Overseas investors expected to spice up National Yearling Sale

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Top end of the market to remain strong as buyers from Asia and Hong Kong make presence felt on the Gold Coast

There is an air of trepidation ahead of the opening session of the Magic Millions National Yearling Sale as vendors reach “the end of the line” of the sales season, but an influx of overseas buyers and a selection of quality horses has the auction house remaining optimistic about the two-day offering.

Magic Millions managing director Barry Bowditch was not hiding from what could transpire over the next two days, but he forecasted that quality horses will be well found in a potential buyers’ market.

“All in all, it’s been a great yearling sale season for Magic Millions and it’s been a great couple of weeks on the Gold Coast,” Bowditch said yesterday. 

“In saying that, we feel the yearling market is becoming quite selective as the year’s gone on and I expect more of the same here.

“We walk into it with some trepidation.”

However, Bowditch was buoyed by the number of internationals who had been undertaking inspections in recent days.

“It is a sale where vendors are very motivated to sell. It’s the end of the line from the yearling market perspective and I would have thought that the market will find plenty of value. I urge people who aren’t here to touch base and make a plan because there will be some bargains here,” he said.

“We’ve also got some quality horses who will sell very well and, as we’ve seen at all sales this year, if you’ve got the right product you get paid properly. That’ll be the same again here.” 

The National sale will give buyers the opportunity to buy the progeny of stallions including reigning champion I Am Invincible (Invincible Spirit) and the likely champion first season sire Justify (Scat Daddy), as well as Extreme Choice (Not A Single Doubt), Capitalist (Written Tycoon), Rubick (Encosta De Lago), All Too Hard (Casino Prince) and The Autumn Sun (Redoute’s Choice). 

There are also six yearlings by Lyndhurst Stud Farm’s Better Than Ready (More Than Ready) who on Sunday became the first stallion in Queensland thoroughbred breeding industry to have progeny earnings of more than $10 million in a season.

The sire of this year’s Magic Millions 2YO Classic (RL, 1200m) winner Skirt The Law and 14 other juvenile winners in 2022-23, Better Than Ready has sired 128 winners in Australia so far this season while his five crops of racing age had banked $10.33 million.

Lyndhurst Stud’s Jeff Kruger yesterday marveled at the success of Better Than Ready, a great moneyspinner for all concerned.

“I did a little bit of research last week and Racing Queensland has now paid out on 80 individual QTIS winners (by Better Than Ready) in the past 12 months – that’s massive, really, it’s big numbers,” Kruger told ANZ Bloodstock News.

“I say it all the time, if the Queensland trainers aren’t looking at a Better Than Ready, they’re not trying hard enough to find a winner.”

He added: “Right from the first year, the very first horses to jump and have their trials were the likes of Better Reflection and Jagged Edge, and they duly won those two stakes races, the Calaway Gal and the Phelan Ready, so ever since then his two-year-olds have just been fantastic.

“On Saturday, he had a runner in the Queensland Derby (The Vowels), which would have been his first Derby runner, and Apache Chase won the Kingsford Smith last year as a four-year-old and he had another runner this year in Alpine Edge, so they certainly do train on.”

Lyndhurst has a draft of 19 horses at the last live eastern-state yearling sale of the season. Described by Kruger as a “mixed bag”, the Warwick-based stud’s offering includes colts by Zousain (Zoustar), Yes Yes Yes (Rubick) and Showtime (Snitzel) as well as fillies by Russian Revolution (Snitzel), Exceedance (Exceed And Excel) and Encryption (Lonhro).

“As with most drafts, there are a few horses at this sale who have got their convictions but the interest [in them] is good,” the studmaster said. 

“We had a busy day on Sunday with inspections. Magic Millions has done a great job getting the Asian buyers here, particularly from Singapore. Nearly every trainer [from Singapore] is here from what I have seen, so we are looking forward to it.”

Singapore buyers purchased 21 yearlings from last year’s National sale; the Philippines accounted for 22 and New Zealand traders bought 13 horses in 2022, while Hong Kong buyers took away six yearlings at an average of more than $100,000. 

Reigning Singapore champion trainer Tim Fitzsimmons, counterpart Stephen Gray, Alwin Tan, David Kok have all made the trip to the Gold Coast. Incoming Hong Kong trainer Mark Newnham was also at the Bundall complex yesterday ahead of his maiden season at Sha Tin.

International buyers will again play an important role in the depth of the buying bench, which also includes a contingent of country trainers such as Cody Morgan, Brett Cavanough, Keith Dryden and NSW Country Championships-winning trainer Gary Colvin.

Wattle Bloodstock’s Peter Twomey, who has a strong client base from Singapore and Hong Kong, was absent from the National weanling and broodmare sales but has come to the Gold Coast for the yearling sale.

Twomey visited the two Asian racing jurisdictions over the past couple of weeks canvassing clients in the lead up to the two-day sale and received a positive reception in both cities.

“It was good to get up there for Kranji Mile race day (in Singapore). I haven’t been up there for a couple of years and there was a bit of a buzz about the place,” Twomey said. 

“Level three [of the grandstand] with all the owners was absolutely packed. It was a million-dollar race and it was great to see people there and then I came back with a bit more positivity and people are keen to get back buying horses.”

Twomey, who previously worked as Inglis’s Asia representative based in Singapore before launching his independent agency Wattle Bloodstock, also suggested that Hong Kong owners were looking more closely at the Australasian yearling market to source horses.

“The level of interest for PP (private purchase) permits seems to have died off a little bit compared to the past few years, but there is really big interest in yearlings, two-year-olds and trial winners to go up and fill PPG (private purchase griffin) permits, which is for the untried horses,” Twomey said.

“That’s probably because it’s been really hard to find tried horses in Australia and New Zealand. 

“With great prize-money (in Australia), it’s getting quite expensive, so that market is shifting a little bit to untried and trial winners to go up to Hong Kong.”

Day one of the National Yearling Sale will start at 10am.