Half Brother of Summer Squall Brings $2.9 Million

A half brother to 1990 Preakness Stakes winner Summer Squall brought a top price of $2.9 million at the Keeneland July Selected Yearling Sale.

The bay colt by Seattle Slew out of Weekend Surprise was purchased Tuesday by BBA (Ireland) for Tomonori Tsurumaki of Japan.

The colt, consigned by Lane’s End Farm near Versailles, will stay in America to race, said Noel O’Callaghan, a BBA director who signed for the colt.

“We’re going to have to sit down and talk about that,” O’Callaghan said.

Summer Squall, a son of Storm Bird, sold for $300,000 at the 1988 sale.

D. Wayne Lukas paid the second-highest price of the session, bidding $2.1 million for a chestnut filly by Secretariat out of Crimson Saint. The filly was consigned by Tom Gentry of Lexington.

During the session, Keeneland sold 121 horses for $47,895,000, an average of $395,826.

The two-day sale ended with an 11% decline in average from a year ago. Sales totaled $82,370,000 for 234 horses. The average was $352,009 compared to $395,374 last year when 257 horses brought $101,611,000.

Sheik Maktoum al Maktoum’s Gainsborough Stud was the sale’s leading buyer, paying $13,835,000 for 24 horses.