‘It is the premier sale in Australia when it comes to its graduates’
Magic Millions is banking on the auction house’s continued evolution and investment in its rich race series and the company’s impressive graduate success as it rolls out the red carpet to Australasia’s breeders ahead of the 2024 sales season.
Barry Bowditch, the business’ managing director, is confident Magic Millions can attract a significant number of the best-credentialed horses – and a buying bench to back it up – for the company’s flagship Gold Coast Yearling Sale next year and the array of sales it conducts around the country.
The Magic Millions 2YO Classic (RL, 1200m) and the Magic Millions 3YO Guineas (RL, 1400m), the signature events at the lucrative raceday, will each be worth $3 million in prize-money next year and spearhead a bumper 11-race card to be run at the redeveloped Gold Coast racecourse, which coincides with the January 9 to 15 sale.
The inaugural $1 million Magic Millions National 2YO Classic (1000m) will also be run in 2024 while the $5.25 million night race meeting on the Gold Coast, to be held on the eve of the Magic Millions raceday, will begin in 2025.
“Vendors can be rest assured that when you’ve got a sale that, for the past five years, has practically increased in average and held its clearance rate from anywhere between 89 and 94 per cent for those years, it gives them a lot faith they can bring their best product to our sale,” Bowditch said.
“Whether it be at the small end of town or the big end of town, we’ve got a big buying bench willing to participate on those horses and our race series gives buyers confidence to attend our sale.”
In officially calling for entries for its sales series yesterday, Magic Millions also confirmed it had shaken up the schedule for four of its other yearling sales in 2024, bringing forward the Perth sale to the week before Tasmania’s one-day offering, while the March sale on the Gold Coast and the Adelaide sales have also switched dates.
The Adelaide sale has, up until next year, been held on Tuesday and Wednesday after the Monday Labour Day and Adelaide Cup public holiday in March, but in 2024 it will be conducted on March 18 and 19, a week later than normal.
“With Tasmania, it always blends in well with the Launceston Cup carnival and that’s the main reason why it’s where it is and, last year, we had the Perth sale on a Thursday and Friday post the [Magic Millions WA] race day and that worked extremely well,” Bowditch revealed.
“We weren’t going to tamper with that, so we thought we’d have a weekend of sales, so to speak, with Thursday, Friday in Perth and Monday in Tasmania and it’ll dovetail in really well, we think, to have those blending off each other.
“One is front-ended by Pinjarra [races] and the other one back-ended by the Launceston Cup, which is fantastic.”
The change to the Adelaide sale date will also provide an extra week between it and the Inglis Melbourne Premier Yearling Sale, auctions which both rely heavily on a strong Victorian buying bench while numerous vendors also support both states’ sales.
Magic Millions canvassed buyers and vendors at this year’s Adelaide sale about the prospect of moving away from the popular Labour Day weekend and the response was overwhelmingly positive as it would give the two-day Morphettville-based auction “a bit of breathing space”.
“I think from an industry perspective, having buyers’ focus and full engagement in the sale is important. Prize-money’s going up in Adelaide and things in South Australia are moving ahead,” Bowditch said.
“Instead of the sale being right on the heels of the Adelaide Cup, we believe it’ll be a lot easier for trainers and agents to get to Adelaide and be prepared for the sale and the March sale will work very well in its own right, too, being a Queensland-focused sale, but an auction that’ll also be marketed elsewhere.”
What will not be changing is the format of Magic Millions’ premium sale in early January, which earlier this year set a new record for the highest-priced yearling sold at the auction, at $2.7 million.
“When you look at the graduate success of January, it is quite extraordinary. No sale has had the Group 1 winners [15 this season] or the number of stakes winners, you can’t compare any other to this sale,” the Magic Millions managing director said.
“It is the premier sale in Australia when it comes to its graduates. Buyers come back to where they do well and that’s January.”
The January Magic Millions sale, the first on the Australasian calendar each year, could be perceived to be at an advantage with the Gold Coast the first opportunity for buyers to acquire yearlings for the new season.
Bowditch didn’t hide from this assertion, declaring: “We can ensure our vendors are paid first”.
“They will get first crack at the money and they’ll get paid before they get paid from any other sale and that’s important,” Bowditch said.
“We are far from being in dire times, but the economic climate has weakened a little bit and having first crack at the participants’ money that is going to be won over the spring in the big prize-money races and, as I say, there’s the dream of running on our race day, which is worth some $15 million.
“It gives the buyers a lot of confidence to bid strongly at our sale and, therefore, gives the vendors, I would like to think, confidence to sell their best stock at our sale.”
Entries for the 2024 Magic Millions yearling sale series close on Friday, August 18, the same date entries close for rival Inglis’s sales series.
Nominations for the New Zealand Bloodstock Karaka Yearling Sale were due to close on July 7.