Getting a big boost from Sheikh Mohammed’s bloodstock manager John Ferguson, the Fasig-Tipton November Select Mixed Sale posted increases in its average and median prices Sunday, November 4 in Lexington. But with 63 fewer horses sold than a year ago, when the numbers in the catalog were pumped up by the ClassicStar dispersal, the gross revenue declined.

“They liked young, successful race mares, I can tell you that, and we had a lot of wonderful mares,” said Fasig-Tipton president Walt Robertson. “I think we had a comparable market to last year.”

The 107 horses sold grossed $52,036,000 and averaged $486,318. The median was $180,000. Compared to a year ago, the gross declined 19%, but the average and median grew 29% and 3%, respectively. The buy-back rate rose from 24% in 2006 to 26% this year. Twelve horses sold for $1 million or more apiece.

Ferguson spent $15,750,000 for one broodmare, GI winner Indy Five Hundred, who is in foal to Kingmambo, and three GI-winning broodmare prospects: Round Pond, Octave, and Asi Siempre.

Ferguson had to fight off the trio of Nick Zito, Leonard Riggio of My Meadowview Farm, and bloodstock agent Lincoln Collins to get Round Pond, whose $5.75 million price was the highest for a horse sold by Fasig-Tipton since GI winner Miss Oceana brought $7 million, as part of the Newstead Farm dispersal in 1985, while she was in foal to Northern Dancer.

Consigned by Taylor Made Sales Agency, acting on behalf of Rick Porter’s Fox Hill Farms, Round Pond scored in last year’s Breeders’ Cup Distaff and won four other added-money events, including the 2005 G1 Acorn Stakes. She is a 5-year-old daughter of Awesome Again x Gift of Dance, by Trempolino.

“Any mare that wins a Breeders’ Cup is very special, and a mare by a top stallion out of a half-sister to three Group (Grade) I winners is obviously a really top prospect,” Ferguson said. “It’s a lot of money to pay, but if you want to buy the best mares, you have to bid more than everybody else thinks they’re worth.”