Forbidden Love headlines explosive day on the Gold Coast at $4.1 million
Four mares break $3 million as the big players pay up for breeding prospects at the Magic Millions National Sale
Three-time Group 1 winner Forbidden Love (All Too Hard) became the equal third most expensive mare ever sold in Australia when realising $4.1 million during what was an explosive $50 million opening session at the Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale yesterday.
Three further mares – Surround Stakes (Gr 1, 1400m) winner Sunshine In Paris (Invader), Snapdancer (Choisir) and mare-in-foal Piping Hot (More Than Ready) – each sold for $3 million or more, results which continued the trend of the ever-increasing value of elite breeding stock, as leading international investors sparred for the best-credentialed stock on the market at the Gold Coast.
The Michael Freedman-trained Forbidden Love was bought by the Chinese-owned, Victorian-based breeding and racing giant Yulong, who also paid $3.2 million for Group 1-winning sprinter Snapdancer, $2.3 million for Isotope (Deep Field) and $1.35 million for Promise Of Success (Dansili), in a spending spree which amounted to $19.031 million.
The blistering eight hours of trade reached $50.732 million in trade, aided by agent James Harron going to $3.9 million to purchase three-year-old filly Sunshine In Paris (Invader), the second highest-priced lot sold yesterday, while Coolmore’s Tom Magnier was also a force at the top of the market, adding Piping Hot (More Than Ready) ($3 million), Paris Dior (Pierro) ($1.6 million) and Vangelic (Vancouver) ($1.5 million) to their broodmare band.
John Messara’s Arrowfield Stud was the only other investor to get on the board with a seven-figure priced mare, successfully going to $1.6 million to buy Shades Of Rose (Rubick).
The selling of mares for a price below the million-dollar barrier trade was also brisk, with 192 of the 223 horses offered yesterday changing hands for a clearance rate of 86 per cent.
The clearance rate was no doubt helped by the Edinburgh Park unreserved dispersal which closed out the race fillies and mares session and resulted in all 40 mares presented for sale finding buyers.
Yulong’s $19.031 million day one imprint on the buyers’ sheet surpasses the $16.48 million the outfit spent on 37 lots in the corresponding race fillies and mares session in 2022.
‘She owes us nothing and we owe her everything’
The $4.1 million paid for Forbidden Love – Australasia’s highest-priced mare sold at auction in 2023 – eclipses the $4 million Yulong paid for Away Game (Snitzel) at last year’s Magic Millions Sale and matches the price achieved for New Zealand champion Avantage (Fastnet Rock), who was bought by Coolmore through Gavelhouse in 2021.
Champion filly Sunlight (Zoustar) sold at the Gold Coast auction for $4.2 million three years ago, while Milanova (Danehill), the most expensive mare ever sold in Australia, made $5 million in 2008 through an Inglis auction.
Northern Farm’s Katsumi Yoshida, who has acquired a number of Australian Group 1-winning mares in recent years, was the underbidder on Forbidden Love via Magic Millions’ online portal.
It is the Japanese breeding mogul Yoshida who Zhang Yuesheng has modelled much of his Yulong thoroughbred empire on, with the latter purchasing 35 mares in total yesterday, ranging in price from $4.1 million to as little as $36,000.
“We always knew Forbidden Love was going to make a lot of money but when you have tough competition who have got a good system in what they’ve done buying mares previously, and Mr Zhang is following that similar system, it’s always going to be tough, but she’s a lovely mare to end up with,” Yulong’s chief operating officer Sam Fairgray said.
“It was probably getting to the end (price wise) but to get those mares you’ve got to front up and buy them and Mr Zhang is adamant on what he wants to achieve.
“He’s putting his neck on the line and the industry is very lucky to have him.”
Sporting the same silks as 2021 Golden Slipper (Gr 1, 1200m) winner Stay Inside (Extreme Choice), Forbidden Love won eight races, including the Surround Stakes, George Ryder Stakes (Gr 1, 1500m) and Canterbury Stakes (Gr 1, 1300m), and earned more than $2.2 million during her career, which was predominantly spent under the watch of training partnership Richard and Michael Freedman, before the pair split in April last year, with Michael retaining the mare in his yard.
