Snitzel filly plays starring role at the Magic Millions National Weanling Sale
A filly by Snitzel (Redoute’s Choice) fetched $550,000 to top a Gold Coast National Weanling Sale which had Magic Millions bosses more than satisfied as their bloodstock auction week began on Sunday.
Offered out of Highgrove Stud’s draft, Lot 279 – a full-sister to triple Group winner Splintex (Snitzel) and a half to Listed victor Invictus Salute (Exceed And Excel) – was bought by North Bloodstock, on a day of reasonably spirited trading. North intend to race the filly, rather than offer her as a yearling.
Second top lot was Holbrook Thoroughbreds’ colt by Zoustar (Northern Meteor), bought by Yulong for $500,000, who is set to be pinhooked next year.
From an original catalogue of 371, a total of 223 weanlings had been sold by late Sunday at an average of $79,314 – an increase from $77,162 in 2024, when 244 lots were sold.
The median rose from $41,000 to $44,000, while the clearance rate of 73 per cent was down from last year’s 81 per cent.
A total of 26 weanlings sold for $200,000 or more, compared with last year’s 22.
Anamoe’s (Street Boss) first offspring helped make Darley’s nine-time Group 1 winner the leading sire of the sale by aggregate, with six lots fetching $1.59 million at an average of $265,000.
The top buyer’s title was shared between two entities – New Zealand’s Kaha Nui Farm and the united combination of Trilogy Racing and Suman Hedge Bloodstock – who each bought four weanlings for $850,000.
Leading vendor by gross was Newgate, with 11 lots yielding $1.7 million, ahead of Amarina Farm, whose 20 weanlings fetched $1.6m. Highgrove Stud was the top vendor by average, selling three lots at $280,000.
Though the day’s top price fell well short of last year’s $800,000 for a daughter of I Am Invincible (Invincible Spirit) – the Australian record figure for a filly – organisers were pleased with the sale’s results.
“When you look at the numbers – a slightly increased average on last year, and we didn’t have a dispersal this year, and an increase on horses sold for $200,000 above, and around the same amount sold at $100,000 and above, we’re really pleased with how today went,” said Magic Millions managing director Barry Bowditch.
“It was a really confident start to an important week for the industry.”
Describing the sale’s middle market as “very, very deep”, Bowditch said the sale augured well for the days ahead at the Gold Coast, featuring the National Broodmare Sale on Tuesday and Wednesday, and the National Yearling Sale on June 2 and 3.
“This is a very, very important week for our industry, and to get off to a confident start is fundamental,” he said. “I think today was very, very buoyant and strong and confident.”
North Bloodstock were delighted to acquire the sale’s top lot, Highgrove Stud’s ninth living foal of multiple black type placed mare Acquired (O’Reilly) who’s a sibling to Splintex and Invictus Salute.
Acquired is also a half-sister to Hips Don’t Lie (Stravinsky), dam of three stakes winners and granddam of Australian Champion 2YO Filly Learning To Fly (Justify).
“She has a beautiful pedigree, everything you want. She won’t be going back through the sale ring and we’re going to keep her as a broodmare going forward and race her,” said North’s general manager Mick Malone.
“It’s a family I’ve had a lot to do with. I bred Splintex and Invictus Salute with Geoff Grimish years ago, and it was just a good way to get back into the family for a group of clients.
“She’s a beautiful type. She’s a great length, great scope, beautiful mover. I have had a little bit to do with buying a few Snitzels, and that’s the sort of Snitzel for me that runs.
“She had a lot of O’Reilly about her, her mother is a beautiful mare, and to me, she just looked like her mum. She was just a little bit offset in those knees, which might have held a few of those guys back that might have wanted to pinhook her, but it wasn’t our thoughts to put her back through. It may change, but at this point we are racing her.
“Look at the pedigree. That family, if you go through to have a look at what they sell for out of those mares, it’s phenomenal. And it’s a page that’s hard to get a hold of, so we’re just rapt to be a part of it.”
Yulong went to $500,000 for Lot 241, one of the only two foals – both colts – at the sale by the premiership-leading Zoustar (Northern Meteor).
From Hunter Valley farm Holbrook Thoroughbreds’ draft, the colt is a half brother to Group 2 and Group 3 winner Steinem (Frankel), with their second, third and fourth dams stakes winners in Europe.
Yulong – who bought Steinem for $800,000 at last year’s Inglis Chairman’s Sale and mated her with their Japanese shuttler Panthalassa (Lord Kanaloa) – are likely to pinhook the colt.
“Zoustar is obviously a fantastic stallion on the track and the sale ring, and this is a lovely colt. At this stage, we’re planning to take him back through as a yearling,” Yulong CEO Sam Fairgray said.
“We’ve done it previously and he’s a colt that, I think as a yearling, he’s going to keep on growing and developing and into a very, very nice individual.
