Booming market set to flow on at Classic as buyers look for auction’s renowned ‘value’
Big numbers on the ground ahead of Inglis’ opening auction of the yearling sale season at Riverside
Inglis is poised to maintain the momentum of a buoyant Australian bloodstock market when the Classic Yearling Sale gets underway tomorrow as a deep buying bench gathers in Sydney for the company’s opening auction of 2022.
Speculation was rife yesterday that a looming Racing NSW announcement, to be made on Wednesday, would see prize-money for the state’s industry again increased, further fuelling demand from owners, trainers, traders and investors to be involved in racing horses during a sustained period of industry growth.
As expected, a significant NSW buying bench will dominate the Classic sale, but Inglis has also attracted a large interstate cohort of trainers and agents to cast their eye over the yearlings catalogued.
Victorians Mick Price and Mick Kent Jnr, Ben and JD Hayes, Shane Nichols, Matt Cumani, Daniel Bowman and John McArdle were among the trainers undertaking inspections at Riverside Stables yesterday as were the Queensland-based David Vandyke and Tony Gollan and dual-state trainer Ciaron Maher and his buying team.
“The sale season started very positively on the Gold Coast (Magic Millions). We take some confidence from that. The thirst for horses in this country, for the markets this country services, is very strong,” Inglis Bloodstock chief executive Sebastian Hutch told ANZ Bloodstock News yesterday.
“There are a lot of people here, but you’d expect a lot of people to be here. It’s a big catalogue with 810 yearlings, and there’s a lot of nice horses, so you need to have plenty of buyers here to service a sale like that.”
The “value” of the Classic sale is an aspect Inglis consistently pushes to its buyer clients and Hutch again reminded participants of that yesterday.
“What is fantastic about this sale is that it genuinely gives everybody a chance to be involved at every level. There will be horses sold from Sunday through to Tuesday, from $10,000 and some might get into the high six figures. The precedent for those horses is very strong,” he said.
“There’s been eight Australian Group 1-winning graduates from the past three years of the sale who could have been bought for $100,000 or less.
“You can rattle names off very easily; She Will Reign, Yankee Rose, In Her Time, Vow And Declare, Pippie. There’s a legion of them and there will be a number of them to come out of this sale.”
A new benchmark of $625,000 was set at last year’s sale for a Capitalist (Written Tycoon) colt, but the scarcity of progeny by champion first season stallion Extreme Choice (Not A Single Doubt) could see that record figure bettered at the 2022 sale.
There are just three colts in the Classic sale by the Newgate Farm stallion, the sire of Golden Slipper (Gr 1, 1200m) winner Stay Inside and boom filly Espiona, and it is their scarcity which is sure to intensify competition for his third crop yearlings.
The breeder of Extreme Choice, Bell River Thoroughbreds, has a colt by the young sire (Lot 100) who is the fifth foal out of the stakes-placed Murtle Turtle (Murtajill), making him a half-brother to this season’s metro-winning Peter and Paul Snowden-trained juvenile California Deeply (Deep Field).
Mane Lodge also has a son of Extreme Choice out of To Dubawi Go (Dubawi), catalogued as Lot 313, who is attracting pre-sale attention, while Valiant Stud is selling Lot 86, a colt out of Miss Spirituality (Starcraft), on behalf of Mullaglass Stud.
Flemington-based Simon Zahra, who bought five yearlings at the Magic Millions last month, was another trainer on the lookout for horses to bolster his stable.
“I’ve been up here since Wednesday and I’ve been looking at probably 160 yearlings a day, so I am trying to get through them all,” Zahra said yesterday.
“There’s some nice horses here, but obviously there’s some backward horses as well, so you’ve just got to pick the eyes out of them, but I seem to be getting a nice list together.”
Sydney-based Gold Edge Syndications’ Craig Purcell will attempt to buy his first yearlings of 2022 at the Classic sale alongside the company’s chosen trainer, Warwick Farm-based Gary Portelli.
“The Classic sale has always been our benchmark, so we’re looking forward to getting at least two or three from here,” Purcell said.
“This year, we’ve seen more horses that tick all our boxes than any other year. We are still to nail down our final list with Gary, but I do think they’re going to be reasonably affordable, talking to some of the breeders and what have you.
“That’s the Classic sale: good value and affordable, particularly for syndicators like us.”
Such was the numbers on the ground over the past few days, some potential buyers wishing to inspect were turned away by vendors and asked to return later in a bid to avoid the congestion caused by heightened interest in the Classic sale.
Once almost solely the domain of the NSW country and provincial trainers, the dynamic of Classic sale has changed significantly in recent years: high-end buyers recognise the graduate success and that a segment of the market has also turned to a growing online tried horse sales.
“For people operating in the value end of the market, there’s so many other avenues to get involved in ownership, particularly through digital sales,” Hutch said.
“Tried horses are so much more accessible to those people, but by the same token, to go and win BOBS prize-money for two- and three-year-olds, to be involved in the Inglis Race Series and the better two-year-old and three-year-old races, you’ve really got to be buying yearlings and that seems to be resonating with people and hopefully that is borne out on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.
“In many respects, it’s a simple equation: the vendors bring the horses, we get the buyers and let the two meet in the middle,” Hutch added.
“It’s never that simple … but at this stage we’re very happy with the way things are tracking.”
Day one of the three-day Classic sale starts at 10am tomorrow.
Lots to watch
Lot Breeding Vendor
Lot 100 Extreme Choice-Murtle Turtle (Murtajill) colt Bell River Thoroughbreds
Lot 313 Extreme Choice-To Dubawi Go (Dubawi) colt Mane Lodge
Lot 384 I Am Invincible-Another Sunday (Redoute’s Choice) filly Yarraman Park Stud
Lot 393 Written Tycoon-Avail (Exceed And Excel) colt Newhaven Park
Lot 558 Fastnet Rock-Fiorentina (Dubai Destination) filly Coolmore Stud