Zoustar reigns on opening day as his Queen heads to Moody
Widden Stud stallion secures top lot honours as strong metrics set tone for busy week’s trade at Magic Millions
Peter Moody’s return as a force in Australian racing took another leap as he claimed the top lot on a booming, fillies-dominated opening session, described as the strongest day one in Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale history.
Less than two years after his comeback to training, and on the heels of his headlining spring with Incentivise, Moody took the front-running late in the day by paying $950,000 for a daughter of Zoustar – the hottest sire of the session – out of the speedster he formerly trained, Karuta Queen.
With Tuesday’s top four lots being female, Moody’s buy edged ahead of three to make $900,000: another filly by Zoustar (Northern Meteor) out of Gold And Diamonds (Fastnet Rock) bought by Ciaron Maher and David Eustace; a daughter of dual Group 1 winner Global Glamour (Star Witness) by exciting first season sire Justify (Scat Daddy) purchased by the dam’s former trainer Gai Waterhouse, and an I Am Invincible-Harlem River (Fastnet Rock) filly which fell to Sheamus Mills Bloodstock.
Widden’s flagbearer Zoustar was the top sire with eight lots grossing $3.745 million – just shy of a million more than first-season The Autumn Sun (Redoute’s Choice) in second spot through nine lots – with Zoustar’s $468,125 average topped only by I Am Invincible’s (Invincible Spirit) $486,000 through five sales.
The session’s figures outstripped last year’s day one in all key areas, and topped the average and median through the conclusion of Book 1 in 2021 – the strongest Gold Coast sale ever held – in what Magic Millions managing director Barry Bowditch said was more evidence of racing’s almost unique boom through the pandemic.
The day one average price was $272,044 – up 9.3 per cent from 2021 day one figure of $246,783, while across Book 1 last year’s average was $251,095. The median of $215,000 topped corresponding marks of $170,000 and $180,000, underlying the depth to an opening day’s trade that presented as strong, despite not clawing beyond the $1 million barrier.
Day one’s gross of $40.26 million eclipsed 2021’s $35.24 million, while a clearance rate of 91 per cent outshone last year’s 85 per cent.
“Racing is engaging a lot more people,” Bowditch said of the sport’s privileged position compared with most sectors of society through the prevailing Covid-19 crisis. “It’s just getting stronger and stronger and hopefully the confidence there in today’s sale keeps going for the next six days.
“This would be the strongest day one we’ve ever had.”
After spirited bidding through 148 sold lots, and after Waterhouse and Justify had laid an early claim to top billing, it was Moody who stole the show with the ninth-last buy of the session.
With words echoing those he used of his purchase of Black Caviar (Bel Esprit), he said he “just had to have” Lot 172, an imposing filly offered by the Strawberry Hill operation of John Singleton, who raced the dam Karuta Queen (Not A Single Doubt) with him for her last five starts. These included a second to Black Caviar in the William Reid Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m), following an earlier second to Moody’s unbeaten champion at Group 2 level, plus a Group 3 win of her own in the Australia Stakes (Gr 3, 1200m) at Moonee Valley.
“She’s a beautiful filly,” Moody told ANZ Bloodstock News. “Like we always say, I paid more than I probably expected for her but she was just a filly that I wanted to take home.
“I didn’t have a budget. I haven’t got an owner for her either! So we’ll play it by ear.
“She’s got a great girth, great hip, and just has a real presence about her.
“I trained her mum at the back end of her career and she was just a bloody nice filly. And I’ve had a bit of luck with the Zoustars since I’ve returned to training, like Lightsaber, who was good to us last year, and quite a few others.
“We’re a much smaller operation these days and try to work on the quality rather than the quantity,” said Moody, who came here with 188 horses on his books, and now has 189.
“Let’s hope she adds a bit of quality to the stable, as I’m sure she will.”
Karuta Queen was bred by Moody’s associate and friend Stuart Ramsey, and her pairing with Zoustar effects one of the Turangga Farm maven’s most coveted blends – the cross of 1960s full brothers Biscay (Star Kingdom) and Star Of Heaven, also borne by Zoustar’s most famous daughter, Sunlight, among others.
A winner of six from 20 and $1.86 million, Karuta Queen has thrown two winners from three foals to race including Listed-winning filly Eawase (Sebring).
Coolmore’s highly touted first season sire Justify landed with a splash through the first Australian lot of the year – and his first on offer in the southern hemisphere – a Coolmore colt who’s the first foal of speedy stakes winner Eckstein (I Am Invincible). He was bought for $450,000 by a syndicate led by the China Horse Club’s Teo Ah Khing, in whose colours the US Triple Crown-winning Justify raced.
