Mills smells the roses after Daisies sells to Yulong for $920,000
Ultra’s Buckley buys King Colorado’s dam More Aspen for $720,000 in strong Inglis Digital auction
Sheamus Mills is no stranger to buying and selling high-priced horses but he admitted yesterday to being as nervous as he’s ever been.
The Victorian bloodstock agent had a hand in the two of the three highest-priced lots of the Inglis Digital June (Late) Online Sale, selling $920,000 Group 2 winner Daisies (Sebring) and the Group 3 winner Literary Magnate (Written Tycoon) who made $640,000.
The two rising five-year-old mares were purchased by Yulong’s Zhang Yuesheng, whose quest for breeding stock remains unsatisfied despite a years-long international investment amounting to tens of millions of dollars.
More Aspen (More Than Ready), the dam of this year’s JJ Atkins Stakes (Gr 1, 1600m) winner King Colorado (Kingman) and who is in foal to Maschino (Encosta De Lago), also sold for $720,000 to Ultra Thoroughbreds’ Sean Buckley, while New Zealand stakes-placed mare Not Guilty (Not A Single Doubt) made $480,000 to Hunter Valley Bloodstock.
A half-sister to ATC Golden Pendant (Gr 2, 1400m) winner Subpoenaed (Rip Van Winkle), Not Guilty is currently back in work at Cambridge with trainer Tony Pike.
Mills, meanwhile, co-owned the Mick Price and Mick Kent Jnr-trained Daisies, a Stocks Stakes (Gr 2, 1600m) winner who also scored twice at Group 3 level, while he purchased Northwood Plume Stakes (Gr 3, 1200m) winner Literary Magnate as a yearling for Warrnambool-based trainer Matthew Williams.
He acted as selling agent for the connections of both mares.
“It is a different feeling to selling one through a live auction, I have got to say. It’s a much slower burn, so you’ve got a bit more time to question yourself or get nervous and all of the above,” Mills told ANZ Bloodstock News.
“It was a different experience, so I am pretty happy with how it all worked out,”
Daisies, a $250,000 Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale purchase from the Widden Stud draft, earned $553,000 in prize-money in her 15 starts in which she won three.
She had one start last campaign, at Flemington in March, and has not raced since.
“She has been a great horse to race. I have said that of all the horses I have raced, she is one I would have kept hold of,” Mills said.
“I don’t think I’ve raced one more determined than her. A couple of times, particularly in her wins at Moonee Valley, she put her head in gaps that didn’t exist, so she was a really fun horse to race and I think she’ll be a brilliant mother.
“She’s got more personality than any horse I’ve owned and I think she’ll really look after her foals and if she can put a little bit of her own intestinal fortitude into them, she’ll reward them in spades.”
Mills was also relieved after Literary Magnate, a $135,000 Inglis Classic Yearling Sale graduate who won $520,000 in her 14 career starts, was sold with a significant price tag.
“Matty Williams has been a great supporter of mine and he was one of the first people to use me when I went out on my own and we’ve had a good bit of success together and, funnily enough, I felt a lot more pressure selling her than I did with Daisies,” the Melbourne-based agent said.
“I just really wanted her to sell well for him. He put a good group of owners together [headed by Australian Thoroughbred Bloodstock’s Darren Dance]. When I bought her, I remember he had no owners for her and it was a little bit of a stretch of the budget.
“He got her syndicated … so it was more relief for her to sell well because I knew all the backstory.
“I was rapt to see her get what I thought was a pretty fair price.”
Hours later, in an almost 11-hour online auction, Ultra Thoroughbreds’ Buckley purchased More Aspen for the second-highest figure of the late June digital sale.
Western Australian-based owner and breeder Kim Doak, along with Ascot-based trainer Luke Fernie, paid $42,500 for More Aspen in foal to Pride Of Dubai (Street Cry) in 2021, but following the rapid emergence of King Colorado over the past six weeks, they chose to cash in on the rising value of the mare.
Buckley was thrilled to be able to buy the mare.
“For her to have produced a Group 1 winner so early in her career is an unbelievable achievement so who knows how far she can go as a broodmare,” he said.
“We’ll foal down the Maschino foal and then decide who we send her to next but there are plenty of options.”
Doak had received significant private offers from bloodstock agents to sell More Aspen, so he was delighted with last night’s result.
“It’s crazy, absolutely crazy, I don’t know what to say,’’ Doak said.
“I still can’t quite believe what’s just happened. You hear about these stories and hope that one day it might be you and today was our day.
“I’m totally grateful to Sinead [Flannery], Chris [Russell] and the entire Inglis team, the service has been incredible and has totally vindicated our decision to use the platform to sell this mare.
“The last hour we’ve all been sitting at a restaurant together with an iPad on the table watching it all unfold as the bidding went up and up and up.’’
More Aspen’s Pride Of Dubai colt sold for a record Magic Millions Perth Winter Yearling Sale price of $260,000 to trainer Bjorn Baker and his Hong Kong-based client on Sunday.