Bella Nipotina and Amelia’s Jewel deliver ‘spectacular’ results at Chairman’s
Bella Nipotina (I Am Invincible) and Amelia’s Jewel (Siyouni) eclipsed the Chairman’s Sale’s old record price – fetching $4.2 million and $3.8 million respectively – as an extraordinary year for Inglis continued at Riverside on Thursday Night.
In an action-packed session in which 14 lots sold for $1 million or more – smashing the sale’s previous high of nine from each of the past two years – Bella Nipotina was bought by Longwood Farm’s Michael Christian, who bred her and led half the ownership group who raced her in a career netting $22.7 million.
Christian bought out his co-owners after partaking in a tense bidding duel by phone inside a hushed auditorium, and said he’d called a bidspotter having realised he was hard to see in the dimlight at the back of the room, where he’d stood to scan his opposition.
In the end he emerged victorious over a couple of rival bidders, and elated to be taking his Everest (Gr 1, 1200m) winner home to Longwood, where he prematurely lost her dam Bella Orfana (Star Witness) one year ago after only four foals.
The seven-year-old Bella Nipotina – bought from the draft of the sale’s highest-grossing vendor in her trainer Ciaron Maher and Christian revealed faces a first mating from a shortlist of sires comprising Zoustar (Northern Meteor), I Am Invincible (I Am Invincible), Too Darn Hot (Dubawi) and Snitzel (Redoute’s Choice).
Two hours after her sale, ten-time stakes winner Amelia’s Jewel was bought from Segenhoe Stud’s draft by the auction’s biggest buyer – Coolmore’s Tom Magnier – who said she’d be flown to the US to be covered by the operation’s in-demand sire Justify (Scat Daddy) on southern time.
Both Bella Nipotina and Amelia’s Jewel surpassed the Chairman’s sale’s old record price of $3.6 million paid for Nimalee (So You Think) by Coolmore and Colm Santry in 2023.
Bella Nipotina is now the equal third most expensive broodmare to be sold in the southern hemisphere, level with Sunlight (Zoustar) – bought by Magnier at the Magic Millions Gold Coast National Broodmare Sale in 2020.
The southern hemisphere record remains the $6.6 million given for Imperatriz by Yulong last year at the Gold Coast, ahead of Milanova (Danehill), who fetched $5 million at the old Inglis Australian Weanling and Breeding Stock Sale in 2008.
Inaugurated in 2017, the Chairman’s sale was soon struggling as a concept, with the following year’s edition grossing $20.6 million through 81 mares sold.
On Thursday night, it raised $54.4 million with 77 mares sold – more than $9.5 million up on the sale’s previous record realised in 2023
The average of $706,883 – another southern hemisphere mares sale record – was up 13.5 per cent on last year’s $622,946. The median was down $10,000 at $400,000, but the clearance rate of 87 per cent was up from 67 per cent year on year.
“We knew we had good momentum [before] the sale,” said Inglis Bloodstock CEO Sebastian Hutch. “We felt like we were getting good traction with the right people, and the catalogue came together really well.
“And then you get a few days from the sale and you think ‘What if everything lined up perfectly’?
“And as we stand here today, it was a pretty extraordinary sale.”
Hutch said the Chairman’s sale was “on its knees” in 2018.
“From then on we’ve built and built and built,” he said. “We’d have got here a bit quicker if not for the pandemic, but we’re where we want to be with the sale now and I think it’s only going to get better and better.”
With Friday’s Australian Broodmare Sale to complete the week of auctions at Riverside following the Australian Weanling Sale on Monday and Tuesday, Hutch reflected Inglis had had a “fantastic” year.
“We’ve run a weanling sale that was up $3 million, our broodmare sale is up $10 million, our digital platform’s up four or five million year on year, our yearling sale series is up,” he said. “Our series and our year is up in a year that everyone thought it was almost impossible to do it.”
Magnier topped the Chairman’s buying charts with three mares bought for $9.4 million.
His were the second, third and fourth-highest lots in Amelia’s Jewel and two $2.8 million daughters of I Am Invincible he bought from their trainer Maher’s draft – triple stakes winners Tiz Invincible and Estriella. That pair will be covered this spring by Coolmore’s Wootton Bassett (Iffraaj).
Maher switched to buyer for the night’s fifth-highest purchase, securing Group 2-winning three-year-old Too Darn Lizzie (Too Darn Hot) for $2.4 million, with an eye to spring racing targets.
And another Maher-trained mare rounded out the top six, with I Am Me (I Am Invincible) sold from Bimbadeen Park’s draft to Arrowfield Stud for $2,000,000.
Maher was easily the highest grossing vendor, with eight lots sold for $12,775,000, at an average of $1,596,875 million. They also included dual stakes winner Semana (Winning Rupert), knocked down to Walnut Farm for $1.55 million.
Growing Empire Syndicate, whose namesake will join the Yulong roster later this year, spent $2.67 million on three lots, including $1.2 million on South African Grade 1 winner Under Your Spell (Capetown Noir).
China’s Zhao Zhijun – the friend of Yulong boss Zhang Yuesheng who officially signed for Imperatriz’s $6.6 million purchase last year – was also a major player.
