Buyers hold upper hand after day one of ‘polarising’ Magic Millions National Yearling Sale
Clearance rate cops a hit at end-of-the-line sale as market struggles to find happy medium
Magic Millions will attempt to cultivate a happy medium between buyers and sellers after a “far from satisfactory” start to the Magic Millions National Yearling Sale as purchasers appeared unwilling to compromise on quality despite apparent unprecedented demand for racing stock.
After months of vendors holding court at the Australian yearling and breeding stock sales, buyers took the upper hand yesterday, leading to a depressed clearance rate which hovered around the 50 per cent mark for most of the six hours of trade which saw seven select sale yearlings make $200,000 or more.
A Snitzel (Redoute’s Choice) colt was the most expensive yearling at $500,000 while a son of I Am Invincible (Invincible Spirit) sold for $320,000 and a Dundeel (High Chaparral) colt and an Extreme Choice (Not A Single Doubt) filly made $220,000 each on the opening day.
Magic Millions managing director Barry Bowditch cut to the chase last night when assessing the session.
“I think it’s an extremely polarising market and the clearance rate is far from satisfactory and over the next 24 hours we’ll be working very hard to increase the clearance rate to a satisfactory level,” Bowditch said.
“Buyers, agents, trainers and owners out there need to be paying attention to this sale. They need to be doing their research overnight leading into (today and tomorrow) because there’s so much opportunity out there.
“On the other side of the coin, I think vendors need to set their reserves low and give the market an opportunity to gain some confidence and obviously give themselves an opportunity to sell these horses.”
Last night, 111 yearlings had been sold for a total of $7,091,500 at an average of $63,887 (up 19 percent year on year) and a median of $45,000 (up 25 per cent year on year). The clearance rate had improved to 57 per cent by the close of business with the expectation more sales will be made today.
Bowditch understood the reasons why many buyers, even in the absence of a number of Victorian participants, were not prepared to exceed their budgets to purchase horses.
“I think they’re being selective. They are at an end-of-the-line yearling sale,” he said.
They don’t need a lot of horses, so they are pinning their ears back on the ones they really like.
“I think quality lots were still sought after today and that was evident whether it be Guy Mulcaster and Chris Waller or Suman Hedge, they’ve got an eye for detail and they’re finding those horses here and making sure they secure them.”
Third time lucky for Milburn’s $500,000 Snitzel colt
The session-topping colt changed hands in the dying moments of the day with Victorian agent Suman Hedge going hard for a son of Snitzel, a colt offered by John Muir’s Milburn Creek, after twice having to be withdrawn from earlier yearling sales.
Hedge had to go to $500,000 to land the colt after strong competition from an online bidder.
“We had a lot of insider knowledge about this horse. Scott (Holcombe from Milburn Creek) has been telling me about this horse for a very long time about how much he loved him,” Hedge said.
“They were devastated that they couldn’t get him through the sales earlier in the year, which was really bad luck that he didn’t come through.
“Had he gone through earlier he would have made significantly more, so armed with all that knowledge and seeing his pedigree, we thought he was clearly the standout horse here, comfortably.”
The colt, who had to be withdrawn from both the Magic Millions Gold Coast and Inglis Australian Easter Yearling sales owing to niggling issues, is the fifth foal out of stakes winner Walk With Attitude (Hussonet) who is already the dam of the stakes-placed two-year-old winner Spend (Snitzel), himself a $1.55 million Easter graduate. He was catalogued as Lot 1619.
Hedge would not disclose the ownership group behind the high-priced purchase while a trainer has not been decided.
“We had him vetted and our vets were really happy with him and we’ve got a pretty strict criteria. With our pinhooking and yearlings, we are very, very conservative by nature and they were all very happy with him,” he said.
“He presented very well. He’s a lovely moving horse, he’s strong, he’s active. He paraded as well today as he did on the first day, so they are all the signs of a good horse.”
Hedge moves on Extreme Choice collector’s item
Earlier, an endorsement from trainer Mick Price was enough for Hedge to buy an Extreme Choice filly, who will now head to Victoria to the stable who prepared the exciting sire whose yearlings are a “limited edition”.
Hedge, on the Gold Coast but bidding via the phone through Magic Millions consultant Ben Culham, went to $220,000 on behalf of a client to purchase the Bowness Stud-consigned filly and he confessed to having more money for her if required.
Price and his training partner Mick Kent Jr also signed on for the filly.
“We thought she was very reminiscent of the sire. Mick Price, who is going to train her, trained Extreme Choice and when we saw her we asked him what he thought and he said, ‘she’s all Extreme Choice’, so we think she’s an ideal type to get broken in and she will be nice and early,” Hedge said.
“The stallion is doing such a good job – his numbers are through the roof – so when we were trying to value her we just thought, ‘how would you value an I Am Invincible, a Snitzel or a Zoustar?’ because we value Extreme Choice in the same way.