Newgate Farm’s Henry Field, whose Hunter Valley operation consigned Forbidden Love, said three international players were all on the daughter of All Too Hard (Casino Prince).
“We knew she was going to sell well, she’s a triple Group 1 winner and beautiful, so she had all the hallmarks of a mare that is going to be a ‘top end of town mare’ and it was an international bidding war between three of the biggest players on the planet,” Field said.
“Mr Zhang from Yulong was the victor and he has bought himself a very rare entity. She’s a special mare and he is going to have a lot of fun with her for many years to come.
“She is a mare who would stack up at the top of any broodmare band anywhere in the world.”
Forbidden Love, the best-performed of three winners out of the stakes-placed Juliet’s Princess (More Than Ready), was a $150,000 yearling purchase by Richard Freedman from the 2019 Magic Millions sale out of the Bhima Thoroughbreds draft.
Richard Freedman described yesterday’s result as ‘brilliant’, saying the five-year-old mare owes them nothing and they owe her plenty.
“I remember standing over in the corner and buying her for $150,000. These guys (other co-owners) all came in and … $4.1 million,” Richard Freedman said.
“We were thinking maybe mid-$3 million was possible but this is fantastic.
“I’m very happy that she’s going to a great stud and she’ll be looked after. That’s the main thing.”
Snapdancer delivers for Spicer and Sullivan
The $3.2 million sale of Snapdancer put an exclamation mark on the ride of a lifetime that the dual Group 1 winner had given her owners, as Yulong went to the lofty figure to take the six-year-old mare back to their Nagambie farm.
The Memsie Stakes (Gr 1, 1400m) and Robert Sangster Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) winner, who earned more than $2 million for her connections across seven victories, Snapdancer’s racing career came to an end on the eve of last year’s The Everest (1200m) when she was struck down by injury.
Raced by Brad Spicer and his clients, the Maher and Eustace-trained mare is out of Snapdragon (Galileo), who has also produced the stakes-placed Drago (Danehill Dancer).
She was initially purchased as a weanling for $60,000 at the 2017 Inglis Chairman’s Sale by agent Sheamus Mills before Spicer Thoroughbreds’ Brad Spicer paid $180,000 for her the following January on the Gold Coast.
A throng of Snapdancer’s connections were ringside to see their pride and joy sold through Sherah Sullivan’s Sullivan Bloodstock consignment yesterday, including Maher and Spicer.
“We knew the bigger players were going to be on the horse at that level. We were hoping Yulong, Coolmore and Mr Yoshida were all there and they were,” Spicer said in the aftermath of Snapdancer’s sale.
“Sherah, a lot of credit has got to go to her as well. It’s just been a great journey. I think everyone would be relieved that it has put a full stop on her career.
“We’re a bit sad as well, but excited at the same time because we’re going to see her progeny go through the ring year after year.
“She’s a dream horse for what we go and source at yearling sales. To see her on a racetrack and to see her here today, she’s ticked every box along the way.
“We’re grateful to be involved in a horse like her.”
Sullivan was emotional after her fledgling farm’s milestone moment.
“I’ve only just gone out on my own and to have the honour [of selling] of a mare like that has been magnificent,” Sullivan said.
“There’s a lot of pressure to match it with the best and to get the result with these guys is well deserved.
“Snapdancer is a bit like Zabeel and those good horses – they stand and prick their ears at the right time and she’s paraded like a champion all week. She’s never turned an ear. She’s been so good.”
Yulong’s Fairgray said: “Mr Zhang loves Galileo, she’s out of a Galileo mare, and Choisir is going to be a good broodmare sire.
“She’s a big, strong multiple Group 1 winner, so she ticked all the boxes, as they say.”
Frankel in the mix for Black Soil’s Isotope
Seven lots after signing for Forbidden Love, table 42 was again to the fore when Zhang and Fairgray added Isotope (Deep Field) for $2.3 million to Yulong’s broodmare band.
