A CURLIN full-brother to multiple Grade 1 winner Clairiere sold for $5 million to Mandy Pope’s Whisper Hill Farm to headline Tuesday’s tremendous day of trade at the Keeneland September Yearling Sale. The price is the highest paid for a colt since Meydan City sold for $11.7 million in 2006.

Sixteen yearlings brought seven-figure prices on Tuesday, the final session of the two-day Book 1 catalogue, driving healthy increases in gross, average and median. “The energy in the building today was from another era. It was incredible,” Keeneland vice president of sales, Irishman Tony Lacy, said. “We knew we had a really good crop of yearlings. As the new sales team came along, we were trying to solidify this format. It’s still hard to get buy-in. People want to see facts and figures.