year-old mare was a stakes winner at two. 

Watch Hip 354 LAKERBALL sell for $35,000 at Kentucky Winter Mixed, with 100% of proceeds benefiting Shepherd's House of Lexington, KY!

Many thanks to buyer Randwick Bloodstock Agency and consignor James B. Keogh (Grovendale), agt, for your generosity! pic.twitter.com/WJLHyEU5yd

— Fasig-Tipton (@FasigTiptonCo) February 9, 2022

"(There was) great activity on all types of horses and really all levels of horses," said Fasig-Tipton President Boyd Browning. "February has clearly established itself as a meaningful sale on the calendar that people can and should (point) horses to in the future. The ones that brought horses that were really of some quality were richly rewarded over the last two days." Over the two days, 431 horses changed hands for US$17,245,500, a record gross for the Kentucky Winter Mixed sale and a 37.9 per cent increase over last year's gross of US$12,506,700. The median was US$16,000, which tied 2014 for a sale record, and represented a 60 per cent increase over the US$10,000 median in 2021. The average was the second highest in sale history at US$40,013, up 36 per cent from US$29,428 last year. A total of 48 horses sold for US$100,000 or more, up from 23 sold at or beyond that price in 2021. The RNA rate was 11.5%, third lowest in sale history and the lowest since the record was set in 1992. Click here to view the full results.