Agent James Harron, whose bids were taken by spotter Andrew Browne, was the underbidder.
Majority-owned by Brian Siemsen’s Black Soil Bloodstock, an operation focused primarily on racing quality fillies, Isotope was a $170,000 purchase from the Gold Coast four years ago by her trainer Tony Gollan and agent John Foote as well as Harry McAlpine, who manages Siemsen’s bloodstock interests.
A ten-length debut winner at two, Isotope won three Listed races and was placed at Group 2 level twice, while she ran fourth in a Stradbroke Handicap (Gr 1, 1400m) to underline her talent.
Her dam Great Dansaar (Choisir) is a half-sister to Australia’s champion two- and three-year-old filly Yankee Rose (All American) who is making a big impact as a broodmare in Japan where she has already produced Liberty Island (Duramente), a winner of three Grade 1 races from five starts, including Sunday’s Japanese Oaks (Gr 1, 2400m).
“She’s obviously a fast mare but she was just a beautiful mare and with the recent pedigree update it helps things,” Fairgray said.
Zhang intends to keep his sizeable broodmare band almost exclusively for the Yulong’s resident stallions, headed by champion Written Tycoon (Iglesia), but there is a chance the likes of Forbidden Love, Isotope and Promise Of Success (Dansili) could be sent to the northern hemisphere to be covered by Juddmonte’s champion sire Frankel (Galileo) to southern hemisphere time.
“We may send some over to Frankel to get bred to southern hemisphere time, but that’s why we’re waiting until after the sale to see what we end up with and see what we’ll do,” Fairgray said.
“You never know, these mares could end up going there, but we’ll just wait and see what happens.”
McAlpine, a bloodstock agent who also works for his family’s Eureka Stud on the Darling Downs in Queensland, was delighted with the sale of Isotope, who is the epitome of the Black Soil Bloodstock business model.
“Winding the clock back, Isotope was from the first crop of yearlings that we bought. We set out to buy nice fillies that we could turn into nice mares we could sell or keep and breed,” McAlpine told ANZ Bloodstock News.
“Isotope was a horse who was in the press a lot with her ability. Her wins were astonishing and the things that went wrong along the way were in abundance, so I think everyone knew she was a genuine Group 1 horse and we never got to see the best of her, but we saw glimpses of it and that is why they paid what they paid.
“I’d have to run the numbers on that first crop of fillies that we bought but, certainly after today, we’ve ended up well in front.”
Fairytale finish for Wall and Rosemont with Promise Of Success
Yulong’s third million-dollar purchase, Promise Of Success, who made $1.35 million, brought down the curtain on a wonderful ride the Dansili (Danehill) mare has taken Brits Hannah Wall and David Redvers and Victoria’s Rosemont Stud.
The John O’Shea-trained seven-year-old was sourced by Wall for 27,000gns from the 2020 Tattersalls December Mares Sale as a four-start maiden, but since being sent to Australia she has been a racetrack revelation, earning $1.4 million and Group 2 success in the Emancipation Stakes (Gr 2, 1500m) in the past two years.
Wall, who works closely with Promise Of Success’ co-owner David Redvers of UK stud Tweenhills, was at Magic Millions last week for the weanling sale and stayed on the Gold Coast to bid Promise Of Success a fond farewell.
“I gave 27,000gns and she was the last lot to go through Tattersalls about 10 o’clock at night on day two (from the draft of my uncle Chris Wall who trained her) and she has just been a revelation. It’s just been the most brilliant journey with brilliant people, the team at Rosemont and John O’Shea and all his team of people, David and I, it’s been the stuff of dreams,” Wall said.
“She was a maiden at the time and she’d had some small setbacks that year, which is why she hadn’t run that year we bought her, but she was perfectly sound at the time. Her half-sister had won a trial down here with Gai (Waterhouse), so I spoke to Ryan (McEvoy) at Rosemont and we decided to roll the dice and bring her down and see if she could win a maiden down here and she might become a bit more valuable.”
