A Second Chance at Fasig-Tipton October

Every September, several hundred yearlings walk back to the barn at Keeneland because the bidding stopped short of the reserve. Some of them turn up three weeks later in the Fasig-Tipton October catalog. This year 92 do, and they arrive with a median RNA of $185,000.

I have always thought of the October trip as a reasonable second chance. The horse gets another look from a different set of buyers, and the seller finds out whether September got him wrong. We went back through five years of results to see how often it worked.

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Most October Horses Sold, and Most Sold for Less

From 2021 through 2025, 2,899 yearlings left Keeneland September as final RNAs. Horses that later sold privately as Keeneland post-sales are outside the study, since they completed their sale in September. Of the 2,899, 341 were catalogued at Fasig-Tipton October the same fall. The other 2,558 took other routes, whether racing, other sales or private deals, and are outside this study, which follows the October route.

Sixty-five were withdrawn. Of the 276 that went through the October ring, 233 sold, in the ring or privately afterward, and 43 were bought back again. October buyers were willing to take these horses home. Last year the Keeneland RNAs cleared at 85.5 percent in the October ring, against 78.6 percent for yearlings never catalogued at Keeneland.

The harder part was getting back to the September number.

Of the 233 that sold, 160 brought less than their Keeneland RNA, 71 brought more and two brought the same. The median sale came to 76.5 percent of the September figure, $30,000 below it. A majority sold for less in every one of the five years.

Counted against every horse that made the trip, the record is thinner still. Of the 341 Keeneland RNAs catalogued at October, 71 sold for more than their September number, 20.8 percent.

Figure 1 · Where the 341 went

Most sold. One in five sold for more than their September RNA.

Show the data

Outcome at Fasig-Tipton October	Horses	Share of 341
Sold for more than the September RNA	71	20.8%
Sold for the same	2	0.6%
Sold for less	160	46.9%
Bought back again	43	12.6%
Withdrawn	65	19.1%
Catalogued	341	100.0%

A 2024 Quality Road colt out of Miss Sunset shows the pattern in one horse. He was bought as a weanling for $335,000 at Fasig-Tipton November 2023, RNA'd for $400,000 at Keeneland the following September and sold at Fasig-Tipton October for $300,000. The second sale came in $100,000 below the September RNA and $35,000 below his original purchase price.

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The September Number Is a Buy-Back Price

The published RNA is the final bid at which the horse was bought in. Because Keeneland's Conditions of Sale permit seller-side bidding up to an undisclosed reserve, that figure may reflect independent buyer bidding, seller bidding, or some combination of the two. The published result does not say which.

What this study measures, then, is whether the October market later produced a price above or below that September buy-back price. For the 233 horses that sold at October, 73 met or beat it.

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The Higher the September Number, the Less October Recovered

Recovery fell as the September number rose.

Forty-two of the 59 horses in the top band sold for less. Last year was the exception for that group, at a median 0.95 times its September number. Across the full five years it had the weakest recovery of the four bands.

Absolute price only tells part of the story. A $250,000 RNA can sit right at one sire's yearling market and far above another's.

So for each horse we compared the September RNA with the median for that sire's yearlings sold at the same Keeneland sale. We required at least 10 sold by the sire, which covers 231 of the 233 October sales.

Of the 29 horses bought back at twice their sire's median or more, five sold for more at October.

A sire median is a crude comparable. A great physical or a deep female family can justify a large premium over the typical yearling by the same stallion. When the September number already sat at twice the sire's market, October buyers rarely went beyond it.

The pattern held when we narrowed the comparison to the sire's median for the same sex.

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A Top Sire Helped a Little

I expected the most commercial stallions to offer more protection.

Among 66 October sales by sires ranked in the top 10 by gross at that year's Keeneland sale, 34.8 percent beat the September figure, with a median October price of 0.81 times the RNA amount. For every other sire, 28.7 percent improved and the median recovery was 0.75 times.

Forty-three of the 66 horses by top-10 sires still sold for less.

I expected sire stage to matter more too. First-crop, second-crop and established sires produced no consistent pattern across the five years, and the smaller groups moved around too much from year to year to read anything into yet.

