‘We don’t feel any more pressure than normal and we want to do well at every sale we go to’
All eyes on Inglis as countdown to Classic is well underway
Sebastian Hutch has dismissed suggestions Inglis is facing extra pressure heading into its first auction of 2021, the Classic Yearling Sale, after the company’s arch-rival achieved record results at the season-opener on the Gold Coast last month.
The Riverside Stables three-day sale, starting tomorrow, could provide further evidence of almost unprecedented demand for young racing stock in Australia if Classic continues the upward trend set by Magic Millions in January following a year of uncertainty caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
However, if the first of three select Inglis yearling sales scheduled for this year does not live up to stakeholders’ expectations, it could put the spotlight firmly on the intense battle for market share between the two Australian auction houses.
Hutch, Inglis’ general manager of bloodstock sales and marketing, did not see the inevitable comparisons between the Gold Coast sale and Classic as an issue.
“Genuinely, we don’t feel any more pressure than normal and we want to do well at every sale we go to,” Hutch told ANZ Bloodstock News yesterday.
“There are processes we work through to try and mitigate the risk of things not going well and we do everything that we can throughout the year to try and maximise the buying power at each of our sales.
“Certainly on the evidence of inspections and the feedback from vendors, it feels like there’s going to be good representation from buyers on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.”
The 620-lot Book 1 catalogue, which is followed by the Highway Session on Tuesday, and the record of Classic graduates has Hutch optimistic about what will occur in the coming days.
“It is a sale that caters for a very broad cross-section of buyers, maybe more so than any other sale in Australia. You can buy Group 1 winners for ten and 20 grand here and similarly buy Everest winners for $400,000,” he said.
“We have a well diversified catalogue which appeals to people looking for any profile of horse, whether it’s a two-year-old, a stayer, a filly with a pedigree or a colt who can go on and be a stallion and we are delighted to see so many people here.
“There are more people arriving and there are also a lot of people who are going to be represented from afar by agents, trainers and consultants.
“At this stage the sentiment seems positive and we are looking forward to a good sale.”
Melbourne Group 1-winning trainer Lloyd Kennewell, who has been at Riverside Stables this week inspecting yearlings with agent Mathew Becker of Group 1 Bloodstock, remains uncertain about market expectations for the Sydney sale but knows the long-held view of the Classic sale has changed significantly in recent years.
“At Classic you used to be able to come in and buy a cheap horse for not a lot of money, but over the past few years Classic sale prices have shot up,” Kennewell said.
“This year is a different year, so I don’t know what to expect really … but having said that, I don’t think there’s any stone left unturned (by buyers) to get to a yearling sale now.
“Everyone’s got someone with eyes there looking at horses for them and that’s what it is all about. No horses really get through the cracks these days.”
James Mitchell, one half of the father-and-son Mitchell Bloodstock team, described the catalogue “as a typical Classic sale” with the opportunity for traders to enter the market.
“We have had a bit of luck trading (out of Classic). We had a Capitalist gelding who we sold at the Inglis breeze-up sale (in October for $550,000),” Mitchell said yesterday.
“We will probably look to do that again, but we learnt a few things from that sale and we will certainly be looking to refine our selection process this year.
“Proven stallions are a key and we will probably be pretty hard on them because we’re unsure how the market is going to hold up throughout the year.
“But by the way it feels out here, it’s going to be a reasonably strong sale again,”
Newgate Farm stud manager Jim Carey has overseen the Hunter Valley operation’s 30 yearlings being offered at the Classic sale and he is confident their horses will attract strong buyer attention after the benchmark was set at the Gold Coast.
He points to Newgate’s growing reputation as a farm producing elite racehorses – which includes last year’s Classic graduate, Inglis Millennium (RL, 1100m) favourite Profiteer (Capitalist), and 2018 Group 1-winning flagbearer Shadow Hero (Pierro) – as well as a high number of on-farm inspections in the lead-up to tomorrow’s sale.
“We have a fantastic bunch of two-year-old winners from our yearling crop from last year and we couldn’t be happier with how everything is going,” Carey said.
“We raise our yearlings as naturally as possible. There is very little time spent in stables. All the fillies are out together and they are just being racehorses and I think that is ringing true on the racetrack with our success over the past few years.”
The $2 million Inglis Millennium will be run for the third time today and for the first time at Randwick. Hutch believes the two-year-old race and the supporting $1 million Inglis 3YO Sprint (1100m) is a great advertisement for the company’s sale graduates.
“I think what the raceday and race series does very effectively is highlight the quality of horses you can buy at Inglis sales as a whole,” he said.
“When you look at the three-year-old race it is effectively a Group 1 race in all but name with arguably Sydney’s best three-year-old filly Dame Giselle and Australia’s most valuable racehorse in Australia, Ole Kirk, are both in it, so it is a proper race.
“I also have great respect for what a guy like (form analyst) Daniel O’Sullivan says, so when he said what he said about Profiteer (being comparable to Extreme Choice), it’s hard not to take note of that, so it looks significant that he is in the Millennium.
“There are a number of unexposed horses in the race and it helps build momentum for our sales series, absolutely.”
Day one of the Classic sale starts at 10am tomorrow.