Alicia Wincze Hughes on horse racing

Unrivaled Belle, winner of the 2010 Breeders’ Cup Ladies’ Classic, became the first horse to reach the seven-figure mark during the second session of Keeneland’s November breeding stock sale when she sold to Betty Moran’s Brushwood Stable for $2.8 million on Tuesday.

Moran was bidding by phone via Keeneland auctioneer Justin Holmberg and prevailed in a spirited bidding war that opened at $100,000. In addition to her Breeders’ Cup triumph, where she bested eventual champion Blind Luck and future Grade I winner Havre de Grace, Unrivaled Belle defeated 2009 Horse of the Year Rachel Alexandra in the Grade II La Troienne Stakes by a head in April 2010.

“You never know when they get over a million what they’ll bring but we thought she’d bring $2 million to $3 million at the end of the day,” said Reiley McDonald of Eaton Sales, who consigned the beautiful gray daughter of Unbridled’s Song. “She really was as pretty a mare as I saw in the whole sale. She won the Breeders’ Cup and she beat some of the best fillies in the country last year. She’s exquisite looking. She’s absolutely beautiful. There were a lot of people in on her and I’m thrilled for Ms. Moran that she bought her.”

Unrivaled Belle is out of the graded stakes winning mare Queenie Belle and is expected to remain in Kentucky to be bred. The 5-year-old mare became fractious during the bidding and was taken out of the ring when the figure hit the $1.1 million mark, but McDonald thought that was due in part to her not having her racing blood quite out of her system yet.

“She was a lamb at the barn and every time she heard a loud speaker, I think she thought she was going back to the races,” he said.  “That’s exactly what happened up here and that’s what I was worried about. She looks good and she’s still fit so she was just listening to the noise and it shook her up.”