LEXINGTON, Ky. – The Fasig-Tipton Kentucky fall selected mixed sale showcased the unpredictable dual nature of the mixed sales that make up this portion of the North American auction calendar, with active race fillies and mares among the highlight offerings. These runners may give themselves major catalog updates on the racetrack – but at the same time, based upon how those cataloged lots are performing, owners may elect to withdraw their horses from sale and continue racing. The Fasig-Tipton November sale got a major catalog update with a pair of Breeders’ Cup winners last Saturday, including Distaff heroine Blue Prize, who sold for $5 million to Larry Best to lead the single-session auction Tuesday night. However, several stars were withdrawn from auction to remain in training in 2020, including championship candidate Midnight Bisou. Likely partially as a result, the auction’s figures couldn’t keep pace with last year’s powerhouse renewal. Fasig-Tipton reported 128 horses sold for gross receipts of $68,011,000 at the November sale, compared to a record gross of $89,473,000 in 2018 from 140 horses sold. Tuesday night's average price checked in at $531,336, dropping 17 percent from $639,093 in 2018, which was the fourth-highest average price in this sale's history. The median dropped 8 percent to $300,000 from $327,500, which was the second-highest median ever. The buyback rate did improve slightly to 24 percent, compared to 27 percent. "There was tremendous competition across the board from buyers around the world that came to buy, and bid aggressively on lots of offerings,” Fasig-Tipton president Boyd Browning said. “The market's the same that we've seen in recent years. There's no dramatic change. Quality sells, quality sells, quality sells. Great competition on those horses that were standouts, either on the racetrack or in the production cycle." Browning acknowledged that the figures may have been impacted by withdrawals from the initial catalog, led by five-time Grade 1 winner Midnight Bisou, who had been expected to spark a multi-million dollar bidding war. Other notable withdrawals in recent days included Grade 1 winners Bellafina and Got Stormy, the runners-up in the Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Sprint and the Mile, respectively. "You're thrilled when you get some updates, like Blue Prize," Browning said. "And the nature of this sale is, you get some of those tremendous updates, and you have sometimes a loss [from the catalog]. That's the nature of this sale. We understand that when we put it together." With owners demanding respect for high-quality offerings, the session also included some high-ticket buybacks that impacted the final results, with graded stakes winner and promising young broodmare America failing to meet her reserve at $3.1 million, and Veracity and Sippican Harbor both also seven-figure buybacks. "This is a sale for queens," said Conrad Bandoroff of consignor Denali Stud. "What you have to remember is queens are usually owned by kings and queens. So unless they are going to bring a certain price or a certain level, they don’t have to sell. So I think, to some extent, this sale can be a bit of a seller’s market.” Blue Prize was the queen of the spotlight Tuesday evening. Best, a relatively new player in the bloodstock market who races as OXO Equine, has expressed the desire to build a broodmare band while purchasing fillies as weanlings and yearlings. He kick-started that portion of his operation by stretching to $5 million to acquire Blue Prize, who was consigned by Bluegrass Thoroughbred Services as agent for the Merriebelle Stable of John Moores and Charles Noell. Best said this purchase brings his broodmare band, boarded at Taylor Made Farm in Nicholasville, Ky., up to three mares. He will seek out opinions from bloodstock experts before booking a stallion for Blue Prize's first mating in 2020. Blue Prize was fresh off her victory in the Breeders' Cup Distaff on Saturday at Santa Anita, defeating heavily favored Midnight Bisou by 1 1/2 lengths. She traveled from California to Kentucky less than 24 hours later, and Best said she made a solid impression when he first saw her on the sale grounds Sunday after that grueling trip. "She had just shipped in, and she just looked so gorgeous," Best said. "Probably the most beautiful horse I've ever seen. Hopefully, I'll have success breeding her. I think it was a worthwhile risk – it's obviously more money than anyone would want to pay, but she is a Breeders' Cup champion, and if you look at her record, it's just stellar." Ignacio Correas, who saddled his first Breeders' Cup winner in Blue Prize, was on hand to see his stable star sell. "It's been a great ride," Correas said. "Sad to see her go, but they're going to take good care of her. It's the horse of a lifetime. I don't know if I'm going to have one like her again, but at least I was blessed to have one. And that, in a trainer's career, is a lot to say." Blue Prize, a 6-year-old Pure Prize mare who was bred by Bloart S.A., made the first four starts of her career in her native Argentina, with two victories, including the Group 1 Seleccion. That victory made her the country's outstanding 3-year-old filly of the season. She was subsequently privately purchased by Merriebelle, with Bluegrass Thoroughbred Services' John Stuart and Peter Bance brokering the deal. Ignacio Pavlovsky, president of her former owner Bullines S.A., reccomended Correas to take over as her trainer. Since making her first start in the United States in June 2017, Blue Prize won the Distaff; won consecutive editions of the Grade 1 Spinister Stakes at Keeneland, in 2018 and 2019; won the Grade 2 Falls City Handicap in 2017; captured the Grade 2 Fleur de Lis and Grade 3 Locust Grove, both in 2018; and picked up listed wins in the 2018 Top Flight and 2019 Summer