Fairhill Farm’s O’Donnell on cloud nine after Pierro filly fetches $400,000
Too Darn Hot, Toronado and Blue Point colts also find favour at Inglis Australian Weanling Sale
Mike O’Donnell was sporting a million dollar smile after day one of the Inglis Australian Weanling Sale, having raked in more than $1.7 million at the Sydney foal sale where his Fairhill Farm operation set a new stud record price of $400,000.
The popular expatriate Kiwi breeder, who along with his wife Di runs NSW property Fairhill Farm, sold the two highest-priced weanlings at Riverside Stables yesterday, with his Pierro (Lonhro) half-sister to Group 2 winner Fiesta (I Am Invincible) going to growing thoroughbred enterprise Trilogy Racing.
Run by Jason and Mel Stenning with the assistance of Caithness Breeding’s Sean Dingwall, the $400,000 Pierro filly could be reoffered at a yearling sale next year but her residual value would also provide the group with the option to retain her.
“For us, being the number one draft pick, we were happy to pay for her. We had to go a bit further than we hoped, but at the end of the day she was the one we wanted,” Dingwall said.
“From a Pierro perspective, I think she’s the best Pierro I’ve seen, she had more strength than a lot of what I see from a Pierro perspective and that gave me a lot of confidence.
“We love the stallion but it is always hard to find the horse that you like by him. She’s also a half-sister to a Group 2 winner (Fiesta) and she’s a mare who has only just gone to stud, so there’s upside in the pedigree.”
The filly, the ninth foal out of five-time winner Now Now (Danehill Dancer), has a two-year-old sister named Coleraine who is raced by O’Donnell.
“Now Now has been very good to us, we actually bought her off Coolmore and they sold her at Newmarket, we bought her and raced her on and won another three races for us and she’s been very good to us,” O’Donnell said last night.
“We have a two-year-old full-sister in training with Peter and Paul Snowden. Let’s hope this one is as good as we think the other one is and we’re very comfortable selling her.”
Meanwhile, the Stennings’ Trilogy Racing has burst onto the scene in the past 12 months in a big way, becoming a key member of the Newgate Farm-China Horse Club colts syndicate, as well as investing heavily in their own bloodstock portfolio.
“Obviously we have got a plan around that. You can’t do much if you don’t have horses,” Dingwall said of Trilogy’s spending spree.
“We knew there’d be a big burn early and we are coming to the end of that now. We’ll buy a few mares to get a rounded group of horses and then we’ll see where we end up.”
The leading vendor after day one, Fairhill Farm’s 20 weanlings to sell on the opening day for a combined $1,768,500 helped go some way to satisfy the demand of buyers, but Inglis Bloodstock chief executive Sebastian Hutch suggested that demand outstripped supply of quality foals.
“The competition for nice foals was nothing short of extraordinary and the number of vendors who got results which exceeded their expectations was really taking and a really satisfying part of the day,” Hutch told ANZ Bloodstock News.
“In the case of foals that were in the lower quarter of market or people who got a bit too aggressive with their reserves, the market exposed those horses a bit, but the clearance rate improved throughout the day. As has been the case this year, it will continue to improve.
“Buyers found horses who they feel can take prominent rank in important sales next year or be good racehorses – there were a number of horses bought for end-use as well.”
Overall, with 137 lots catalogued for today’s session still to sell, the 2022 weanling sale aggregate of $8,650,000 exceeded last year’s one–day sale of $8,438,000, while the average was up 15 per cent year on year, rising to $50,882. The median was last night at $30,000, up $6,000, while the clearance rate stood at 74 per cent.
Fairhill Farm’s O’Donnell has in recent years sold his foal crop as weanlings rather than split them up and offer some to the market as yearlings and buyers recognised that with the pre-sale interest in his draft.
“To my way of thinking, you’ve got to be one or the other. We present everything and that’s very important,” he said yesterday.
“Buyers know that what is at the sales complex is what we’ve got. There’s nothing retained. They’re all on offer and I think that’s important.
“It’s been organised chaos. (On Tuesday) there wasn’t a minute spare and we did another 70 cards today, which is phenomenal alone, but prior to that, we’ve done 2205 individual parades. It’s enormous, there’s been massive interest.
“We were shocked, to be honest. It was quite extraordinary, really.”
The second top lot sold by the O’Donnells was a colt by first crop Darley shuttler Too Darn Hot (Dubawi) who made $320,000 to the bid of Segenhoe Stud’s Peter O’Brien who bought the star colt in conjunction with a group of prominent Australasian industry figures who intend to resell him next year.
The colt is a half-sister to the Coolmore-owned last-start Twilight Glow Stakes (Listed, 1400m) winner Lady Of Honour (No Nay Never) and the sixth foal out of Majesty (Fastnet Rock), herself a sister to the stakes placed Kincara Miss.
“The horse is a magnificent type, a great mover and from a great farm, so for us he was a no-brainer,” O’Brien said.
“This fella will be right up there (with the other foals on the farm) when he comes back to Segenhoe. He’s as good a foal as I’ve seen all year. At the end of the day we expected he’d make around $300,000, so we had to go a little more but we’re delighted to get him.”
O’Brien is an unabashed fan of Too Darn Hot, a champion two- and three-year-old colt in Europe who is also out of a champion mare in Dar Re Mi (Singspiel), herself related to a host of high-end stakes winners in Europe and the UAE. He stands for $44,000 (inc GST) again this coming season.
