Playful Act sold for a record 10.5 million at the Keeneland breeding stock sale in Lexington on Monday.
The five-year-old broke the world record for a broodmare or broodmare prospect sold at public auction when Sheikh Mohammed’s bloodstock manager, John Ferguson, got the better of the Coolmore team after some spirited bidding.
Playful Act, winner of the 2004 Fillies’ Mile and runner-up in the Irish Oaks a year later, went through the ring as part of the dispersal of the Sangster family’s Swettenham operation.
“My father would have loved it, absolutely loved it; he would have been thrilled to bits,” said Robert Sangster’s son, Ben.
“He was a horse trader and in trading horses, he was always game. He would have thoroughly enjoyed that situation. That’s what’s the whole game is about,” he told
www.bloodhorse.com.
Magical Romanc e had previously held the record for a broodmare when selling for 4.6 million guineas at Tattersalls last November while Sheikh Mohammed also paid 9 million for Ashado during the 2005 Keeneland November sale.