Colony. Her eight career graded/group stakes placings included three at the Grade/Group 1 level. She concluded her career with a record of 23-10-8-2 and earnings of $2,692,253. "I was in awe of her," Best said. "When you look at her record, you have to be in awe." Best said that he does plan to race the offspring of Blue Prize, who is out of the Group 2-winning Not For Sale mare Blues For Sale, but that he also will sell her foals as business dictates. "At some point, every breeder will tell you you have to sell some," he said. "But down the road, I hope to home breed a lot of good runners. I will sell some along the way, just because it makes sense business-wise, but she's a special horse. I'm very happy." Blue Prize was the only horse to sell for a price beyond $3 million, a threshold seven horses reached at last year's Fasig-Tipton November sale. The second- and third-highest prices of the evening were fetched by Grade 1 winner Photo Call, sold for $2.7 million to Katsumi Yoshida, and Eclipse Award champion Shamrock Rose, with bloodstock agent Mike Shannon signing the ticket at $2.5 million. Photo Call, a daughter of international leading sire Galileo, was a two-time Grade 1 winner, taking the Rodeo Drive Stakes in California and the First Lady Stakes in Kentucky, defeating Tepin in the latter. She sold carrying her third foal, to the cover of Quality Road. “She was a special offering, we knew that going into it," said Banderoff of consignor Denali. "We thought that this was the range that she could fall in if everything aligned, and it did. We knew that the Galileo cross works really well in Japan, so we knew there was going to be high Japanese interest going into it – or we hoped. She’s gone to a great operation.” Photo Call is a half-sister to Group 2 winner Land Force and is from the immediate family of Irish 1000 Guineas winner Halfway to Heaven and Group 1 winners Magical and Rododendron. Shamrock Rose earned the Eclipse Award as the outstanding female sprinter of 2018 after capturing four consecutive stakes, capped by the Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Sprint. The 4-year-old daughter of First Dude was consigned by Bluewater Sales as a broodmare prospect for Manfred and Penny Conrad's Conrad Farms. The former owners seemed to provide evidence of Banderoff's opinion that this was a seller's market, noting that they had entertained thoughts of keeping the mare unless the bidding reached a fair price. "We thought she'd do well, but in the back of our mind, we also hoped maybe we'll take her home and breed her ourselves," Manfred Conrad said. "But this went great tonight. You hate to see her go, but you've got to turn them around a little bit." A total of 18 mares sold for seven figures on Tuesday night, compared to 22 at this sale last year Among those seven-figure lots was another newly-minted Breeders' Cup winner, as Turf Sprint heroine Belvoir Bay sold for $1.5 million. Shannon signed the ticket as agent. He declined to identify who he was representing and said that he also was seeking additional partners. “She’s the fastest mare in the world,” Shannon said. Belvoir Bay, a 6-year-old Equiano mare bred in Great Britan, was consigned by Bluewater Sales for owner Gary Barber. She concluded her career with a record of 28-12-6-2, including 10 stakes victories, and earnings of $1,699,787. This was the mare's second trip through the Fasig-Tipton November auction ring, as last year, Barber bought out co-owner Team Valor for $625,000. Belvoir Bay rewarded Barber and trainer Peter Miller with a 2019 season in which she won three stakes, highlighted by her 1 1/4-length victory in the Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint last Saturday, establishing a course record of 54.83 seconds for five furlongs on the Santa Anita turf. She also finished second to Blue Point, acknowledged as Europe's leading sprinter in the first half of the season, in the Group 1 Al Quoz Sprint in Dubai, with two-time Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint winner and Eclipse Award champion Stormy Liberal in third. Belvoir Bay's success was improbable, as in December 2017 she was one of several horses initially unaccounted for following a California wildfire that consumed a portion of the San Luis Rey training center, where she was stabled. She spent several weeks at a clinic recovering. “She really and truly ran for her life,” Meg Levy of Bluewater Sales said. “I just can’t even imagine. We were talking about those dots on her coat, whether they were from the fire, because she was obviously turned loose in the middle of the cinders. Watching her deal with all this, running in that race, flying right here, coming into the barn, she has never batted a hair.” The most expensive weanling of the selected offerings was a filly from the first crop of 2017 Horse of the Year Gun Runner, purchased for $750,000 by bloodstock agent Mike Ryan. "She was outstanding," Ryan said. "It's the first time seeing these Gun Runners – I've seen several here, and at Keeneland, as well. They're nice. He was a hell of a racehorse." The filly, who was consigned by Taylor Made Sales Agency, as agent, is out of the A.P. Indy mare Love and Pride, who was a Grade 1 winner on both coasts, taking the Personal Ensign at Saratoga and the Zenyatta at Santa Anita. She is the dam of three winners from as many starters. Love and Pride's granddam is multiple Grade 1 winner and Broodmare of the Year Cara Rafaela, the dam of champion and classic winner Bernardini. The second highest-priced weanling of the evening was a $700,000 Uncle Mo filly purchased by Best, also with the stated intention of eventually joining his broodmare band. The filly, consigned by Lane's End, as agent, is out of the multiple graded stakes-winning Harlan's Holiday mare Summer Applause. For hip-by-hip results, click here.