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The Buyer Never Sees the Spreadsheet

Every seller knows exactly what a horse owes them. Stud fee or purchase price, board, vet work and prep add up to a number, and by September that number can start to feel like the horse's value. The Miss Sunset colt's owner had $335,000 in him before a dollar of keep.

The buyer never sees the spreadsheet.

Buyers price the sire, the page, the physical and what comparable horses brought that week. The owner's economics are real. The person bidding is working from a different set of numbers.

If the live bidding has already reached a defensible price against comparable yearlings, carrying the horse to October means asking another yearling market to make a different judgment a few weeks later. Five years of results say that can happen, and that it has been the minority outcome.

The five-year record gives a seller a base rate. The horseman still has to decide whether this particular horse has a good reason to beat it.

There are good reasons to make that bet. A meaningful pedigree update could be coming. The horse may have had a presentation problem at Keeneland that can be corrected quickly. A particular individual may fit the October buyer base better. Each gives the seller a specific reason to expect a different valuation, which cost basis alone never does.

For a seller who wants to move the horse for the best expected economic result, I would start the reserve discussion with the market that exists that week. What are comparable horses by the sire bringing? Where does this horse sit physically and on the page? How far has the live bidding already moved beyond the normal market for that sire?

A reserve should protect against a weak result. Once the reserve moves beyond where comparable horses are trading, the seller is making a bet on the next market.

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Where That Leaves This Year's 92

The 92 Keeneland RNAs in this year's October catalog carry $21.5 million in September RNA amounts, at a median of $185,000 against $125,000 for last year's group. All came from Keeneland's first three books.

All 92 were also entered for October before Keeneland September began. Fasig-Tipton's entry deadline was July 15 and its final deadline to withdraw from the catalog was September 4; Keeneland opened September 14. These sellers kept the October option open before they knew what Keeneland would say.

We ran the 92 through the same sire-market comparison used in the five-year study.

Figure 2 · Against the sire's market

The further the RNA sat above the sire's median, the less often October beat it. Eighteen of this year's 92 sit in the top band.

Show the data

RNA vs. sire's Keeneland median	October sales, 2021–2025	Sold for more	Median October price / RNA	2026 RNAs
Below 0.75x	78	35.9%	0.87x	30
0.75x to 1.25x	76	31.6%	0.75x	27
1.25x to 2.00x	48	29.2%	0.66x	17
2.00x or more	29	17.2%	0.71x	18
Total	231			92

The median horse in the group was bought back at 0.99 times its sire's Keeneland median. Most of this year's September numbers sat close to their sires' markets.

Thirty-five of the 92 were bought back at least 25 percent above their sire's median. Over the previous five Octobers, five of the 29 horses bought back at twice the median or more sold for more than their Keeneland RNA.

If the last five years are a guide, most of the horses that go through the October ring will sell. The harder question is how close buyers get to the September numbers.

That is what I will be watching when Fasig-Tipton October begins October 19.

Methodology. The population is final RNAs in the Keeneland September results for 2021 through 2025, 2,899 horses. Completed Keeneland post-sales are excluded because those horses sold through the September sale process. RNAs were matched to the Fasig-Tipton October results of the same year using pedigree, sex, foaling information and other available identifiers. Of 341 catalogued at October, 65 were withdrawn, 276 were offered and 233 sold in the ring or as reported post-sales; price comparisons use those 233. Each October sale is compared with the published Keeneland RNA amount, the final bid at which the horse was bought back, which under Keeneland's Conditions of Sale may include seller-side bidding up to an undisclosed reserve; Keeneland's own 2021 reoffer rules call that figure the initial hammer price. "Sold for more" means above the September RNA; "met or beat" means at or above it. Sire medians use completed sales, including identifiable post-sales, from the same Keeneland September sale by sires with at least 10 sold. This covers 231 of the 233 historical October sales and all 92 horses in the 2026 group. Top-10 sires are ranked by gross at that year's Keeneland sale. Entry and withdrawal dates are from Fasig-Tipton's 2026 Kentucky October Yearlings deadlines. The 2025 ring-clearance figures of 85.5 and 78.6 percent are sold in the ring divided by offered at Fasig-Tipton October 2025. All prices are gross, before commission and expenses.