Eureka hoping for another Boom at Magic Millions March
Leading Queensland nursery Eureka Stud will present the largest draft at this week’s Magic Millions Gold Coast March Yearling Sale, offering 36 yearlings across the two days of selling on March 12 and 13.
The Cambooya operation topped last year’s vendor table when selling 26 yearlings for a combined $1,129,500 and appears well placed to again play a major role at the sale.
This year’s renewed edition of the March Yearling Sale has expanded significantly, with a catalogue of 508 yearlings, up from 380 in 2025, while the inclusion of non-QTIS yearlings has added further depth and variety to the offering.
Eureka’s resident sire Spirit Of Boom (Sequalo) was the dominant stallion at the sale last year, finishing as leading sire by both gross and average. Nineteen yearlings by the Queensland champion sold for an average of $75,789 and a gross of $1,440,000.
The highest-priced of those, a $210,000 colt purchased from the Kenmore Lodge draft by Clinton Taylor and Bacon Racing, has since been named Spirit Bomb and is awaiting his first start in the Michael Freedman stable.
“Hopefully he can maintain his place on top of the mantlepiece,” Eureka Stud’s Harry McAlpine told ANZ News.
“We sell a lot of Spirit Of Booms here every year. It’s been a great sale for graduates coming out of here, like Prince of Boom, Keshi Boom, Boomsara, Boomnova, Chinny Boom the list goes on and on, plenty of good Spirit of Booms come out of this sale and they haven’t cost the world.”
Spirit Of Boom again features prominently in this year’s draft, with Eureka offering ten yearlings by their flagship sire.
Among them is Lot 4, a filly out of dual winner Weekend Saga (Real Saga), herself a half-sister to MVRC Champagne Stakes (Gr 3, 1200m) winner Dan Baroness (Statue Of Liberty) and Dalrello Stakes (Listed, 1000m) winner Jagged Edge (Better Than Ready).
Weekend Saga has produced two foals to race, including two-time winner What A Weekend (Better Than Ready) and lightly raced metropolitan placegetter Weekend Spirit (Spirit Of Boom).
“She’s a really nice physical type of filly. She is out of a Real Saga mare, which has worked with Spirit Of Boom before – Boom Talk won a $1 million, he is out of a Real Saga mare too, so the cross works really well with the double Semipalatinsk. She’s a real physical highlight of the draft.”
Lot 257 is another by Spirit Of Boom, a colt out of four-time winner Lucky Toss (Dash For Cash), a half-sister to Group 2 winner and Group 1 placegetter Scenic Warrior (Brave Warrior), and 12-time winner Stanzaic (Raise A Stanza), who collected three victories at Listed level.
Lucky Toss has produced five foals to race, all winners, including Champagne Boom (Spirit Of Boom), winner of Caulfield’s Debutant Stakes (Listed, 1000m), and Listed-placed Stoli Bolli (Deep Field). The colt is also closely related to recent Magic Millions SA 2YO Classic (1100m) winner Rich On Bubbles (Capitalist).
“It’s a good old Eureka family, and they keep doing the job,” McAlpine said. “The Magic Millions Adelaide winner on Saturday is out of a full-sister to him. So it’s a family that is very precocious and has worked well with Spirit of Boom, again that double Semipalatinsk cross.”
Lot 150 is a flashy bay filly by Spirit Of Boom out of Queensland Guineas (Gr 2, 1600m) winner Express Air (Piccolo), making her a sister to nine-time winner and Listed scorer Simply Fly and recent Doomben two-year-old winner Esperanza.
Esperanza, who is owned by Eureka Stud, will line up in Saturday’s $500,000 QTIS Jewel (1200m) at the Gold Coast.
“She’s a full sister to Esperanza, who will be almost favourite for the QTIS Jewel on the weekend. It is a great Eureka family, she is a full-sister to Simply Fly who won the QTIS three-year-old Jewel. That great old family of ours, has had Prince Of Boom and Keshi Boom, and all the rest of them. She is very good.”
Lot 87 offers buyers an opportunity to secure a colt by popular first-season sire Artorius (Flying Artie) out of three-time winner and twice stakes-placed mare Campari (O’Reilly).
McAlpine purchased the mare carrying the colt for $30,000 at the 2024 Inglis Sydney Broodmare Sale. She has already produced one runner in the talented filly Tigroni (Tiger Of Malay).
Though still a maiden, Tigroni made an encouraging start to her career when finishing second behind subsequent Inglis Millennium (RL, 1100m) winner Fireball (Snitzel) on debut at Rosehill. She subsequently placed at Randwick and finished third in the Gold Coast Gold Pearl (1100m).
While she finished ninth in the Magic Millions 2YO Classic (RL, 1200m), Tigroni has been a strong performer for her connections, an all-female ownership group, earning $420,034 in prize-money.
“She was a mare we bought in foal to Artorius. Obviously, he was a great racehorse, a great two-year-old. This colt has actually done really amazingly in the preparation, he just needed a bit more time from January to now, but he’s really furnished into a really powerful, good moving horse. He’s a real credit to the stallion, I’d say. Obviously, the mare had a lot of ability as well, so we are really pleased with him.”
Eureka will also present a unique offering in the form of a colt by Toronado (High Chaparral), catalogued as Lot 495 but set to sell after Lot 250 on Thursday.
The colt is the first foal of the well-related three-time winner Desert Team (Invincible Spirit), whom McAlpine purchased for 55,000gns at the 2022 Tattersalls December Mare Sale. She is out of Group 3 winner Kilmah (Sepoy) and hails from the family of stakes winner Perfect Star (Act One).
He is the only yearling in the catalogue by the champion Victorian sire, who has enjoyed another productive season with 120 winners, including last Saturday’s VRC Sires’ Produce Stakes (Gr 2, 1200m) winner Grinzinger Heart.
Toronado has also continued to make a strong impact in Hong Kong through performers such as Stormy Grove, Little Paradise and Victor The Winner.
“He’s a really nice horse. He’s bred on the same cross as Masked Crusader, being out of a Invincible Spirit mare. Very sharp, attractive colt and looks like he’ll get up and get going early. I brought the mare out from Tattersalls and she’s a Newmarket-winning mare, so it’s been a bit of an experiment, and hopefully she can leave her footprint in the breeding world.”
McAlpine said the farm had experienced strong inspection traffic throughout the week and welcomed the revamped structure of the sale.
“We’re looking forward to the first edition of the sale open to interstate horses. The change of the time of the week has certainly made it a bit interesting to gauge numbers, because normally we were parading on a weekend into the sale.
“The first day of parading has probably been busier than normal. So we’ll know our fate tomorrow when most people turn up and buzz through their lists on the day before. Hopefully that will be the case. Obviously, a few more horses, but the quality has increased as well, so I hope that’s enough to entice a few more interstaters to get involved.”