The best place is where you find the mare you want at an acceptable price. That could be anywhere, but beyond question you'll find the largest collection of desirable mares at the November sales in Kentucky. Attacking a sale catalog can be daunting, especially if it comes in multiple volumes like Keeneland's, but the numbers can be carved down to size by following the steps outlined below. Checking the conformation of large numbers of mares takes time and effort, and there's no point in going to all that trouble to look at mares you may not want anyway. So here are tests to apply to those catalog pages that will reduce the inspection list to manageable numbers.
Most people have an age requirement.
Mares bred too late in the year can also be crossed off at this point. Eliminate all mares who have four or more foals of racing age and haven't produced a black-type horse. With those four surgical strikes you've eliminated the majority of the mares in the catalog without having had to make a single decision. Step Five brings us to the question of the mare's race record. If she's not such a producer, you have to decide how important it is to you that she have been successful on the racetrack.