LEXINGTON, Ky. -- A $6.8 million Storm Cat half-brother to champion juvenile filly Storm Song shattered the Keeneland September yearling sale record at early selling Tuesday during the auction's second session.

	The Storm Cat colt, sold as hip 356, is out of the Fappiano mare Hum Along.

The flashy chestnut colt was the subject of a prolonged bidding war that included, at various points, D. Wayne Lukas for Satish and Anne Sanan's Padua Stables, David Shimmon, Coolmore Stud, and Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum.

Bidding progressed speedily, sometimes jumping by as much as $200,000, before settling down to trench warfare between the bloodstock market's two most powerful buyers, Demi O'Byrne for Coolmore Stud interests and John Ferguson, agent for Sheikh Mohammed. Ferguson, seated next to Sheikh Mohammed some 10 yards from the Coolmore team, finally shook his head on Coolmore's $6.8 bid, which blasted past last year's sale-record $3.9 million figure for a Kris S. colt.

The most interested party in the stunned pavilion crowd was Will Farish, whose Lane's End Farm in Versailles, Ky., consigned the record colt. Farish, perenially a leading seller at the prestigious Keeneland July auction, took a calculated risk earlier this year by deciding to hold all of his stock out of the summer event in favor of the September sale.

The Storm Cat colt, sold as hip 356 at about 11 a.m. Eastern time, is out of the Fappiano mare Hum Along, who also produced juvenile filly champion Storm Song (Summer Squall) and that filly's full sister, Hugsie, a winner and earner of more than $70,000.

Pulpit colt tops Monday's sale
Led by a $2.3 million colt by first-crop sire Pulpit, Monday's opening session at the Keeneland September yearling sale bounded forward from last year's opening results, gaining 32% on gross returns and 31% on average. The session auctioned 218 yearlings for gross receipts of $67,552,000 and an average price of $309,872, and median also rose 25% to $200,000.

The buyback rate dropped slightly from 30% last year to 29%.

The session-topper, who is out of champion juvenile filly and Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies winner Epitome, went to Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum from the consignment of Jonabell Farm, agent. The colt is a half-brother to stakes winner Danjur. He was one of three yearlings to sell for more than $2 million and one of eight to sell at or above $1 million. John Ferguson, agent, signed the ticket with Sheikh Mohammed sat to his left.

It took almost four hours for a yearling to break the million-dollar barrier, but once that happened, at 1:30 p.m. Eastern, a spate of seven-figure horses lit up the price board.

A pair of A. P. Indys led the way, starting with a $2.2 million son of champion Queena, who was still the session-leader at 5:30 p.m. and continuing with a sale-record filly price of $2.15 million for a daughter of the Carnivalay mare Radu Cool.

Frank Stronach, buyer of the A. P. Indy colt, appeared satisfied with his price, the fourth-largest ever for a colt sold at the Keeneland September auction but well below last year's sale-record $3.9 million. "I thought he would bring up to $3 million, so that was about what we expected," Stronach said with a shrug. "It wasn't cheap, but about what we thought. In the stallion business, you've got to reinvest and buy at the top. It's about the same as always, you have to pay for the ones with looks and bloodlines."

This one, sold by Helen Alexander's Middlebrook Farm, certainly had pedigree in spades, being by champion out of a champion. This colt is the sixth foal for Queena, whose best runner so far, from three to race, is the Group 3-placed Danzig colt Brahms.

"We've been lucky with him," Stronach said of the colt's sire, 1992 Horse of the Year A.P. Indy. "We got Golden Missile" - a Grade 1 winner and earner of more than $2 million - "by A.P. Indy. And this colt is bred like Pulpit, out of a Mr. Prospector mare."

The buyer of the record $2.15 million filly, which sold just five hips after the A.P. Indy colt, was less forthcoming. Fiona Craig, a longtime agent at Kentucky's sales, did the bidding for Radu Cool's first foal and signed the ticket on behalf of Walter Haefner's Irish-based Moyglare Stud. But she gave no comment on the purchase beyond identifying her client as Moyglare, a powerful homebreeding operation that races primarily in Europe and Ireland.

The filly, whose dam is a Grade 2 winner with earnings of more than $572,000, was one of the last of the yearlings to sell from the late Marshall Naify's 505 Farms, which has been dispersing stock throughout the summer at auctions in California, Washington, and now Kentucky. The Narvick International bloodstock agency acted as consignor for the Naify estate.

After those two, a handful of other outstanding pedigrees also yielded the expected seven-figure prices:

* Hip No. 188, Eaton Sales, agent's Storm Cat colt out of Grade 1 winner Toga Toga Toga (Saratoga Six) went for $1.8 million to Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum.

* Another Eaton consignee, Hip No. 195, a Storm Cat half-sister to champion Countess Diana, brought $1.75 million from Gerald J. Ford of Diamond A Racing. Hip No. 163, Dromoland Farm, agent's Deputy Minister filly out of the multiple graded stakes winner Statuette (Pancho Villa), went to Eugene Melnyk for $1.4 million.

* Hip No. 270, from Bluewater Sales, agent, a Dixieland Band colt out of the Afleet mare Call Me Fleet, cost Melnyk $1.15 million.

* Hip No. 168, a daughter of Gone West and champion Storm Song, fetched a $1 million bid from Alnoff Stable. Melnyk, for one, was pleasantly surprised to find the opening session, much vaunted for its high-quality pedigrees, less formidable in its early hours than pre-sale hype had suggested.

"I think it's frankly weak," he said of the early market. "We just bought a horse and paid $350,000, and we were prepared to go two or three times that. I think what's happening is that there's a little less money out there today."

"You have to set your reserve very accurately, because there aren't always enough underbidders on certain horses," said Tony Cissel, manager of Calumet Farm, which bought back four of its first six offerings, including one at $200,000 and another at $100,000. "The middle of the market constantly changes and can be difficult to ascertain."

Calumet, a substantial racing stable, is in a uniquely flexible position, as Cissel pointed out. "We try to get what we think is a fair price without gouging anyone, but if we don't, we can retain them for racing. It's harder for the purely commercial consignors."