The father-son team of Len and Jon Green saw a business opportunity to offer a curated reduction of their broodmare band approaching on the horizon with the One Big Beautiful Bill Act implementing a permanent 100% bonus depreciation, allowing buyers to write off 100% of a racehorse purchase in the first year of ownership. Through the first two sessions of the Keeneland November Breeding Stock Sale Nov. 4-5, they appear to have made the correct gamble.
Taking advantage of a potential increase in buying interest, as well as knowing what the market lacked from their own experiences and frustrations as buyers, 32 mares and fillies—all but one consigned by Taylor Made Sales Agency—from the D. J. Stable band made their way to Keeneland. Fifteen of them—including Hip 551, the stakes-winning More Than Ready filly Ready to Jam, who D. J. Stable owned in partnership with Gary Barber so the offering was not labeled as part of the reduction—passed through the ring in the first two sessions to a 100% clearance rate and netting $5,755,000.
The offerings were carefully selected to provide young, quality mares to a market eager to buy them.
"People who are buying our horses have a good chance to make some money. We're not selling culls," Len Green said. "When Jon and I were sitting down and picking out horses for this sale, we said let's not do what everyone else does. Let's sell good, young mares. If you can get mated with a top stallion, and you have black type, that's worth something."
"We recognized, because we were frustrated buyers, that at the top end of the market, people weren't selling those assets," Jon Green said. "We went in a different direction and said if there's a void of inventory at that level, then we should participate in it by selling."
The top seller from the first half came with Sputnik, the lone offering to be sold Tuesday and be consigned by Hill 'n' Dale at Xalapa. Consigned as Hip 208, the winning 4-year-old daughter of Uncle Mo brought $800,000 from the Raging Torrent Syndicate while in foal to Hill 'n' Dale stallion Curlin . The Greens originally purchased her for $400,000 at the 2022 Keeneland September Yearling Sale.
"We've done that mare share to Curlin with John Sikura at Hill 'n' Dale twice now, and both times the results have been outstanding," Jon Green said. "That's another niche, another formula that seems to work in this business. You get good, young fillies and breed them to the top stallions people are looking for the progeny of. Then, the results are there. You have to have all the factors—pedigree, looks, get pregnant on an early cover—for people to really stretch and spend."
That philosophy also proved profitable with the 4-year-old Medaglia d'Oro filly Golden Ghost, who topped the Wednesday session for D. J. Stable when selling for $750,000 to Thirty Year Farm as Hip 413.
A daughter of group 1 winner Villa Marina, the Greens stretched beyond their usual spending to $500,000 on her at the 2022 Keeneland September sale. Although she only won twice in 12 starts, she always showed promise and participated in a trio of graded stakes. This year, she was bred to top stallion Not This Time .
"When you take a filly that's well bred, and then you breed her to a stallion that is really commercially viable, it makes one plus one equal 10," Jon Green said. "It's a great young family, she's an attractive filly in foal to probably the strongest stallion, arguably, in the country right now. All those 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 New York's Thirty Year Farm were more than happy with their purchase, citing many of the same reasons Green gave. Additionally, the recent retirement of Medaglia d'Oro from the Darley stud ranks made acquiring a young broodmare of his more valuable.
"She's a young mare, and we're pretty bullish on Not This Time. We've had some success with Medaglia in the past and we love him. (His retirement) definitely came into play," Matt Esler said. "This year, we made a bit of a youth movement. We've gone away from some of the older mares. The three we bought this year are all on the younger side."
The Eslers recognized the contentious market at both Keeneland and the Nov. 3 Fasig-Tipton's The November Sale for younger broodmares, showing the demand that the Greens were attempting to fill.
"We had a harder time buying this year than we have the last few years out of this sale," Esler said. "It's a pretty strong sale."
Len Green credited that "surge" in buying to the tax changes.
"The economy looks like its going up, the interest rates are coming down. A lot of things are playing into this," he said. "You're knowledgeable enough to know because you bought and sold so many horses over the years. You see the trends in the last couple of sales. Good horses were selling."
"I think that people are definitely taking the tax considerations into the overall formula," Jon Green said. "Because they're accelerated, it gives people in that upper tax bracket that much reason to spend. I'd like to say it was fortuitous and we're lucky, but to dad's credit, he read the tea leaves on what was going on with the 'big beautiful bill' before it was even passed. That's why we've put such a high-end group of horses in this sale."
That early prediction allowed the planning of the curated reduction to begin in 2024. In January of 2025, the Greens sat down with Taylor Made president and CEO Mark Taylor and executive director of sales Jeff Hayslett to review the group of mares and discuss how to make them the most commercially viable come November.
"We actually changed around a couple of matings, we changed around a couple decisions that we made with some of their progeny," Jon Green said. "That's why all these little decisions add up to having a 100% clearance rate. This has all been preordained and planned for over a year. I'm very proud of everyone involved that it came to fruition, and we're only halfway done."
Marketing was also a key to success. Rather than let buyers question why D. J. Stable was selling so many broodmares—perhaps mistaking it for a dispersal—the Greens made a formal announcement of their desire to take advantage of the current market in August and continued to promote their offerings on a variety of platforms, including on the Oct. 6 episode of the BloodHorse Monday podcast, over the next few months.
"You want it to be promoted," Len Green said. "If you have the best thing in the world and nobody knows about it, it's worthless."
"We knew from the get-go that we wanted to brand this in the sense that people knew about the maroon and white; they know that's quality," Jon Green said. "They know we don't cheat people, they know we've been in the business for 40 years. Instead of hiding behind an agent name, we got out in front of it. If it's a D. J. graduate, people see value in that."
Taylor Made did their part in the marketing, keeping the horses in a specific section of the barn. Yet, they stretched the marketing further into the back walking ring. The handlers of the horses wore special jackets, the horses had special hip stickers, and a concierge was appointed to know every detail of the D. J. horses to answer questions in the back ring.
"(The D. J. Stable) brand is very recognizable, and what we were able to do is blend that in (with the Taylor Made brand) and put the two together," Hayslett said. "Anybody who was standing back there and was waiting for one of their mares to come through, all they had to do was look for the jacket or sticker. They were able to differentiate their product even down to that point. ... 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 worth of the horses being offered. A huge piece of the 100% clearance rate puzzle was setting a proper 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 that people say, 'Let's not go in.' You don't get lucky going 15-for-15; it's a team effort."
With this initial success in their curated reduction, and another 17 on the way during the Nov. 8 session, other breeders may take notice and begin offering some of their better and younger mares while the market remains hot. The Greens were one of the early believers in the digital market and helped raise its prominence in the sales industry with their investment. Now, they could do the same thing here.
"One thing that I've learned about this industry in doing it for 40 years is that it is a copycat business," Jon Green said. "Once people see a formula that works, they jump on it immediately."
And even with them being big sellers on the Keeneland November stage, D. J. Stable is also reinvesting in the market, continuing to look for value to improve their breeding and racing operation. Having spent around $5 million on yearlings earlier in the year, they have signed the tickets of two weanlings (hips 278 and 443) and a broodmare (Humor Me Dixie, Hip 435). In total, they have spent $360,000 so far.
"We thought it was very important for people to understand that this is a reduction, not a dispersal," Jon Green said. "We bought two really nice weanlings because we couldn't afford to buy any mares at this sale. We're 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 any of them fall within a value range, we'll go ahead and buy it."