“In that context, we were quite comfortable with where we were (price wise).”
Catalogued as Lot 1553, the filly is the first foal out of four-time winner She Brings Hope (Sebring) who was trained by Peter Moody and then David Brideoake.
“We will probably put something together to race her, but the client will hopefully breed from her later on,” Hedge said.
“We see that any progeny from this sire is a bit of a collector’s edition because there’s only going to be so many available by him, so when we saw a filly by him that we liked physically we wanted to try and get hold of her.
“We’ve bought two breeding rights in Extreme Choice in the past week and we’ve bought a number of his yearlings and foals as well.
“He is just a horse who has made a good impression.”
Extreme Choice, whose fertility issues have led Newgate to restrict his book to shareholder and foal share breeders this year, is the first crop sire of Golden Slipper (Gr 1, 1200m) winner Stay Inside and Saturday’s BRC Sires’ Produce Stakes (Gr 2, 1400m) winner Tiger Of Malay.
He has five individual winners, three of them stakes winners, from just 13 runners.
The filly’s $220,000 sale price was a big result for Bowness Stud’s John North who passed her in with a reserve of $50,000 at the January Magic Millions sale. He had paid just $2,500 for her dam She Brings Hope at the 2018 Inglis Great Southern Sale.
“We were very fortunate. She is the first foal of the mare and they’re not necessarily early January, forward precocious types of January yearlings and I thought she just needed a little bit more time to grow and mature into herself, which is what she’s done,” North said.
“She presented a lot better at this sale than she did in January and, of course, the stallion’s gone from strength to strength winning the Slipper and the Sires’ the other day.
“He’s a remarkable stallion, so it’s just a pity he’s got these fertility issues, but I’ve never had any problems with him even though a lot of people have.”
Given the weaker-than-expected market yesterday, North was pleasantly surprised by the filly’s price.
“It’s a very soft market today, so I had pretty low expectations. I thought if I could get to $80,000 I’d be happy, but she’s more than doubled that, and I think she’s up where she deserves to be,” he said.
“Given the way the stallion’s going I think that is a very fair result.”
Questioned about the overall market, North said: “I suppose the money’s still around, but it’s probably perception as well. This sale is always perceived to be the second stringers and the B-graders, but there are a lot of nice horses here today that haven’t been making what they deserve to make.
‘I am saying that from a vendor’s point of view, so I might be wrong, and there’s no denying the market. The market is what it is and you’ve just got to accept it or have a plan B, which a lot of people seem to have.”
Torryburn’s I Am Invincible colt joins half-sister at Waller stable
An I Am Invincible (Invincible Spirit) colt will join his older half-sister, the Group 3-placed Centimental (Snitzel), at Chris Waller’s stables after the premier Sydney trainer’s long-time agent Guy Mulcaster bought the yearling for $320,000 at the Gold Coast sale yesterday.
Mulcaster and Waller combined to buy three of the top five lots sold on day one, with the Torryburn Stud-bred and consigned I Am Invincible colt the most expensive of the three purchases.
He is the third foal out of New Zealand Group 2-winning and Group 1-placed mare Serena Miss (Iffraaj) whose first foal Centimental, who was runner-up in last year’s Widden Stakes (Gr 3, 1100m) and won at Wyong last month, her second victory from 13 starts.
Serena Miss’ second foal, a two-year-old gelding by Snitzel, is also being trained by Waller.
“I thought he’d make a bit more but I had seen the horse going into Easter, but he couldn’t get there and I had spoken to Chris a couple of times this week and we thought he was nearly a ‘must-have’ so we will give him a chance in the system,” Mulcaster said.
“There were a lot of horses who had got to other sales for various reasons but we’d already seen them and we liked them, so we took it from there.”
Waller to train final Redoute’s Choice through ring
The final Redoute’s Choice (Danehill) yearling to be offered at public auction was sold yesterday, bringing an end to a remarkable sales career for the champion Arrowfield Stud stallion.
The first lot through the ring, the colt is the second living foal out of Japanese mare La Fouine Tail (Neo Universe) and, after being passed in at the Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale in April, he was yesterday bought for $210,000 by Mulcaster, with Waller to train the colt.
“He is a big, strong colt, he moves well, he has a big girth on him and we’ve had some pretty good ones by the same sire like The Autumn Sun, so hope he does a good job,” Mulcaster said.
“We have seen these horses at other sales and at that sort of money, I thought he was pretty good value.”
With a deep Japanese pedigree, the colt’s second dam is champion three-year-old filly Fabulous La Fouine (Fabulous Dancer) and his third dam, Mercalle (Kaldoun), was Europe’s champion older female stayer in 1990.
“We’re delighted he’s gone to a great home. He’s a lovely colt and his second and third dams are both champions over a bit of ground, so he’s gone to a great stable for the type of horse that he was,” Arrowfield Stud’s Jon Freyer said at the Gold Coast.
