653. Does Horse Racing Have a Future?

Once we started making this series about horses, this is the third and final episode in the series, people kept telling us that if we really wanted to understand the market for thoroughbred racehorses, which is the glitsiest of all the horse markets, that we needed to get to Keenland. Keeneland is an auction complex in Lexington, Kentucky. They hold six major sales a year. The big one is the two-week September yearling sale.

Unproven horses bursting with promise. A horse that someone comes to Keeneland to buy with the dream that their yearling will be the next Justify or the next American pharaoh, or, God willing, the next secretariat. Horse hope springs eternal. The yearling sale is the biggest sale like it in the world and the highest quality. A huge share of champions over the past few decades

Maybe 40% of the winners of the biggest US races were bought at Keeneland as yearlings. So this September we decided to go see for ourselves. Keeneland is a massive complex with one racetrack and one training track, a sales pavilion and 46 barns that each have 30 to 40 horse stalls. You travel around by golf cart, The grounds are extremely well manicured.

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