Reasons to be cheerful and fearful as Inglis Classic nears

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Expectations are somewhat mixed, but vendors are largely bracing for a soft Inglis Classic Yearling Sale resembling pre-Covid levels at Riverside from Sunday, while hoping the prospect of bargains will at least ensure a large turnout of buyers.

As economic tough times continue, fears have festered among breeders about the traditionally inexpensive Classic following the Magic Millions Gold Coast – where buyers were down in number and the $100,000 to $250,000 end was difficult – and the Karaka sale, where the average, median and aggregate were slightly lower than 2024.

Those fears remained among a cross-section of vendors polled on Wednesday after the first couple of substantive days of inspections, with most expecting a return to pre-Covid levels for the sale, which as of Wednesday night stood at 730 lots, following 76 withdrawals.

“There’s always good horses come out of Classic, and I’m sure when people look back on this one, it’ll be sale where a lot of nice horses came out of it at great value,” said Antony Thompson, whose Widden Stud has the largest draft, with 42 lots.

“Definitely, it’ll be a buyers’ market, and there’ll be plenty of value for money.

“I’d say the trend [of this year] will continue, and we’ll probably see a small decline in the market.

“It’s been reasonably positive in that the buyers we have seen here so far have said the horses they’ve bought this year have sold pretty well, and they’ve got an appetite to buy more. But having said that, I don’t know whether too many of them will be buying more horses than last year.”

Steve Morley, of Queensland’s Glenlogan Park, said economic circumstances would likely dictate a plain and uncomfortable reality for Classic’s outcome.

“The reality is, it can’t build in this economy,” Morley said.

“I would expect to see a lower average and a lower median based on the way the economy is, and the feel we got at Magic Millions.

“The parameters for this sale will stay the same throughout the sale season, in that buyers are going to be quite selective with what they can bid on, because of the state of the economy.

“I expect it to be a sale where if it achieved similar averages and medians to last year, then that would be a result everybody would be exceptionally pleased with. But I feel that will be difficult to achieve.

“But this sale always produces good horses, so there will be really good opportunities for buyers. With the economy the way it is, good horses are going to slip through the cracks.”

Vendors emerged from the Gold Coast having seen large numbers of horses passed in, with a combined clearance rate for both books of 80 per cent, down from 92 per cent in the Covid boom’s peak of 2022.

Accommodation bookings connected to the sale were down five per cent on last year. Larger than usual numbers of horses attracted only one bidder, with many deals having to be completed post-auction. Sellers appeared to relent on their reserves as the sale wore on and reality set in.

Tipping vendors at Classic would “have to work really hard with the buying bench to get the results we all want”, Morley said, revealing he had posted x-rays and scoping reports on each of his 11 lots’ boxes, to save potential buyers the expense of ordering those themselves.

“It still might make zero difference, and we’re not reinventing the wheel there – a lot of vendors are doing similar – but we have to work out how to get more information to buyers in this type of economic climate,” Morley, who met Inglis representatives to discuss such matters on Wednesday, added.

Yarraman Park’s Harry Mitchell was among those more upbeat about Classic.

“So far the market seems ok,” he said. “There seems to be the same amount of traffic on the ground. The bottom will probably get harder, that’s a theme we’re all seeing, but nice horses will still sell well.

“I’m happy enough with how things are looking. I think the clearance rate will be down a fraction, and the average will be down a little, but not a lot.

“I don’t think it’s doom and gloom. Trainers need horses. A lot of trainers didn’t buy at the Gold Coast, but people have got to have horses to train. It’ll be fine.”

Mitchell, whose stud offers 13 lots, said this would be “more like a pre-Covid Classic”, and that post-auction deals would perhaps be required more than last year.

“There’ll be a bit of that going on, and some horses will have to be kept,” he said. “But I’d say the clearance rate will be slightly lower than Magics but that they’ll get deals done after. The sales companies are pretty pro-active on that.

“It’ll be a buyers’ market. Horses who might have made $120,000 during Covid will probably now make $90,000. We had a golden period through Covid; we were very lucky. There was a lot of disposal money and people had nowhere to spend it.

