The Keenland Sale

I have been watching the Keenland November Breeding Stock sale on the computer. This is a horse auction at which they sell primarily weanlings and in foal broodmares. The sale began 11/5 and still goes on a few more days, 5000 horses in all go through the ring. My head has been spinning at the money being spent at this sale this year. It seems that regardless of what they put in the ring somebody is going to bid 10,15,20,30 thousand and up on a lot of horses worth at the most $.50/lbs. Admittedly the quality of the sale is very high. It appears that sellers, blood stock agents, breeding farms are cashing in at this sale and putting a lot of their quality horses into the auction. I would say they timed well as the number of buyers with significant money seems endless, so far. I'm still trying to put together what i see at these sales with e.g. $200,000 being bid on a weanling of an unraced or light raced broodmare seemingly at the drop of a hat. It crosses my mind to question whether money is actually being spent, or whether certain consignors and breeding farms are simply exchanging stock to puff up the value of certain stallions and in hope of catching an occasional shill who actually does spend real money. Unknown. I've been watching and analyzing the sales "results". The question i pose is interesting and may remain speculation rather than an answerable question. Now, on to the important stuff:

Monday, 11/13/06 Rest day for all horses including Y
Tues., 11/14/06 (last day of warm weather for a while) Y again galloped riderless in the paddock in approximately 2 furlong bursts. I am protecting him less and less as he strengthens, and so i let the big boys drag him along. The difference between what he is doing as opposed to just playing in the pasture and taking off on his own basically is intensity and distance. The gallops are faster and longer than what he would do on his own. They are also repeated to the point where we now have enough volume (today about 10 min of fairly fast stuff), that there begins to be a training effect instead of only a strenghing effect. He's handling it all well, and the really good news is I'm not only detecting no breathing problems, but, this horse seems to have a very nice breathing mechanism. Given the problems thoroughbreds have in getting sufficient air, i've long maintained that the most important factor separating racing performance is breathing ability. Y seems to have that, which makes him trainable from a competitive standpoint.