Out of the UK winner Summer School (Street Cry), Promise Of Success is a half-sister to the Waterhouse and Adrian Bott-trained Sydney and Melbourne metropolitan winner Summerbeel (Savabeel), the Australian pedigree connection which helped Wall identify Promise Of Success.
Promise Of Success is nominated for Saturday’s Kingsford Smith Cup (Gr 1, 1300m) at Eagle Farm and the Tattersall’s Tiara (Gr 1, 1400m) at the same venue three weeks later.
“John’s mapped out a program, I think, where she races Saturday and then the Tatt’s Tiara is what he was aiming for,” Fairgray said.
“We’ll just see how she looks for Saturday and whether we run, or whether we wait and go straight into the Tatts.”
At the Inglis Chairman’s Sale earlier this month, Yulong also paid $3.4 million for Montefilia (Kermadec) and $2.3 million for Icebath (Sacred Falls), while Coolmore paid $3.6 million for Nimalee (So You Think) on the same night.
Harron takes shine to Sunshine In Paris
James Harron, a regular on the yearling sale circuit, viewed Sunshine In Paris as a unique racing opportunity to buy a proven top-class filly capable of adding to her record – and value – next season.
Bidding via Magic Millions managing director Barry Bowditch over the phone, Harron watched the action unfold from his ringside table and, as the bidding progressed towards the $3.9 million figure, the Coolmore hierarchy gathered near the media room to stake their own play for the filly.
Coolmore, who races this season’s three-time stakes-winning juvenile Learning To Fly (Justify) with Sunshine In Paris’s trainer Annabel Neasham, was the eventual underbidder.
Harron revealed he had been piecing together a plan with his clients for some time to try and buy Sunshine In Paris.
“Basically, we feel like she’s such a wonderful racing prospect. Very rarely do these sorts of fillies come onto the market,” Harron said.
“We see the prices of yearlings these days and the prices of some of these yearling fillies and, while she’s already got a big win on the board, she’s only had a handful of starts and she’s got a massive future ahead of her.
“We’re going to enjoy racing her for the time being and then she’ll go into the broodmare barn later on down the track.”
Purchased last year by Champagne Bloodstock for $90,000 through the National sale as an unraced two-year-old, the Neasham-trained Sunshine In Paris won her first start convincingly at Canberra in November and quickly progressed to stakes grade at her next start in a preparation which culminated with success in the Surround Stakes in February.
Neasham has earmarked the Golden Eagle (Gr 1, 1500m) as Sunshine In Paris’s spring goal.
“There are so many options and we’re so lucky here in Australia with the amazing prize-money we’ve got on offer,” Harron said.
“If she maintains the form she’s shown and looks to even have improvement in her, I think the owners are going to have a lot of fun and potentially pick up a lot of prize-money and we’ve got that fallback of that Group 1 already on the board.”
Lightning to strike twice for Coolmore?
In 2020, Tom Magnier paid $1.8 million for Samaready carrying a Snitzel (Redoute’s Choice) colt and yesterday the Coolmore Australia principal went to a substantial $3 million figure to buy another in-foal More Than Ready (Southern Halo) mare, Piping Hot.
The dam of the Ciaron Maher and David Eustace-trained dual Group 1-winning sprinter Coolangatta (Written Tycoon), Piping Hot was one of three million-dollar mares Coolmore signed for yesterday, the Irish-owned operation adding Paris Dior (Pierro) soon after for $1.6 million.
Magnier also bought Vangelic (Vancouver) for $1.5 million to start the day one session.
Piping Hot was sold in foal to I Am Invincible (Invincible Spirit) and Samaready – the dam of Godolphin’s Group 3-winning, Magic Millions 2YO Classic (RL, 1200m) victrix Exhilarates (Snitzel) – was bought by Coolmore with this season’s Golden Slipper winner Shinzo (Snitzel) in utero.
Magnier will be hoping lightning strikes twice with the purchase of Piping Hot who was underbid by Newgate Farm’s Henry Field.
“We were very fortunate with Samaready, so I suppose that gives you confidence to buy these kinds of mares,” Magnier said.
