Taking advantage of a potential increase in buying interest, and knowing what the market was missing from their own experiences and frustrations as buyers, 32 mares and fillies (all but one sent by Taylor Made Sales Agency) from the DJ Stable band headed to Keeneland. Fifteen of them – including Hip 551, the stakes-winning More Than Ready filly Ready to Jam, which DJ Stable owned in partnership with Gary Barber so the offer was not labeled as part of the reduction – crossed the line with a 100% clearance rate in the first two sessions, netting $5,755,000.
The offering was carefully selected to offer young quality mares to a market that was eager to purchase them.
“People who buy our horses have a good chance of making some money. We don’t sell culls,” Len Green said. “When Jon and I were sitting down to pick horses for this sale, we said, let’s not do what everyone else is doing. Let’s sell good, young mares. If you can be mated to a top stallion, and you have a black type, then that’s worth something.”
“As frustrated buyers, we realized that people at the top end of the market were not selling these assets,” said Jon Green. “We went in a different direction and said if there is an inventory shortage at that level, we need to participate by selling.”
The bestseller from the first half was included Sputnik the only offering sold Tuesday and shipped by Hill ‘n’ Dale in Xalapa. The winning 4-year-old daughter of Uncle Mo, identified as Hip 208, brought home $800,000 from the Raging Torrent Syndicate while in foal to the Hill ‘n’ Dale stallion Curl . The Greens originally purchased her for $400,000 at the 2022 Keeneland September Yearling Sale.
“We have shared that mare twice now with Curlin with John Sikura at Hill ‘n’ Dale, and both times the results have been excellent,” said Jon Green. “That’s another niche, another formula that seems to work in this industry. You get good, young fillies and breed them to the best stallions that people are looking for. Then the results are there. You have to have all the factors (pedigree, looks, getting pregnant at an early mating) in place for people to really stretch out and spend money.”
That philosophy also proved profitable with the four-year-old Gold Medal filly Golden Spirit which topped the Wednesday session for DJ Stable when he sold to Thirty Year Farm as Hip 413 for $750,000.
Golden Ghost, Hip 413, sells for $750,000 at the Keeneland November Sale
A daughter of the winner of group 1 Villa Marina the Greens went beyond their usual spending to $500,000 on her at the Keeneland sale in September 2022. Although she won just twice in twelve starts, she always showed promise and competed in a trio of graduated stakes. This year she was covered as a top stallion Not this time .
“If you take a filly that is well bred, and then breed her to a stallion that is actually commercially viable, one plus one equals ten,” said Jon Green. “She’s a great young family, she’s an attractive filly in foal to probably the strongest stallion in the country right now. All these factors made her a valuable asset where people were willing to spend three-quarters of a million dollars on her.”
Matt and Kristen Esler of Thirty Year Farm in New York were more than happy with their purchase and cited many of the same reasons Green gave. Additionally, Medaglia d’Oro’s recent retirement from the Darley stud made acquiring a young broodmare from him more valuable.
“She’s a young mare and we’re pretty optimistic about Not This Time. We’ve had some success with Medaglia in the past and we love him. (His retirement) certainly played a role,” Matt Esler said. “This year we’ve made a bit of a youth move. We’ve moved on from some older mares. The three we bought this year are all on the younger side.”
The Eslers recognized the controversial market in both Keeneland and Fasig-Tipton’s Nov. 3 The November Sale for younger broodmares, demonstrating the demand the Greens were trying to meet.
“We had a harder time buying this year than we have in recent years during this sell-off,” Esler said. “It’s a pretty strong sale.”
Len Green attributed that “surge” in buying to the tax changes.
“It looks like the economy is going up and interest rates are going down. There are a lot of factors at play,” he said. “You’re knowledgeable enough to know because you’ve bought and sold so many horses over the years. You can see the trends in the last few sales. Good horses were sold.’
(From left): Len and Jon Green
“I think people are definitely factoring the tax considerations into the overall formula,” Jon Green said. “Because they’re being accelerated, it gives people in that higher tax bracket so much reason to spend money. I’d like to say it was coincidental and we’re lucky, but credit to my dad for reading the tea leaves on what was going on with the ‘big fancy bill’ before it even passed. That’s why we put such a luxury group of horses in this sale.”
That early prediction allowed curated reduction planning to begin in 2024. In January 2025, the Greens sat down with Taylor Made president and CEO Mark Taylor and executive director of sales Jeff Hayslett to assess the group of mares and discuss how to make them most commercially viable in November.
“We actually changed a few matings, we changed a few decisions we made with some of their offspring,” Jon Green said. “That’s why all these little decisions add up to a 100% approval rate. This has all been preordained and planned for over a year. I’m very proud of everyone involved for making it happen, and we’re only half way there.”
Marketing was also a key to success. Rather than leaving buyers wondering why DJ Stable was selling so many broodmares – perhaps because they were mistaking it for a spread – the Greens made a formal announcement in August of their desire to take advantage of the current market and continued to promote their offering on various platforms, including on the October 6 episode of the BloodHorse Monday podcast, coming months.
“You want it to be advertised,” Len Green said. “If you have the best in the world and no one knows about it, then it’s worthless.”
“We knew from the beginning that we wanted to brand this in the sense that people knew about maroon and white; they know that’s quality,” said Jon Green. “They know that we don’t cheat people, they know that we have been in the business for forty years. Instead of hiding behind the name of an agent, we went for it. If it is a graduated DJ, people see the value in that.”
Taylor Made did its part in the marketing and kept the horses in a specific part of the stable. Still, they expanded the marketing further to the back walking ring. The horses’ handlers wore special jackets, the horses had special hip stickers and a caretaker who knew every detail of the DJ horses was appointed to answer questions in the back ring.
“(The DJ Stable) brand is very recognizable, and what we were able to do is merge that (with the Taylor Made brand) and bring the two together,” Hayslett said. “Anyone standing there waiting for one of their mares to come through all they had to do was look for the jacket or the sticker. Even up to that point, they could distinguish their product. … The reputation they have for standing behind their product is second to none.”
Yet all the marketing and anticipation of a strong market is worth nothing if there is no recognition of the true value of the horses on offer. A big part of the puzzle of 100% clearance rates was setting a decent reserve, which led to multiple meetings.
“Part of the formula is knowing what to sell for,” Len Green said. “You have to be realistic about it and then let the market tell you what it is. Don’t shut them out by having a high entry level where people say, ‘Let’s not go in.’ You have no luck with 15-for-15; It’s a team effort.”
With this initial success in their compound cut, and another 17 on the way during the November 8 session, other breeders may take notice and start offering some of their better and younger mares while the market remains hot. The Greens were among the early proponents of the digital market and their investments helped raise its profile in the sales sector. Now they could do the same here.
“One thing I’ve learned in my 40 years in this business is that it’s a copycat company,” Jon Green said. “As soon as people see a formula that works, they jump on it.”
And even as they are big sellers on the Keeneland stage in November, DJ Stable is also reinvesting in the market and continues to look for value to enhance their breeding and racing operations. After spending about $5 million on yearlings earlier this year, they signed the tickets for two weanlings (hips 278 and 443) and a broodmare (Humor me Dixie Hip 435). In total, they have spent $360,000 so far.
“We felt it was really important that people understood that this is a reduction and not a spread,” Jon Green said. “We bought two very nice young mares because we couldn’t afford to buy mares at this auction. We are value players, we rarely go into a sale and say we have to have that one horse. It’s more like we have a list of horses and if one of them falls within a value range we will go ahead and buy it.”
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