“Now interest rates have gone up and it’s a bit difficult. In saying that, the stock market is up, so it’s not all doom and gloom, but a lot of people have had to tighten their belt a bit.”

Similarly, Twin Hills Stud’s Olly Tait was not concerned by what the soft lower end at the Gold Coast could mean for Classic.

“I’d argue there’s never been a horse sale ever conducted where people say it’s been strong at the bottom of the market. It’s always that way. The horses up the top are highly sought after, and the bottom less so,” said Tait, whose farm offers 18 lots.

“I’d expect it’s going to be a good sale. The Gold Coast was a solid sale. Classic, you would think, would follow on and be a very solid market.

“This is a different group of horses, and, whilst not a completely different bunch of buyers, there’s a lot of different people who will come to the Classic sale, get themselves prepared for the Classic sale, and seek out business for the Classic sale, who wouldn’t do that for the Gold Coast.

“I’m not saying it’ll break records, but I expect it to be a good sale.”

Similarly optimistic was Jon Freyer of major vendor Arrowfield Stud – which has 37 lots – who said Inglis had “done a very good job in getting a buying bench here”. 

“All sales have been good in recent times, but I think at the moment, while Magic Millions was good, that the economy is questionable, and there’s a few things going on that would make you slightly apprehensive,” Freyer said.

“But there’s plenty of people on site, and the inspections are good. So we remain hopeful it’ll be a good sale.

“If vendors are going to meet the market, it’ll create good competition on the horses and the sale will be satisfactory for everybody – buyers and sellers.”

Trying, perhaps less successfully, to stay positive despite the Gold Coast stats was Catriona Murphy, whose Sledmere Stud offers 29 lots.

“This is a different sale altogether to Gold Coast. There’s a lot of people who buy out of this sale to syndicate or to breeze up, so it’s often been a very strong trading sale here,” Murphy said.

“[But] the sales have been going up every year, and it was going to level off at some stage, if not come back, and that bottom end under $200,000 is certainly going to be tougher.

“Mums and dads who’d usually buy into share horses or syndicates, they’re probably just holding off a little bit now, since they don’t have all that extra cash to play around with.

“It’s probably just coming back to where it was five years ago at Classic, where if you got $150,000 or $200,000 you were at the top end here.

“There is economic reality and we’re all in that check at the minute. And we have peaks and troughs in our industry. We as an industry were spoiled during Covid. We’ve got to get through the stickier parts and wait for the positive turn.”

On the hopeful side, Murphy expected syndicators to be more active at Classic than they were at the Gold Coast.

“At this level of horse it’s easier. There’s not as much risk for them with those $100,000 horses,” she said. “Plus, there’s a lot of colts syndicates who were still very active at Magic Millions, and I’m hoping they’ll still be active here.”

More worryingly, aside from joining the chorus of breeders insisting stallion service fees “should be coming down”, Murphy noted the years since Covid had also coincided with an upswell of support for online sales which has impacted on vendors at lower levels at physical auctions.

“The digital platform is quite strong at the moment, and Inglis have done a good job on that element,” she said.

“There’s a lot of people out there now, especially country trainers, who can already buy a tried horse; they’re broken in, and you don’t have to wait two years to see if it has any ability.

“The trade market of a going horse has taken a lot of that lower end buying out through the online system. A lot of country trainers are not so active at that $50,000 and under [at physical sales].

“I feel like we’ve dropped a lot of that off at the Classic and HTBA sales.”

Murphy said there would be “more vendors meeting the market” at Classic than in the early days of last month’s Gold Coast sale.

“Looking at results so far with Magic Millions and New Zealand, everybody has to be realistic that the industry’s come back a little bit compared to what it was three years ago. They were record highs,” she said.

Torryburn Stud’s Mel Copelin, who offers 11 lots, remained upbeat, while conceding vendors may have to work hard to clear stock.

“At the Magics, some sold for more than we thought and some were a bit cheaper. I think we’ll have a few surprise packets here,” she said.

“Sometimes you can’t just sell them for nothing, and you have to get a deal done afterwards.

“But I was worried about Magic Millions, and we got through it.”