Arrowfield back and set to hold court at Easter
Stellar line-up of yearlings to go under the hammer at Inglis’s flagship sale
Arrowfield will return to the Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale ready to reclaim its mantle as the leading vendor at the prestigious thoroughbred auction, a year after John Messara’s bombshell decision to withdraw the 2020 draft from Riverside Stables, with a startling array of young bloodstock from Australasia’s best commercial breeders on offer.
This year’s Easter catalogue, released yesterday by Inglis, shows the eminent Hunter Valley farm has 49 high-calibre yearlings by the likes of Snitzel (Redoute’s Choice), Not A Single Doubt (Redoute’s Choice) and Deep Impact (Sunday Silence) to go through the select blue-riband sale, which comprises a total of 466 lots by a range of both the southern and northern hemisphere’s top stallions.
Ten months ago, as the severity of the Covid-19 pandemic saw governments enforce heavy restrictions on people movement, and the subsequent world economic chaos, Arrowfield principal Messara made the contentious call to withdraw the entire Easter draft and instead sell them by private treaty as uncertainty reigned over the likelihood of a competitive buying bench being assembled.
Yesterday; however, Messara reaffirmed his support of the Easter Sale, joining 47 other major vendors selling in Sydney on April 6 and 7 with the sale’s biggest individual draft.
“We have our usual strong contingent of colts and fillies at Easter including some real gems,” Messara said succinctly yesterday.
Among Arrowfield’s draft is a Snitzel colt out of VRC Oaks (Gr 1, 2500m) winner Pinot (Pierro), a Deep Impact filly out of Group 1 winner Abbey Marie (Redoute’s Choice) and a colt by the late champion Japanese sire out of Group 2 winner Omei Sword (High Chaparral)
Arrowfield will also retain the use of the Big Barn at the state-of-the-art Warwick Farm complex, the boxes and parade area reserved for the previous year’s leading vendor.
Coolmore held that honour at the Easter round one sale in 2020, an auction conducted in a virtual format, and the rival large-scale farm will again have a strong hand with 40 lots. Segenhoe, last year’s second leading vendor, will offer 23 yearlings, while Widden has 28.
Cressfield’s investment in quality set to pay off
Fellow Hunter Valley-based vendor Cressfield will present a draft of nine yearlings, an I Am Invincible (Invincible Spirit) half-sister to stallions Deep Field (Northern Meteor) and Shooting To Win (Northern Meteor), and a colt by the same Yarraman Park Stud sire who is the first foal out Robert Sangster Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) winner Secret Agenda (Not A Single Doubt) among them.
Cressfield’s Bruce Neill is hoping for important pedigree updates to his Secret Agenda colt before the Easter sale, with current Blue Diamond Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) and Golden Slipper (Gr 1, 1200m) favourite Enthaar (Written Tycoon) a daughter of the mare’s sister Finale Agreement.
“I think I paid $1.3 million for Secret Agenda and she fits our model, which is to focus on quality and to focus on sprinting mares. This year, I bought an interest in Miss Leonidas who ran second in The Galaxy and I bought an interest in Spright who is a Group 1 winner, so we tend to focus on trying to source precocious mares and make (their progeny) for sale.”
Listen Here (Elusive Quality) made $3.4 million in 2016 at the Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale and Neill expects her I Am Invincible filly to command interest from buyers seeking a quality yearling who could join a broodmare band later on.
He said: “The Zoustar filly out of the mare, Zaniah, is stakes-placed and she made a million dollars, so I guess that is the sort of benchmark for a filly out of that mare and she is by Vinnie, which makes her more attractive.”
Cressfield will also offer two fillies by the pensioned Not A Single Doubt at Easter, one being a sister to the dual Listed winner Granny Red Shoes and the other the second foal out of three-time Group 3 winner Artistry (Shamardal).
“There is one out of Artistry and we got $500,000 for her Snitzel filly at last year’s Inglis sale and the other is out of Shoboard who had an All Too Hard filly win on Tuesday at Warwick Farm called Jenga and she won like a very nice horse, winning by three lengths,” he said.
“They are going to be attractive to the market.”
Cressfield sold nine lots at the recent record Magic Millions sale on the Gold Coast, including a Merchant Navy (Fastnet Rock) colt for $425,000, and Neill expects the demand to flow on to Easter.
“We didn’t have a very strong draft (at the Gold Coast), but we sold them all – I took nine and sold nine – and we got reasonable prices for them. I was quite shocked how strong it was, particularly at the colts end of the market,” he said.
