Group 1 winner Unforgotten headlines early entries for Inglis’ The Chairman’s Sale
Inglis’ concerted push to ramp up the appeal of its Chairman’s Sale for elite breeding stock and race fillies has been rewarded with vendors already committing a number of high-class broodmares to the 2020 Sydney auction.
Australian Oaks (Gr 1, 2400m) winner Unforgotten (Fastnet Rock) and her Chris Waller-trained stablemate Noire (Foxwedge) as well as mares in foal to I Am Invincible (Invincible Spirit) and Zoustar (Northern Meteor) are among the early entries for the auction.
One of what is tipped to be a scarce number of mares in foal to Coolmore’s unbeaten US Triple Crown winner Justify (Scat Daddy) to enter a southern hemisphere sales ring this year, will also go under the hammer.
The commitments from breeders willing to present blue chip bloodstock comes after the company last month confirmed that it would be conducting The Chairman’s Sale on a zero sales commission basis for the second year in a row.
Inglis introduced the commission structure in a bid to convince breeders to offer high-end mares at Riverside Stables instead of rival auction house Magic Millions just weeks later, a move that resulted in Loving Gaby’s (I Am Invincible) dam Maastricht (Mastercraftsman) making $2.25 million and dual Group 1 winner Srikandi (Dubawi) fetching $2 million.
The select catalogue of 58 lots averaged $422,455 with a clearance rate of 93 per cent.
Inglis last night revealed that the owners of Unforgotten had entered the rising five-year-old mare for The Chairman’s Sale, providing an immediate drawcard for a global buying bench.
“It’s easy to talk up a horse who has won at Group 1 level but when people see her she’s got size, she’s got strength, she’s got the temperament and she’s got those bloodlines that everyone’s desperate for and that’s the combination of Fastnet Rock and Galileo bloodlines that have done the job,’’ Waller said.
“She’s a great horse to train because she’s got power, she could cope with her early life of being a three-year-old in Group 1 races and backed it up as a four-year-old in weight for age races. She made a name for herself.’
Unforgotten, who is a sister to the stakes-placed Special Memories, is one of three winners out of Irish mare Memories Of You (Galileo) who herself is a half-sister to European Group 1 winner Matiara (Bering), Group 2 winners Pyrus (Mr Prospector) and Marathon (Diesis) as well as Listed winner Precious Ring (Bering).
Unforgotten is back in work and is likely to resume in the Emancipation Stakes (Gr 2, 1500m) at Rosehill on March 28.
Inglis bloodstock sales and marketing general manager Sebastian Hutch believes Unforgotten is “a pretty special mare”.
“She was a beautiful sales yearling, has an outstanding pedigree and the ability to match. It’s very rare that the various criteria line up in a package like that,” Hutch said.
“She’s one of the desirable breeding prospects in Australasia and she will almost certainly have international appeal with her pedigree.”
Star Thoroughbreds’ Group 2-winning mare Noire will be given her chance to improve her race record before being put through the sales ring, with Waller in no doubt that the Foxwedge (Fastnet Rock) mare is deserving of a Group 1 performance appearing on her pedigree page.
“She’s a very good horse, Noire. She never had a lot of luck in the Group 1s and I’m really disappointed she has not yet got a Group 1 placing at least because she really does deserve that,” he said.
Noire is a three-quarter sister to the stakes-placed Global Dream (Fastnet Rock) who in turn has already made an impact as a broodmare after producing this season’s high-class ATC Breeders’ Plate (Gr 3, 1000m) winner Global Quest (More Than Ready).
One of an enviable batch of two-year-olds owned by Aquis Farm, the Waller-trained Global Quest remains near the top of Golden Slipper Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) calculations after Saturday’s first-up second in the Canonbury Stakes (Gr 3, 1100m) at Randwick.
Noire has won seven of her 29 starts and $584,745 in prize-money after being purchased at the 2015 Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale for $135,000.
Meanwhile, prominent Western Australian owner and breeder Bob Peters will offer six-time stakes winner Celebrity Dream (Thorn Park) in foal to Justify at The Chairman’s Sale.
A NZ$260,000 New Zealand Bloodstock National Yearling Sale graduate, Celebrity Dream is a half-sister to stakes winners Vavasour (Redoute’s Choice), Vilanova (Commands) and the Group 1-placed Roger James and Robert Wellwood-trained mare Rondinella (Ocean Park).
Hutch revealed that Peters floated the idea of offering Celebrity Dream at the Chairman’s Sale last spring when the mare was in training with Waller and he was confident that being in foal to Justify would be a significant selling point.
“Celebrity Dream was a spectacularly good yearling and she is in foal to a pretty special horse in an international context,” he said.
“I don’t expect there to be a lot of pregnancies on the market to that horse and, from what I hear, there was great demand for him, so it is great to have a mare like that in the sale.”
The Group 1-placed pair Arabian Gold (Dubawi) and Volks Lightning (Volksraad) will also be offered at The Chairman’s Sale, in foal with early September covering dates to I Am Invincible and Zoustar respectively.
Heritage Bloodstock paid $900,000 for Arabian Gold when sold by Element Hill at the 2018 Magic Millions Gold Coast National Broodmare Sale, while agent Paul Guy went to $270,000 at last year’s Queensland auction for Volks Lightning. The pair are being offered by T J S Bloodstock.
Arabian Gold, who was raced by Nick Moratis, has a colt at foot by Snitzel (Redoute’s Choice) while 2019 was Volks Lightning’s first year at stud.
This year’s Chairman’s Sale will be held on Friday May 8, seven days later than last year, in part to avoid a clash with the Kentucky Derby (Gr 1, 10f), allowing American investors to attend the auction.
Hutch said the company would deliberately keep the sale to a select offering but hoped to increase the size of the catalogue slightly.
“It’s obviously a moveable beast and last year we were in the fortunate position where we got great support but we were very particular about what we felt we could offer and achieve a good result with,” he said.
“It’s something that we are conscious of getting right. We don’t want to make any mistakes with it. The sale worked really well in the format last year, so we don’t want to change too much.”