Pedigree Query

when the Keenland auctioneers says:

"this one's worth more" is that code for "the bidding has yet to meet the reserve."

When the auctioneer closes the bidding by saying "in the back" signifying the direction of the winning bid, does "in the back" mean that the horse was bought back?

In my experience, in the back can refer to a bidder who is in the back ring.

Oftentimes, when they pause during the bidding phase to exhort people to pay attention to the family, catalog updates, etc. etc. - that is when the reserve has not been met but they are sitting on it. At this point, the bidding increment may be cut in half, so if it WAS $10K and goes to $5K it might mean that the next $5K gets the horse. Something that has ALWAYS annoyed me intensely is the flashing of the green "SOLD" light on an RNA. Keeneland is also VERY slow about posting the sales results through the day, and you can wait a couple of hours to see a refreshed list.

Lol! there is a lot about the auctions that irritates me. i am fairly easily irritated, however. i just saw a Street Sense Colt by a Black Tie Affair mare go through and get a $1000.00 bid. Another by SS out of a $200000 stakes winner--$5000.00. good grief!

I don't know about Street Sense (I saw him win the BC Juv and the Derby but never seen him stand still) but Street Cry is a big crooked horse. People say when the Street Cry's are good, they are very very good but when they are bad they're just awful.

It usually means it is worth more. Bill Tackett used it a lot and Spanky still does.

"In the back" only means, who ever is taking bids in the back - his bidder won. Usually when the bid is in the front, the auctioneer will say the ringman's first name instead of "in the back" to acknowledge it was his winning bidder. This saves confusion when two ringmen think they both have the bid. 9 times out of 10 the RNA's will be "in the back".

Sometimes the auctioneer will get caught running up the bid and then a big production is made between ring men claiming they caught a waver or saying "no I was a lesser bid" and then they start back where the actual bid was. There is a lot of alcohol and perks offered to the auctioneers and ringmen prior to a sale in return for harder work on some consigners horses. It works. Everyone knows the reserves - the difference is the auctioneers and ring men will work the crowd rather than rapidly running the bid to the reserve and stopping. It is hard to work the crowd in most of todays sales when there is no crowd out front - except for the select sessions.