The Gavel Passes at Keeneland After 52 Years on the Stand

When bidding opens on Keeneland's September Yearling Sale this Monday, the chant that has carried the ring for more than half a century will belong to someone else. Auctioneer Scott Caldwell has stepped down after 52 years at the stand, a tenure spanning generations of consignors, buyers and the young Thoroughbreds paraded before them. The September Sale remains the cornerstone gathering of the bloodstock calendar, where pedigree and price are set in the same breath, and this year it opens with an unfamiliar voice calling the bids. It is the kind of career, measured in decades rather than sales, that the sport rarely gets to mark with such a clean and honorable close.

With reporting from Thoroughbred Daily News.