While the overall attitude of the Thoroughbred marketplace appeared to take a bit of an upturn in the days leading up to the Keeneland January horses-of-all-ages sale, Monday's opening session remained firmly stuck in the doldrums.
The first major Thoroughbred auction of 2010 looked much like many of the sales that preceded it the past 15 months as overall numbers suffered steep double-digit declines in a climate still ripe with reluctancy.
Traditionally, the January auction has been viewed as an extension of Keeneland's November sale, and when that exercise performed better than some expected there was hope the market was finally bottoming out.
The spotty quality of January's opening session was exposed, however, as the gross of $6,592,600 from 178 sold declined by 44.81 percent compared to the corresponding session in 2009. The average ($37,037) and median ($20,000) also took hits falling off by 37.37 percent and 25.93 percent.
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