“You need a lot of luck but we couldn’t be more excited about the way the stallions are going, next year we’ve got Shinzo coming through [to stud].”
Three-year-old Coolangatta is a winner of Black Caviar Lightning Stakes (Gr 1, 1000m) and AJ Moir Stakes (Gr 1, 1000m), who also scored in a Gimcrack Stakes (Gr 3, 1000m) and a Magic Millions 2YO Classic early in her career, and she will seek to add to her Group 1 haul in the King’s Stand Stakes (Gr 1, 5f) at Royal Ascot next month.
Consigned by Milburn Creek on behalf of John Warren’s Highclere Australia, Piping Hot has an unraced two-year-old filly called Paradise Point (Dundeel) with Melbourne trainer Lloyd Kennewell, and a weanling sister to Coolangatta.
Piping Hot is a daughter of Group 2 winner Ribe (Danehill) and a half-sister to Blue Diamond Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) winner Reaan (Hussonet).
Warren and his son Jake paid $320,000 for Piping Hot at the 2015 Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale, before the pair sent her to Gai Waterhouse to be trained to win twice from only four starts, which included a Sydney metropolitan victory at two.
Rising ten-year-old Piping Hot’s price tag may have fallen short of what some pundits were suggesting pre-sale, but it didn’t feel that way to Magnier.
“They were all talking that she’d top the sale, but $3 million is still a lot of money, and we’re delighted to have her,” he said.
“Fingers crossed she has a nice foal.”
John Warren was on the Gold Coast for yesterday’s sale.
“It was an emotional rollercoaster in so much that there was a lot of build up and everyone was very excited about her possibilities of going to a good home and we are so grateful to Coolmore,” Warren said.
“It is such a remarkable outfit, they are the best judges and we couldn’t be happier that she is going there with their amazing stallions like Justify, Wootton Bassett and Home Affairs and everything like that … we are thrilled.”
Coolmore’s Pierro (Lonhro) is already the broodmare sire of four stakes winners, headed by Widden’s dual Group 1-winning colt Jacquinot (Rubick), and Magnier said the stallion was a major factor in the purchase of Paris Dior for $1.6 million.
“I think Pierro as a broodmare sire has become a real talking point. He’s doing a great job as a broodmare sire and he’s doing a great job on the racetracks,” he said.
“She’s very good looking and we’ll take her home but the Pierro factor was a big part of the play there.”
Retained to race by her breeders Bill Hilton and Steve Wilde after being passed in at the 2021 Inglis Easter sale with a $300,000 reserve, the Peter and Paul Snowden-trained Paris Dior showed immediate talent, winning her second start at Canterbury in January last year before going on to finish runner-up in the Inglis Millennium (RL, 1100m) behind Xtravagant Star (Xtravagant).
She rounded out her two-year-old season with victory in the $1 million Percy Sykes Stakes (Gr 2, 1200m).
Paris Dior is a daughter of five-time winner Entrancing (Exceed And Excel) and her year younger sister Queen Of Dragons, who is placed at two, charged home from well back in the field to finish fourth in last Saturday’s Bill Carter Stakes (Listed, 1200m) at Doomben for the Snowdens.
Paris Dior’s Lonhro (Octagonal) three-quarter brother was purchased by the Snowdens and agent Will Johnson for $250,000 from the Inglis Easter sale last month.
Xtravagant Star was sold 15 lots earlier for $450,000 to Astute Bloodstock’s Louis Le Metayer and Widden Stud.
Earlier, the sales ring was lit up immediately by Group 2 winner Vangelic (Vancouver), the first lot into the ring, who flew past her conservative six-figure reserve as Coolmore, situated at the back of the parade ring, made its intentions clear with the high-priced acquisition of the rising six-year-old.
There were multiple players on Vangelic as the bidding went past $1 million. Underbidder Harron’s sole play for the mare was at $1.4 million, with the previous three bids having gone up in $50,000 increments, before Magnier took charge with a winning $1.5 million move.
