Nolen quietly ‘confident’ ahead of Magic Millions HIT Sale
Inspections hit full swing on the Gold Coast on Wednesday ahead of Thursday’s Magic Millions Horses In Training Sale, with vendors reporting solid interest across a varied catalogue.
With 230 lots on offer – predominantly two-year-olds with the addition of 20 more mature racing prospects – the sale once again gives buyers opportunity to secure well-bred ready-to-race horses.
A top vendor at last year’s sale, where their 12 lots grossed $1.17 million, Nolen Racing have returned with a quality 18-strong draft highlighted by two well-bred sons of Coolmore’s first-season sire St Mark’s Basilica (Siyouni).
While acknowledging the market will be competitive, there was a clear sense of confidence within the Nolan Racing camp about the strength and preparation of their draft.
“I think it’ll be a tough sale, a buyers’ sale, but I’m reasonably confident,” Nolen Racing representative John Jeffs told ANZ News.
“Inspections have been frantic today [Wednesday]. They had been quiet leading up to yesterday afternoon but today has been frantic which is a great barometer.
“I have got 18 lovely horses, and they’ll be on the market early and we’ll be hoping for the best. We don’t have huge expectations, they will be on the market early, but we’re confident in what we’ve got.
“We have two lovely St Mark’s Basilicas and a lovely Cosmic Force, and I’ve also got a lovely Written By colt. Generally speaking, I’ve got a very good draft.
The first of the colts by St Mark’s Basilica, a sire who welcomed his first Group 1 winner over the weekend when Diamond Necklace dominated in the Prix Marcel Boussac (Gr 1, 1600m), is Lot 17 out of Mediation (Azamour).
Purchased for $60,000 Book 2 of Magic Millions’ flagship yearling sale in January, his dam is a half-sister to Listed winner Saltonstall (Pivotal), that pair each out of Group 2-winning mare Macleya (Winged Love).
Meanwhile, Lot 65 out of Lonhro (Octagonal) mare Secret Mak was a $50,000 purchase at the Magic Millions Perth Yearling Sale. The dam is a half-sister to four stakes winners, including Railway Stakes (Gr 1, 1600m) heroine Covertly (Metal Storm).
Jeffs said the colts were quite imposing types.
“Lot 17, the chestnut has got ‘Derby’ written all over him,” he said. “He just looks a stayer, where Lot 65 looks more like a runner. He looks like a six-furlong to a mile horse.”
The Nolen draft also includes a colt by Newgate Farm’s Stay Inside (Extreme Choice) (Lot 183) out of the unraced All Too Hard (Casino Prince) mare Kisses For Chloe, herself a half-sister to Hong Kong Group 1 winner Green Birdie (Catbird), as well as a colt by champion first-season sire Ole Kirk (Written Tycoon) (Lot 173), who was purchased for $100,000 at the Magic Millions National Yearling Sale earlier this year.
“The Stay Inside is not overly big but neither is his sire, he’s been very popular but his size might hold him back a little,” Jeffs said. “But he is a lovely horse. The Ole Kirk is lovely, and the sire is the flavour of the month.”
Jeffs said the horses in training sale remains an important outlet for pinhookers, providing a platform to showcase the yearlings they’ve selected and developed specifically for this market.
He said: “It is a pinhookers market because the pinhookers go out and select the ones they really think ‘oh, he’ll be alright’ [for the breeze up sales], some of the others, maybe they couldn’t get into another sale, but it is a pinhooker’s sale.”
Echoing that sentiment, Glen X Lodge’s Ash Glencross said the sale continues to serve as an important outlet for pinhookers and middle-market buyers alike.
A top-five vendor at last year’s edition, Glencross has brought a more compact draft to this year’s sale, aimed squarely at the strong, value-driven segment that underpins the market.
“I’m reasonably confident, this sale is very much a middle market sale and most of our clients have prepared in a way that they’ve brought the right sorts of horses that will fit this sale, and that’s the most important – knowing your clientele, knowing who’s coming to purchase and trying to provide that for them,” Glencross told ANZ.