“I look forward to him being a Guineas and Derby horse in 18 months’ time.”
Reflecting on Redoute’s Choice, who stood for 19 years at Arrowfield Stud before his death in 2019, Freyer said: “It is the end of an era, really, being the last of the Redoute’s Choices. He’s been a great servant of the farm and we’ve been privileged to have stood him for all of these years.
“What a magnificent horse he was both as a stallion and as a personality. He was a great horse for everyone to be around and he’ll be missed.
“Now that there’s no more of his progeny coming through, it’ll hit home more than ever before.”
At last week’s Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale, Freyer signed for eight mares, including race mares Missybeel (Savabeel) ($800,000) and Scarlet Dream (Sebring) ($750,000), while Arrowfield acquired Arcadia Queen (Pierro) for $3.2 million.
“The sales have been fantastic and the broodmare sale last week was spectacular, like nothing I think I have ever seen in all my time. The quality was hard to value and even harder to buy. We were thrilled we finished up with Arcadia Queen and, relative to other things, hopefully she’s not that expensive.
“It’s testament to both sales companies, really, with the good job they’ve done to get a buying bench here and to conduct the sales as good as both were.”
Meanwhile, Mulcaster and Waller again came to the fore later in the day when the agent went to $220,000 for a Dundeel (High Chaparral) colt offered by Cameron and Kellie Bond of Kenmore Lodge.
The colt is the second live foal out of the Mary-Lou Trivett-owned Quizzed (Oratorio), a three-time winner in Britain and Australia who is a half-sister to European Listed winner Primevere (Singspiel). He was catalogued as Lot 1512.
“He is a nice horse and we thought he was up there with the better horses in the sale and I wasn’t surprised he’d make around that figure,” Kellie Bond said.
“He was owned by a client who has been with us for quite some time. He was bred on the farm. We kept him back from January even though he was a January quality horse but, being a boutique farm, we held him back as a standout horse for this sale and he delivered, so it was nice.”
Bond described yesterday’s session as a “selective market” and the “better horses find their way easily but underneath that it’s pretty tough going”.
“I think quality recommends itself and it’s what the market cries out for,” she said.
“(The Dundeel colt) was a horse by a high-profile stallion, with a nice pedigree and he was a nice individual and a good judge bought him, so it was a nice result.”
Quizzed has a weanling filly by No Nay Never (Scat Daddy) and is in foal to Spirit Of Boom (Sequalo).
Vandyke joins Capitalist bandwagon
David Vandyke saw Capitalist (Written Tycoon) first-hand in the 2016 Golden Slipper and, unfortunately for the now Queensland-based trainer he came off second best, but he has plans for redemption with a second-crop colt by the Newgate Farm-based sire.
The Group 1-winning trainer Vandyke went to $200,000, his last bid, to buy the Capitalist colt early yesterday.
Consigned by Alexia Fraser Bloodstock as Lot 1437, the colt is out of the dual stakes-winning mare Marquardt (Shamardal) who has had three foals to race for two winners; New Zealander Highfalutin Gal (All Too Hard) and All Stars (All Too Hard).
“I loved the mare. I was really keen to buy one out of a Shamardal mare. She was consistent at stakes level,” Vandyke said.
“She had her issues and the two horses out of her, the All Too Hards, have both gone well. The one that raced in New Zealand had a lot of ability but she only had four starts.“
Capitalist is already the sire of ATC Champagne Stakes (Gr 1, 1600m) winner Captivant and Inglis Millennium (RL, 1200m) winner Profiteer and will challenge for leading first season sire honours and Vandyke was impressed by the make-up of the Marquardt colt.
“He is a very good type and I thought he was one of the nicest colts I have seen here. He looks like a jump-and-run horse, a two-year-old, but then being out of a Shamardal mare, he should race on,” he said.
“We will give him the opportunity to race as a two-year-old, but we will be excited to see what he does later on.
“I also have got a bit unfinished business to do because Capitalist beat me half a length in the Slipper. I had Yankee Rose, so I am keen to get vengeance there and hopefully I can do it with this horse. I’ve now joined the team.”
Vandyke also bought a Maurice (Screen Hero) half-brother to the stakes-placed King’s Troop (Redoute’s Choice) later in the day for $100,000. Offered by Arrowfield Stud as Lot 1537, the colt is the fifth foal out of Royal Snippets (Royal Academy), a half-sister to Snitzel (Redoute’s Choice), Hinchinbrook (Fastnet Rock), Viennese (Redoute’s Choice) and Wiener (More Than Ready).
Sale results – Day One
2021 2020
Catalogued 226 293
Offered 196 254
Sold 111 (57%) 191 (75%)
Aggregate $7,091,500 (-31%) $10,288,500
Average $63,887 (+19%) $53,866
Median $45,000 (+25%) $36,000
Top Lot $500,000 $360,000