“His pedigree’s just off the charts. Between Segenhoe mares and clients’ mares I think we’re the biggest supporter of his and I think we’ve got 15 mares back in foal to him and have nine going back to him this year as well,” he said.
“We’re big fans. If all of them are like this fella (Lot 242), it’s a no-brainer really.”
The O’Brien-led syndicate earlier went to $300,000 for a colt by Swettenham Stud stallion Toronado (High Chaparral), the sire of Group 1-winning sprinters Masked Crusader and Shelby Sixtysix.
Sold by Bell River Thoroughbreds early in the session as Lot 10, the colt is out of Ain’t She Smart (Smart Missile), an unraced half-sister to the dual Listed winner Ain’tnodeeldun (Dundeel) and a daughter of two-time stakes winner Ain’tnofallenstar (Starcraft). Ain’t She Smart was purchased by Hunter Valley Bloodstock carrying the Toronado colt in utero for $140,000 through an Inglis Digital sale in June last year.
“He was a beautiful colt, we really like the stallion, he is very mature and one of the best movers at the sale. We thought we had to strike early as we think the market will be very strong for the good ones,” O’Brien said.
“We had to pay a bit more than we thought, but that’s the way it is. He is a big, strong horse, so he will either be (reoffered) at Magic Millions or Easter, one or the other, and we will see how he grows out.”
Toronado, whose fee has increased to $88,000 (inc GST) for the 2022 breeding season, has also enjoyed success with his progeny in Hong Kong, being the sire of last Sunday’s Queen Mother Memorial Cup (Gr 3, 2400m) winner Senor Toba and eight other winners from just 12 starters.
“(The stallion) has got a lot of young, progressive horses in training and I think he’ll get hotter and hotter and hopefully we can ride the wave with him,” O’Brien said.
“The Toronados have sold very well this year and you wouldn’t get a better looking one than that fella, so hopefully he can be up there with the big guns.”
O’Brien added: “A group of friends got together to form a syndicate, we ended with a short list of five and we’ve got two of them – both who will be presented as yearlings at select sales next year – so we’re leaving happy.”
Bell River’s James Ferguson, whose team was overrun with parades on Monday and Tuesday at Riverside Stables, agreed that Toronado, who is currently ninth on the Australian general sires’ table by progeny earnings, was a sire on the rise.
“The sire is on fire and he is going better than I thought he would be inside the past 12 months, the market’s red-hot and the thinking was to take the money while we can,” Ferguson said.
“At the same time I hope Peter O’Brien and his team get a good result out of him because we’re all in the game to make a bit of coin at the end of the day, so hopefully they get the result, too.”
The spectacular sales ring result did not surprise Ferguson, who added: “We thought that was where we thought he’d land, between $200,000 and $300,000, and it was just a matter if there was going to be two judges on him (at that level).
“The team at Inglis have got the people here, as they do at every sale, so it is a good result all round.”
Blue Point colt finds favour
In a further endorsement of the Darley shuttle stallions at yesterday’s sale, the first southern hemisphere-bred weanling to be offered at public auction by Blue Point (Shamardal), a champion European sprinter who won four Group 1s, also made an immediate impression with Australasian buyers after the Rifa Mustang-bred colt sold for $290,000 yesterday.
Offered on Mustang’s behalf by Sledmere Stud as Lot 214, Newgate Farm stud manager Jim Carey won out for the colt, going to $290,000 to buy him after the bidding opened at $220,000, which immediately put the horse on the market.
“He’s a very straight forward, quality colt and he’ll come back here to a sale next year,” Carey said.
“He’s got plenty of upside, being out of a young, running Not A Single Doubt mare. He’s off a great farm and it’s great to get a colt of that quality to sell through Newgate next year. He’s the first Blue Point I’ve seen and he’s a really nice colt.”
The son of Blue Point is the third foal out of the stakes-placed juvenile winner Lady Loire (Not A Single Doubt), who was raced by the colt’s breeder Mustang. Blue Point will stand for $44,000.
Smith strikes for son of So You Think
Victoria’s Rhys and Chloe Smith of Kulani Park were also active on day one, purchasing two weanlings to retrade at next year’s yearling sales, headed by a son of this season’s leading stallion in Australia, So You Think (High Chaparral) for $225,000.
The colt, sold by Tyreel Stud as Lot 72, is the third foal out of three-time winner Choux Diva (Thorn Park), herself a sister to five-time Group 1 winner Jimmy Choux and a half-sister to another Group 1 winner in Miss Wilson (Stratum).
“He just looks like a racehorse, he’s got a good pedigree, his family sells well, I love So You Think, so that was enough for me,” Rhys Smith said.
“You always hope that there is (improvement in them), but you never know, but he does look like he will continue to improve.”
Smith won’t be rushed into making a call on where the So You Think colt or the $85,000 All Too Hard (Casino Prince) colt he purchased (Lot 150) will be sold next year.
“We have been an under bidder on a couple here already, so you have to pay more than what you want otherwise you’re going home with nothing,” he said of yesterday’s market.
Day two of the Inglis Australian Weanling Sale starts at 10am where the buyer appetite is expected to continue before tomorrow night’s star-studded Chairman’s Sale of elite mares.
Sale results – day one
2022 2021
Catalogued 280 252
Offered 230 220
Sold 170 (74%) 190 (86%)
Aggregate $8,650,000 (+2.5%) $8,438,000
Average $50,882 (+15%) $44,411
Median $30,000 (+25%) $24,000
Top Lot $400,000 $400,000