But that was outstripped 77 lots later when Waterhouse set the day’s new high mark to acquire his Global Glamour filly, having paid $600,000 for that mare’s first foal, by Zoustar, here last year.
“I’m very excited,” Waterhouse told ANZ Bloodstock News. “She’s a magnificent filly, very rangy, and very much a daughter of Justify, who is a lovely, big loose sort of stallion, and of course the mare we knew very well.
“She’s got quite a bit of similarity with Global Glamour. She won the Flight Stakes at Randwick and I put her on a float and a week later she took out the Thousand Guineas at Caulfield. You don’t get that sort of toughness anywhere but in Australia.
“The filly’s a beautiful mover, very fluid. I think southern hemisphere mares will put a lot of speed into Justify. American horses can be a bit long hip-to-hock, and Australians are much more short-coupled, so it’ll be interesting how they (Justify offspring) will shorten up over the years.”
Waterhouse and Bott, in conjunction with Bruce Slade’s Kestrel Thoroughbreds, bought six lots for $2.75 million to end as the day’s second-biggest spender overall, behind Ciaron Maher, who nabbed 12 yearlings under his own banner for $4.625 million, and added a 13th in partnership with Milano Bloodstock, seeing the champion Victorian trainer well on his way to eclipsing last year’s spend in which Maher bought 38 yearlings outright for $11.35 million.
And, four lots after Waterhouse’s main purchase, her Victorian rivals joined her on the $900,000 mark by snaring their striking Yulong-bred Zoustar filly out of the unraced Gold And Diamonds, who has a 4×3 cross to Danehill. Gold And Diamonds’ only foal to race, Authentic Jewel (I Am Invincible), has won twice and finished fourth in the ATC Gimcrack Stakes (Gr 3, 1000m), while close relatives on the female side include Group 1 winners Octagonal (Zabeel) and Viscount (Quest For Fame).
“The filly’s very typical of the sire, has a lot of strength, is not too big,” Maher’s co-trainer David Eustace told ANZ Bloodstock News. “She paraded very well, is from a progressive farm and supporter of the stable, and for us was a standout filly of the sale that we were very keen to get.
“She’s very athletic, strong, very racy, and looks like she’s going to be a two-year-old.
“The Zoustars are good looking horses, athletic, and present themselves extremely well.”
Widden Stud principal Antony Thompson commended his flagship stallion’s rise to the top of the opening day’s leading sire charts.
“It’s only early days in the sale but it’s a very good start for us. There were some nice yearlings offered by Zoustar today and obviously the top two lots were very nice fillies,” he said.
“It’s the right buyers, most importantly, that they’re going to. Peter Moody, Ciaron Maher and the China Horse Club-Newgate syndicate, it’s very pleasing.”
Sheamus Mills effected a three-way tie on $900,000 in snaring his Newgate Farm-consigned filly by I Am Invincible out of two-year-old Listed winner Harlem River (Fastnet Rock), who’s had three foals to race including Lady Harlem (Sebring), who was second in the MVRC Inglis Banner (RL, 1000m). Mills purchased the filly for long-term clients including Anthony Roberts and Heath Newton who also race Group 1 winner Odeum (Written Tycoon).
“There are certain fillies at this sale who’d stack up at any sale in the country or the world,” Mills told ANZ Bloodstock News. “An I Am Invincible out of a two-year-old stakes-winning Fastnet Rock mare, who’s already produced a stakes-placed horse at her only start, she fits the bill.
“She’s a young mare, I’m a big fan of Vinnie and Fastnet Rock. The filly is pretty typical of what Vinnie gets – good size, good stretch, a beautiful head, nice big ears and a wide jowl, which is a great sign for breathing. She’s got a fast pedigree and these are the sorts of fillies we’re trying to collect for a good group of clients who want to have an elite broodmare band ahead.”
Mills is no stranger to signing for high-priced fillies, having purchased the most expensive female yearling at last year’s Inglis Easter sale, incidentally also by I Am Invincible, for $1.95 million and at the 2020 Magic Millions a $1.5 million filly in the unraced Queen Of The Green (Written Tycoon), herself a half-sister to yesterday’s session topper bought by Moody.
Newgate was the leading day one vendor by aggregate with nine lots grossing $3.695 million at an average of $410,556, ahead of Coolmore’s $2.625 million through five lots sold at an average of $525,000, a table-topping average from at least three lots sold, and Yarraman Park’s $2.14 million from seven lots at $305,714.
Tyreel Stud ($486,667 from three lots sold), Segenhoe Stud ($421,667 from three lots) and Three Bridges Thoroughbreds ($406,667 from three lots) also topped an average price of over $400,000 on day one.