“He’s a very attractive colt with plenty of strength and substance about him and moves very well. So he is what buyers will be looking for as a yearling, and we will take him back to Victoria now and we’ll grow him out and get him to a yearling sale next year.”
Coolmore’s Tom Magnier paid $420,000 for Lot 193, a son of the farm’s star stallion Wootton Bassett (Iffraaj) offered by South Australia’s Cornerstone Stud. The third foal of the stakes-placed Salome (Unencumbered) – a half-sister to triple stakes winner Ringerdingding (Sebring) – the colt could race for Coolmore’s colts fund or be offered at a yearling sale.
“It’s a real thrill to have Tom Magnier buy my colt and he said it might even race in the navy blue, so that itself is a real thrill for the farm,” said Cornerstone’s Sam Pritchard-Gordon.
“Wootton Bassett looks like he’s the stallion who is going to make it in this country and really go places. And I think Coolmore is certainly endorsing that by the fact that they bought him.”
Pritchard-Gordon said Cornerstone opted to make the colt stand out at a weanling auction, rather than offer him at the Melbourne Premier Yearling Sale, where it was “tough for a smaller farm to make their presence felt”.
Into profit once bidding reached $300,000, Pritchard-Gordon said he began to wonder who might do well out of pinhooking the colt after his price reached $350,000.
“So it’s encouraging to see that Tom has bought him to put him into the colts fund,” he said. “That’s very exciting.”
Coolmore’s marketing and nominations manager Tom Moore, however, said the colt might also be pinhooked.
“The mother could run and it’s a nice page but we really honed in on him for the Wootton Bassett factor,” Moore said. “Obviously, Wootton Bassett is a stallion that we have a huge amount of faith in.
“We will take him home and he might end up in a sale like the Easter sale next year where we think he will stand up really well.”
The first crop of nine-time Group 1 winner Anamoe continued to be in high demand, with four weanlings by the nine-time Group 1 winner among the top 14 lots.
Ciaron Maher paid $360,000 for his filly from the Newgate Consignment, making her the fourth-top weanling of the sale. She’s the first foal of MRC Debutant Stakes (Listed, 1000m) winner Kiki Express (Sepoy), whose dam Maloose (Redoute’s Choice) also won at Listed level.
Maher will now put the filly on the same path as his two-year-old Icarian Dream (Blue Point), who he purchased at the same sale for $310,000 and bought back at the Gold Coast Yearling Sale, for $300,000, to qualify her for the Magic Millions race series.
“There is a bit of hype around Anamoe and Ciaron loved him as a racehorse and he actually sent mares to him himself, so he has supported the stallion already before he even had foals,” said Maher’s bloodstock manager Will Bourne.
“I mentioned to Ciaron there was a very nice Anamoe filly and he said, ‘Go ahead and buy it’.
“She’s good quality, she has substance. I thought she was early, so we would like to do the same thing as Icarian Dream and qualify. We’ll have the risk of losing her if another trainer wants to buy, but we will put her back through the ring to make her a qualifier for the Magic Millions. l thought she was very precocious and hopefully in the same mould as Icarian Dream.”
Kenmore Lodge’s Anamoe filly by city winner Secret Doubt (Not A Single Doubt) was the day’s eighth-top lot, bought by SP Bloodstock for $300,000. The filly’s second dam Covertly (Metal Storm) won the WATC Railway Stakes (Gr 1, 1600m) and threw the stakes-winning Detective (Snitzel).
Secret Doubt’s owners bought her carrying the filly at last year’s National Broodmare Sale, for $170,000. Secret Doubt will again be offered at the same sale this week, in-foal to Home Affairs (I Am Invincible).
Highgrove Stud’s Anamoe colt out of Strike Swiftly (Shellscrape) was bought for $280,000 by Trilogy and Suman Hedge Bloodstock. The colt is closely related to the sale-topping Lot 279, being a grandson of that colt’s dam Acquired, out of a half-sister to Splintex and Invictus Salute.
Lot 226 rounded out Anamoe’s top quartet, a colt from Newgate bought by Redwall Syndicate for $270,000, and whose US Grade 2-winning second dam Dream Play (Hennessy) threw VRC Sires’ Produce Stakes (Gr 2, 1400m) hero Zululand (Fastnet Rock).
Among the sale’s more keenly awaited lots, the Home Affairs half-brother to Hong Kong champion Golden Sixty (Medaglia D’Oro) was passed in at $270,000, short of a $300,000 reserve.
And Taghadoe Stud’s Lot 106, a half-sister to Melbourne Cup (Gr 1, 3200m) winner Knight’s Choice (Extreme Choice) by The Autumn Sun (Redoute’s Choice), was bought by Belmont Bloodstock and McEvoy Mitchell Racing for $200,000.
The sale’s second top sire by aggregate was Toronado (High Chaparral), whose six lots fetched $1.21m, at an average of $202,000.