“The draft this year is probably a bit different, the last few years I’ve had quite a large draft. To be honest, I was trying to produce horses that would create more interest for the Hong Kong market, so I was looking for some higher-end two-year-olds to present.
“I struggled to get my hands on those personally as a buyer, as you have the traders that have been doing it a long time and have a better market who were beating me to it. So my draft this year is probably more fitting for the general market, the Chinese market, Malaysia and Korea – they’re here looking at a few horses.”
Glencross said she would like to see stronger engagement from domestic buyers, believing the international market is less likely to overlook the potential of slower-maturing horses who didn’t capture attention as yearlings.
“I think the problem is sometimes the domestic market sees these horses younger when they haven’t quite blossomed and they write them off a bit,” she said. “It would be good to see the domestic interest grow and know that there are vendors like myself who are buying horses to produce, and come back and give those horses they maybe weren’t interested in as a yearling a second chance.”
A standout for Glen X is Lot 3, a colt by Widden Stud’s Gold Standard (Sebring) out of winning I Am Invincible (Invincible Spirit) mare La Isla Bonita.
“He was purchased as a baby online and the owner got him for an absolute steal [$2,500],” Glencross said.
“We broke him in earlier in the year and he’s just blossomed with every preparation. He’s very much a ready made racehorse. He breezed up 10.35 seconds very easy and was constantly improving throughout his breeze.
“I thought he was the smokey horse coming into it but no, he’s very much been recognised. He has paraded very well and his temperament is exceptional so it’ll be very interesting to see how he does tomorrow.”
Also among Glen X Lodge’s offerings is Lot 191, an Anders (Not A Single Doubt) filly out of Rose Of Traveston (Show A Heart), a winning sister to Group 2 winner Vo Heart.
The filly is one of 11 horses catalogued this year as part of the sale’s growing three-year-old section, introduced in 2024 to broaden its appeal.
“The three-year-old I have is a stable favourite, she’s an exceptional filly. She’s ready to go and I think will thrive anywhere she goes,” Glencross said.
Magic Millions managing director Barry Bowditch told ANZ that the 2025 catalogue reflected the strong level of planning and intent from vendors.
“From a catalogue perspective we worked hard to ensure our pinhookers got a really good crack at the yearling market this year and when we got to the breeze ups, I thought they were a really good line of breeze ups,” he said.
“Now we’ve had a good look, we’ve seen a lot of nice, well-conformed horses here that have been earmarked for this sale from the time they were purchased. From what I can gather on the ground, people are finding horses they like that have had all the education they need to be able to go to the races.
“Whether you’re here or abroad there’s a massive opportunity to be able to purchase at a value number.”
Bowditch said the three-year-old section had quickly found its place in the catalogue, appealing to both local and international buyers seeking immediate track prospects.
“This is our second year doing the three-year-old section, we’ve got some horses that are further along the line, really educated and the time is now for them to run,” he said. “We know from an international perspective, they like that, so we suspect there will be a good market there for them.
“Westbury Stud have a good line of older horses being sold from New Zealand, some of them have had some great updates since the catalogue was printed. That’s just a new dimension, something Gerry Harvey and Luke McDonald came up with and we’re giving it a go. Hopefully the internationals that are here will pay attention to them as horses that are winning and competing right now. That’s just another facet to the sale we thought was well worth trying.”
He acknowledged that international participation, particularly from Asia, remains a key driver of the sale, with buyers valuing Australia’s education system and transparency. The strength of recent northern hemisphere markets, he added, has also set an encouraging tone heading into Thursday’s auction.
“It aligns itself very well with Asia and they play a significant role,” Bowditch said. “There’s a lot more to see before they buy the horse. From a domestic perspective, I think there will be good participation but I think the international market will be the strongest part.
“It’s our first two-year-old sale of the year in this part of the world and we’re looking at the sales in the north and it’s been an incredible year up there thus far,” he said. “You hope that it all aligns and the confidence we’re seeing abroad continues.
“We’re coming off a very solid yearling sale series in our own right, so the industry here – prize-money is strong, the racing’s getting stronger week on week during the Spring Carnival – it’s an exciting time. There’s no better country and no better time to get involved in this great sport.”