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Autumn Angel sells for $1.225 million 

Oaks winner knocked down to Walnut Farm at special Inglis Online sale

Syndicator Wylie Dalziel has welcomed the arrival of a “silver lining” to the injury-enforced retirement of Autumn Angel (The Autumn Sun) after the ATC Oaks (Gr 1, 2400m) winner was sold on Tuesday for $1.225 million.

In a swift dispatch to the breeding barn after her career-ending tendon injury only a week earlier, Autumn Angel was bought in a special Inglis Online sale by Walnut Farm, the Yulong associate beating two rivals who remained in the hunt once bidding reached seven figures.

Vin Cox, speaking on behalf of Walnut Farm, said the former Peter Moody and Katherine Coleman-trained mare would go to a Yulong stallion this spring.

“I think we’ve bought her quite well on the market and we’re looking forward to getting her home and breeding with her,” Cox told ANZ Bloodstock News. “There’s no stallion picked out yet. More than likely, absolutely, it will be a Yulong stallion.

“She’s a particularly nice mare and she’ll fit in really well in our broodmare band. She’s a Group 1 winner, and she won, in my opinion, one of the best editions of the Australian Oaks in recent times.

“And she’s by a stallion who’s clearly on a trajectory to become one of the more prominent stallions in the country in the next decade, and she’s from a really good family.”

A daughter of four-time stakes winner Angel Of Mercy (Hussonet), whose second dam was the mother of quadruple Group 1 winner Divine Madonna (Hurricane Sky), Autumn Angel was bought by Dalziel Bloodstock and Moody Racing for $230,000 from the Arrowfield draft at the Inglis Easter Yearling Sale of 2022.

She retires as the winner of three stakes races – one at each Group level – and almost $1.89 million in prize-money.

Raced by a group of nine interests headed by Wylie Dalziel Roy Higgins Racing, she was in on the ground floor of the boom surrounding her sire The Autumn Sun (Redoute’s Choice) (pictured below).

After the Arrowfield stallion’s slow start while his first crop was maturing, she became his third individual blacktype winner in taking the Ethereal Stakes (Gr 3, 2000m) last October. She then kicked off his sensational run of three Group 1 victors in less than a month with her stirring ATC Oaks triumph last April.

Dalziel said while the four-year-old’s connections had been shattered by her injury ahead of a campaign targeting the $10m Golden Eagle (1500m) and the Cox Plate (Gr 1, 2040m), the sale had returned smiles to faces.

“It’s been a massive, head-spinning week,” Dalziel told ANZ Bloodstock News.

“Naturally we were disappointed with the injury, because she’d come back enormous. Last Tuesday, we were waiting for Moods to tell us which race she’d be resuming in. Next minute, he’s saying ‘Make sure you’re sitting down. I’ve got some news about Autumn Angel’.

“As my old friend Roy Higgins used to say, ‘Learn to manage the disappointments in this game, because there’s plenty of them’. But we’ve had a bit of a silver lining today.

“I would have preferred to have been doing this when she was five or six, having won a lot more races, but this is the game we’re in and these things can happen.

“It was great result from the sale. If you go buying yearlings hoping to get over $1.2 million when you sell them – that’s not an easy thing to do.

I would have preferred to have been doing this when she was five or six, having won a lot more races, but this is the game we’re in and these things can happen

Wylie Dalziel

“So, you’ve got to be realistic about it, and we’re happy as a group. A million dollars plus on the market, we thought was fair value. We’re rapt that Yulong got involved, and she’ll obviously get well looked after and well managed.”

Inglis’s CEO of bloodstock sales Sebastian Hutch congratulated Dalziel on another successful sale through the company’s online platform.

“It’s almost 12 months to the day since Wylie sold a Group 2winning mare, Boogie Dancer, through Inglis Digital, for $560,000, after buying her at our Premier sale for $50,000,” Hutch told ANZ Bloodstock News.

“A year later, a filly he’s bought for $230,000 at Inglis Easter, who’s won an ATC Oaks, has made $1.225 million. That’s two yearlings bought for a combined $280,000 and he’s sold them for $1.785 million. That’s really excellent work.

“Our relationship is a valued one, and it’s great that people like him go and invest in horses at your sale and have success with them, not just for Wylie and Peter but their clients as well.”

Dalziel said the sale was emotional for Autumn Angel’s owners, some of whom may be interested in buying her offspring.

“She was the first Group 1 winner for a few of the owners, so there was a lot of emotional attachment there,” he said.

“There were certainly a couple of owners who would’ve been capable of buying her if they’d wanted to, but they were all happy to say, ‘Let’s see what she brings’.

“Naturally, we’ll all watch with great interest as she produces foals and we’ll go and have a look at them. You’d definitely be interested in buying her offspring.

“If everything goes perfect for Yulong and they go to a good stallion, which I’m sure they will, it would be hard for us [Dalziel Bloodstock] to buy them. We like to buy for around the same price as we bought her – $230,000 – then try to have success and fun on the track, get black type into them and then sell them for this sort of money.

we’ll all watch with great interest as she produces foals and we’ll go and have a look at them. You’d definitely be interested in buying her offspring

Wylie Dalziel

“So, they’ll be hard foals to buy because I’m sure they’re good types, but it’s not beyond our group of owners to buy one if they wanted to.”

Hutch said it was a compliment for the regard in which Autumn Angel was held that she was “pursued by a number of leading Australian commercial operators”.

“People recognise that Oaks winners are a particular source of quality, and I don’t think it’s going to be a great surprise to anybody if she goes on to produce a horse of significance in the future,” he said.

Oaks winners have a stellar record at stud, particularly Australian Oaks winners.

Since 2000, Rising Romance (Ekraar), who won the Australian Oaks in 2014, produced Thousand Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m) winner Yearning (Snitzel), while Dizelle (Zabeel), winner of the Sydney Classic in 2005, went on to foal VRC Oaks (Gr 1, 2500m) winner Pinot (Pierro).

The 2003 victor Sunday Joy (Sunday Silence), was the dam of multiple G1-winning champion More Joyous (More Than Ready), while Republic Lass (Canny Lad), who won the Randwick feature in 2002, produced South African Grade 1 winner The Conglomerate (Lonhro).

Oaks winners across Australia have produced Group 1 winning stars including Anamoe (Street Boss), Stay With Me (Street Cry) and Miami Bound (Reliable Man) among others.

Since 2000, of Oaks-winning mares in Australia who have had foals to race, 14 per cent have produced a Group 1 winner, 36 per cent have produced a stakes winner and 54 per cent have produced a stakes horse.

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