The returning US Triple Crown champion Justify (Scat Daddy), Australia’s champion first season sire-in-waiting, fellow shuttler Wootton Bassett (Iffraaj), Home Affairs (I Am Invincible) and this year’s Golden Slipper winner Shinzo (Snitzel) will all be under consideration for Vangelic in the years to come.
“I suppose the way things are going for us at the moment; Justify is going very well, Wootton Bassett has the favourite (River Tiber) for the two-year-old race at home (Coventry Stakes), he’s going very well, Home Affairs has best the mares in foal [and we’ve got] Shinzo,” Magnier said.
“We’re very fortunate, the position we’re in, so I suppose it gives us and our partners the confidence to go and try and source some of the good mares this week.”
Trained by Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott, the Golden Pendant (Gr 2, 1400m) and Surround Stakes runner-up is a daughter of the stakes-placed Angel Bee (Pins). A winner of almost $1.5 million in prize-money, Vangelic was purchased by her trainers for $400,000 at the 2019 Magic Millions Yearling Sale from the Segenhoe Stud draft.
Magnier said: “It’s a good pedigree, she was just a lovely physical – she was one of the nicest physicals we saw – and she was well rated by all the team.
“Whatever the offspring out of her will sell very well, so we can be excited by that.”
Shades Of Rose heading straight to breeding barn
The team at Arrowfield watched on as million-dollar mare after million-dollar mare went through the ring, without them raising a hand, nodding or winking. That was until Shades Of Rose (Rubick) entered the fray.
At that point John Messara and offsider Jon Freyer got busy, ensuring the Group 2-winning mare “with loads of speed” would join the Arrowfield Stud broodmare band at a cost of $1.6 million.
The Bjorn Baker-trained rising five-year-old will be immediately retired with champion sire Snitzel (Redoute’s Choice) or The Autumn Sun (Redoute’s Choice) the likely maiden matings for the daughter of Rubick (Encosta De Lago).
“She was our number one pick in the sale,” said Freyer, who acknowledged the strength of the market’s pointy end.
“I thought she was the mare to buy. You can never be confident in this market that you can buy anything, irrespective of how you value them and how much money you’re prepared to go to for them, because it’s that type of market.
“But we are really thrilled to be able to get her. We had to stump up for her, but in the fullness of time these high-class mares, they’ll pay you back.”
Bred and raced by Steve Gillard, the Yarraman Park Stud-consigned Shades Of Rose is a winner of the Sheraco Stakes (Gr 2, 1200m) and who ran in The Everest last October and The Quokka (1200m) in Perth in April.
The mare is also a half-sister to Group 3 winner Scallopini (Snitzel), while her dam Rose Of Mulan (More Than Ready) had a filly by Hellbent (I Am Invincible) sell to owner Bruce Mackenzie for $400,000 at last week’s National Weanling Sale.
Magic Millions managing director Barry Bowditch said yesterday’s session lived up to expectations with the auction providing “unbelievable theatre”.
“It was slightly unpredictable at times, which is never a bad thing. We had some very pleasant surprises. All in all, I think there was great participation at the top end of town,” Bowditch said.
“I think most vendors were very, very happy going off the number of inspections they had and it translated into sale prices in the ring.”
Bowditch added: “On the market, I thought Piping Hot was unbelievable value for what she’s potentially got inside her and for what she can continue to produce. Three million dollars is a lot of money, but on the market I thought she was fantastic value.
“I thought we’d have eight million-dollar horses at the start of the day, we’ve had nine. I thought we’d have two, maybe three above $2 million, we’ve had five. They’re big numbers in any horse sale around the world.”
Day two of the Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale will start at 10am.
Sale results – day one
2023 2022 2021
Catalogued 245 250 247
Offered 223 206 198
Sold 192 (86%) 180 (87%) 173 (88%)
Aggregate $50,732,000 (+13%) $44,935,500 $43,753,000
Average $264,229 (+6%) $249,652 $252,997
Median $110,000 (-8%) $120,000 $120,000
Top Lot $4.1 million $4 million $2.6 million
*2021 excludes $25.135 million in turnover for the Shadwell Dispersal