Keeneland, Investing in Racing's Future since 1936.
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KEENELAND.COM K SUMMER 2016 51 tial. Mr. Combs was not pleased and went to see Mr. Bassett. Again, I had the support, and Ted said, "Well, you better go see Rogers because that is what we are going to do." What were the steps toward creating the select sessions for the numerically huge September sale? RB: I realized that when people look at horses, they look at the sire power, the dam — her racing record and produce record. I had been mentally fguring the importance of those, but I realized I needed some help. So I asked Hank Zeitlen (The Jockey Club) and Bill Oppenheim (agent and commentator) to come in and help me. We devised a weighted point system so you could tell someone "this is how we rate your horses" in addition to the physical inspection team's evaluation. That's how we started splitting consignments in September. I wasn't saying the best horses were going to be sold in the frst few days, but I could say the most expensive horses would sell then. The buyers knew when to come for the level of horses they would be able to buy, and it didn't pe- nalize the consignor who still got to sell to the right people. The inspectors liked the September sale be- cause it gave them an- other 40 days to look at horses and a lot of year- lings improve later. Bill Greely asked, "By doing this, how long will we have the July sale (tradi- tionally the most spec- tacular sale)?" I said "10 or 12 years." I was kind of joking, but it turned out about right. It is COURTSEY OF KEENELAND KEENELAND/Z Colleagues honor Beasley on the last day of the 2016 spring race meet. Circa 1982, from left, William C. Greely, Beasley, James E. "Ted" Bassett, R. James Williams, and Stanley Jones easier to get a yearling ready in September than for July, and my consignors for July were major, but there were not very many of them. (An example was) Green Desert, a Danzig colt whom Lee Eaton held out of July and put in the September sale. Harley Clemmons bought him ($650,000) for one of the Maktoums. (Green Desert became a major winner and later an important sire.) Beginning in the late 1960s, the yearlings from E. P. Taylor's Windfelds Farm, and the Northern Dancers in particular, were internationally prominent and had led to an era of many of the most popular sires among European buyers standing in the United States. This led more and more international business to Keeneland. What were keys to that pattern? RB: Keeneland had made a concerted effort to get Mr. Taylor. They put him in the Monday night slot at frst in July, but later we realized we should merge and not have a consignor sell everything in one session. Warner Jones was not happy. He was used to selling on Tuesday, but when he saw all those Northern Dancers bought by buyers who then left after Monday, he came around. An- other change was going over to Virginia and knocking on doors. They had always been regarded as consignors for the Saratoga sale, but we went after them and we got some: Mark Hardin, Peggy Augustus, etc. How did the X-ray repository come about? RB: It came from some legal cases. I got very frustrated. We were winning the legal cases about the conditions of sale, but we weren't comfortable with the situation. By then we had a lot more people selling hors- es, and you didn't have as many people breeding to race. People had realized there was money to be made in the sales. It wasn't as much about racing. To some degree, you feel proud of what we did for the sales, but you feel a little remorse that so many peo- ple became more sales oriented than racing oriented.