Tasmanian Neill, who has not left the state since last March, added: “Of course, Easter is a much smaller catalogue than Magic Millions and that sale was strong all the way through and, from what I hear, a lot of orders weren’t filled, so let’s hope it remains strong and I believe it will.
“Unless there’s a stock market correction outside the industry, I think it will remain strong.”
Underlining the elite pedigrees catalogued, Bhima Thoroughbreds will offer an I Am Invincible daughter of Blue Diamond Stakes winner Catchy (Fastnet Rock) and a colt by the same sire out of Miss Atom Bomb (Encosta De Lago), a half-sister to champion mare Winx (Street Cry), while Evergreen Stud has the Snitzel half-brother to Golden Slipper winner She Will Reign (Manhattan Rain).
Willow Park Stud will consign the Zoustar (Northern Meteor) half-sister to elite sprinter Santa Ana Lane (Lope De Vega).and Yarraman Park Stud will offer the Written Tycoon (Iglesia) brother to Oakleigh Plate (Gr 1, 1100m) winner Booker and the stakes winner Banquo, while Yulong has a Snitzel half-brother to the Chris Waller-trained Group 2 winner and Group 1-placed three-year-old filly Hungry Heart (Frankel).
New Zealand vendors Trelawney Stud and Woburn Farm will consign two yearlings each, while leading farm Waikato Stud has yearlings selling under the Sledmere Stud banner.
Progeny of northern hemisphere stallions Frankel (Galileo), Kingman (Invincible Spirit), Siyouni (Pivotal) and Just A Way (Heart’s Cry) are also represented in the mouth-watering Easter catalogue.
‘The environment is such now that people are inclined to open their shoulders a little bit’
A number of high-priced mares, such as Omei Sword, Courgette (Charge Forward) and Srikandi (Dubawi) who were all sold in recent years, will have yearlings going through the ring at Easter, a fact Inglis’ general manager of bloodstock sales and marketing Sebastian Hutch cites as a great symmetry for the bloodstock industry.
“The catalogue is a beautiful combination of the progeny of the best established, emerging and young stallions and similarly outstanding race mares early in their breeding career and proven producers, so the catalogue really is a page-turner – absolutely. It sells itself when you get it in your hands, as it does every year,” Hutch told ANZ Bloodstock News yesterday.
“Our bloodstock team has seen all the horses and their physical credentials match up to what is on paper.”
He continued: “It is quite exciting for us to have the progeny of mares who went through a Chairman’s Sale a couple of years ago to subsequently reappear at Easter.
“That is very much the epitome of what people are looking to achieve when you go to buy these fantastic mares at the Chairman’s Sale, so to have an American Pharoah filly out of Srikandi, just as an example, is the full circle.”
Last year’s Easter sale was set to have 514 yearlings offered, before the onset of the coronavirus which turned the sale on its head, but the 2021 edition is more inline with the 2019 and 2018 versions which featured a 450-lot catalogues.
“The numbers are down on last year, but they are up by 16 on the year before, which is not insignificant for an Easter yearling sale,” he said.
“Vendors know what is required to achieve a good result with an Easter yearling and effectively vendors give us their best yearlings year in, year out, which we’re incredibly grateful for, and that is borne out in the results in the sales ring and the racecourse.
“The catalogue in 2021 is reflective of the tremendous support from vendors.”
As for the market expectations, Hutch is upbeat after an above-expectation Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale earlier this month.
“Certainly, the yearling sale season has started in a positive fashion and we’re optimistic heading into the Classic and Premier yearling sales as well as Easter,” he said.
“Trying to be pragmatic about it, there was an awful lot of money that wasn’t spent in 2020 because the circumstances meant that people were inclined to be conservative and the environment is such now that people are inclined to open their shoulders a little bit.
“The need to be conserivative through the middle of 2020 isn’t quite there now and we’re seeing that being borne out in the sales of bloodstock, particularly amongst the domestic buying bench.
“When you consider the money that wasn’t spent in 2020, we are seeing evidence of being spent now, and I think that bodes really well for the market in the short to medium term and hopefully for the long-term.”
Selling at the two-day Riverside Stables sale will start at 10am local time but Inglis’ focus first will be the Inglis Classic Sale starting on Sunday week and the Melbourne Premier Sale starting on February 28.
Click here to view the full Inglis Easter Yearling Sale catalogue.