Inglis Premier defies the odds with strong finish in Melbourne
A son of Darley shuttler Ghaiyyath (Dubawi) topped Book 2 and second crop stallions had the top three lots as the Inglis Premier Yearling Sale closed in robust fashion on Tuesday.
Presented by Shadow Hill Thoroughbreds, Lot 702 – a chestnut colt from a winning half-sister to Group 1 placegetter Heart Skipt A Beat (Falvelon) – was bought by Mongolia’s Ganbaatar Dagvadorj for $260,000, which was just $10,000 off the sale’s Book 2 record.
The colt will be headed to Melbourne trainer Danny O’Brien.
Young Yulong shuttler Lucky Vega (Lope De Vega) earned another laurel as the sire of the day’s second top priced yearling in Lot 688, a colt from Yarran Thoroughbreds’ draft who was bought by trainer Joe Pride for $250,000.
The bay is out of a half-sister to I Am Me (I Am Invincible), with his third-dam the dual stakes winner One World (Danehill).
Third went to Lot 754, another colt from Shadow Hill’s draft, this time from the second crop of Widden Victoria’s Doubtland (Not A Single Doubt), bought by St Kilda Lodge and Shane McGrath Bloodstock for $170,000.
As with the better-than-expected results of Book 1, soon after the close of trading the Book 2 results were up on the 2024 Premier sale by most markers.
The average was $44,718, compared with $40,092, the median of $32,000 was up from $30,000, and the gross of $6,573,500 million showed an increase from $6,334,500, with 13 fewer lots sold (145 to 158). The clearance rate for Book 2 was down slightly from 76 to 75 per cent.
Overall, the gross for the three days of the sale stood at $60,275,500 – a 3.5 per cent rise on last year. By late on Tuesday, the Book 1 average was $136,299 – a five per cent rise – while the clearance rate had reached 80 per cent, almost reaching 2024’s figure of 82 per cent.
Inglis Bloodstock CEO Sebastian Hutch was delighted with the three-day sale. Like Inglis Classic only stronger, Premier emphatically defied fears among some vendors of a downturn based on difficulties in the bottom half of the market at Australasia’s first two sales of the year – Magic Millions Gold Coast and Karaka.
“At the end of the day, the Inglis Premier Yearling Sale is the first yearling sale anywhere in Australia in 2025 that has seen an increase in turnover and improved metrics,’’ Hutch said.
“We are very conscious of our responsibility to facilitate the best market that we possibly can for our vendors who work tirelessly to produce quality stock for this sale.
“The support of this sale by the leading Victorian breeders with quality stock is crucial to its success and I think the results here should give breeders confidence that they can bring their best yearlings to this sale and achieve optimum results.
“To have the clearance rate at 80 per cent and climbing for Book 1 is a positive reflection on the depth of a buying bench which has seen incredible local and international participation.
“We are very grateful to the support of this sale by vendors and buyers, it’s not something that we take for granted.”
While the strongest buyer in Australia at present – Yulong’s Zhang Yuesheng – hails from the Chinese province of Inner Mongolia, it was its neighbouring nation – Mongolia proper – which hatched Tuesday’s biggest purchaser, albeit on a far smaller scale.
The Dagvadorj entourage made a concerted play at Premier to find stock for their new partnership with O’Brien. They clearly took a shining to Ghaiyyath, with their two purchases being the Book 2 topper and the $70,000 Lot 468 from Book 1, another son of the Darley stallion, from the family of Group 2 winner, and Group 1-placed, Only Words (End Sweep).
“Mr Dagvadorj is a new client of ours,” O’Brien said. “He and his team have sent a couple of their horse people over from Mongolia to look at (Inglis Premier) and they were impressed with what they saw at Oaklands.”
“They wanted to be strong on this colt and they were.
“He’s a beautiful colt, he was well found by most people who’d looked hard at the Book 2 horses and he was the one that stood right out to us.’’
Shadow Hill’s Kim Alderton described the result as “absolutely super’’.
“I’m over the moon,’’ Alderton said.
“I was really confident he was going to sell well and he doubled his reserve. There was plenty of Asian and domestic interest in him during inspections, he’d had plenty of x-ray hits and scopes so we were pretty confident he’d go well and he certainly did.
“The week has been really good for us, the colts in particular were very well received, plenty of Hong Kong interest, overall it’s been really good, I’m really happy.’’
Meanwhile, the Lucky Vega colt who sold for $250,000 capped off a great sale for Yarran, which cleared 100 per cent of its stock.
“It’s been a really strong sale for us,’’ Yarran’s Chris Stokeld said.
“I’ve been running Yarran for two years now so this is my second [yearling sales] prep, it’s unbelievable. We’ll keep striving to be better and better.
“He’s been really popular this colt, he’s been run off his feet all week and had lots of X-Ray hits, it’s just unreal.’’