Broodmare Society Selection was the first horse to crack the seven-figure price barrier at the Keeneland November breeding stock sale, bringing $1.85 million early in the auction’s opening session Nov. 8 in Lexington. Aisling Duignan, the director of sales for Ireland-based Coolmore Stud’s American division, Ashford Stud, purchased the 9-year-old grade I-winning daughter of Coronado's Quest as agent. The immediate underbidder was Kentucky-based bloodstock agent Lincoln Collins.
Society Selection’s new owners are Coolmore managing partner John Magnier, Michael Tabor, and Derrick Smith, according to Duignan
“Obviously we liked her lot,” she said. “She had all the criteria really, didn’t she? She was a great race filly; she has a great pedigree.”
Duignan said Society Selection would go to Ashford near Versailles, Ky. and would be bred to farm stallion Giant's Causeway .
Produced from grade III winner Love That Jazz (by Dixieland Band) and in foal to Medaglia d'Oro , Society Selection captured five added-money events, including the 2003 Frizette Stakes (gr. I) and the 2004 Alabama (gr. I) and Test (gr. I) Stakes, and earned $1,984,200. Taylor Made Sales Agency, as agent for the phase two of the Irving Cowan dispersal, consigned the bay mare.
“For somebody trying to buy really quality blood, they made a good buy, but we were happy with the price,” said Taylor Made’s Duncan Taylor. “There haven’t been many mares that have won two grade Is three weeks apart, one going seven furlongs, which was the Test, and then the Alabama going a mile and a quarter. She was definitely something special.”
Society Selection has produced three live foals, including the winner Superior Selection (by Giant's Causeway ).