Zhao bought four lots for $4.4 million, including Too Darn Lizzie’s dam Enbihaar (Magnus) for $1.6 million, quadruple Group winner Grinzinger Belle (Shamexpress) for $1.45 million, and last year’s South Australian Derby (Gr 1, 2500m) heroine Coco Sun (The Autumn Sun) for $1.2 million.
But amid the glitz and glamour of Chairman’s night, the star of the show was Bella Nipotina, as she was so often in a career of eight black type wins including four Group 1s.
Christian, the former hard-as-nails Collingwood AFL premiership defender, was emotional as he spoke of the purchase, having bought out his fellow owners on behalf of himself and his wife Siobhan and his brother Brad.
“It’s been an incredible journey she’s taken us on,” Christian said. “She was bred on our farm and achieved what she achieved. Now it’s great to bring her home where it all started.
“It was always going to be tough to secure her. There were some serious people involved. I’m just proud we’ve been able to get her.
“It feels like a bit of a full stop because her racing career is finished. But we look forward to the next chapter over the next ten or 12 years. Hopefully, in time we can produce some beautiful horses.”
Feeling a huge release amid the buzz of the auditorium after the gavel fell, Christian said his wife and breeding partner had chosen to stay home at their Victorian farm.
“Siobhan is not here because of exactly this – the emotion of the whole night,” he said. “Bella Nipotina has been Siobhan’s baby in a way, and the thought of her not coming home was something she decided she wouldn’t put herself through.
“At the end of the day, it’s a lot of money, and a big commitment, but hopefully over the next ten or 12 years, we’ll be repaid financially, but also with the joy we’re going to get from watching her progeny run.
“She’s just been such a big part of our lives. To not get her and see her go somewhere else would’ve been heartbreaking.”
Christian grew up in Busselton, Western Australia and Peter Walsh – owner and breeder of Amelia’s Jewel – also calls the town home. What’s more, Christian’s brother Greg is married to Walsh’s cousin.
On Thursday night, all those links came home to roost on the other side of the country at the top of the Chairman’s sale price list, when Amelia’s Jewel ranked second to Bella Nipotina.
Winner of nine of 16 with Perth’s Simon Miller, before claiming one of her last eight in the east with Annabel and Rob Archibald, Amelia’s Jewel will soon be bound for Kentucky.
“We’ll get her an airplane ticket and send her to Justify in America now,’’ Magnier said. “She’s such a quality mare, she’s a household name and we’re lucky to be able to call her our own now.”
“We always wanted to sell her here and tonight absolutely exemplified why this sale is the best sale for mares,’’ Segenhoe’s Peter O’Brien said.
“The catalogue was so strong and then the types were so strong to match, all the right buyers were here and you could just feel it. I was sitting there with Peter Walsh’s daughter [Sammi] and you could feel the energy of the room. And seeing what prices these horses made, we had three horses in and all three exceeded expectations.
“I had Sammi and Sharon, Walshy’s bloodstock manager here because Walshy is in China, but I’ve spoken to him and he said he could fill an empty glass full of Annie’s tears. Tears of happiness.”
Early on came a back-to-back endorsement for the two hottest shuttle stallions on the Australian scene.
Magnier paid $2.8 million for Lot 16 – Tiz Invincible – and declared she’d be going to his farm’s star shuttler Wootton Bassett.
Two minutes later Maher spent his winnings on the subsequent lot, buying Too Darn Lizzie for $2.4 million, declaring her Darley sire Too Darn Hot a “freak”.
“He’s got a stakes winners list as long as your arm already, and he’s only a very young stallion,” Maher said of the rising ten-year-old. “He and Wootton Bassett seem to be the up and comers.”
Maher said he might campaign Too Darn Lizzie – formerly trained by Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott – at the Brisbane winter carnival, but that he also “might just let her furnish” and bring her back for the spring.
Magnier was delighted to buy Tiz Invincible. The winner of two Group 2s and a Listed is out of a half-sister to nine-time Group 1 winner Anamoe (Street Boss).
“It’s a very good page. I Am Invincible is a great broodmare sire, she’s a very good mover and she’ll be absolutely perfect for Wootton Bassett,” he said.
So too would Estriella, whose three stakes wins came at Group 2, Group 3 and Listed level. Magnier’s catalogue had her noted as “#1” – his major target at the sale.
“She’s such a good looking mare – the best-looking mare on the complex, and we were going to try to not leave without her,” said Magnier, indicating Estriella may campaign for Maher in Brisbane before her date with Wootton Bassett.
“There’s options for her to come back into training. I’ll chat to Ciaron, there’s a chance for Queensland,” he said.
I Am Me will likely be covered this spring by new owner Arrowfield’s burgeoning sire The Autumn Sun (Redoute’s Choice), the stud’s bloodstock manager Jon Freyer said.
Among other highlights, Vinery Stud sold Mumbai Muse (Zoustar) to Kia Ora Stud for $1.8 million, and Makarena (Snitzel) to Dean Hawthorne Bloodstock for $1.5 million.