Buyers and vendors do hard yards ahead of Inglis Great Southern Sale
Strong interest evident in build up to delayed two-day weanling and mare auction at Oaklands Junction
July is usually seen as a period of rare downtime, if there is such a thing in the breeding industry, but instead hardened vendors and buyers were at Oaklands Junction gripped by a fierce wind chill factor yesterday in preparation for the Inglis Great Southern Sale, which begins today.
And, after last year’s important trade sale was forced online due to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, the fear that this year’s auction would share the same fate meant no one was complaining of the delay to the sale, extending their “season” by another three weeks.
Two Bays Farm has a draft of 13 weanlings to be offered over the next two days and the Victorian operation will offer the first lot through the Melbourne ring at 10am when a daughter of coveted first season sire Extreme Choice (Not A Single Doubt) goes under the hammer.
Rob Carlisle, the manager of the Mornington Peninsula-based Two Bays Farm, is glad to be back at Oaklands despite puffer jackets and beanies being required items yesterday.
“Any live sale is a good sale, so we are happy to finally get here,” Carlisle said.
“A lot of the buyers around who have come from interstate or from New Zealand have had to go through a lot of restrictions, but I am glad that they are doing it and are able to see the horses.”
Two Bays’ draft includes weanlings by Written Tycoon (Iglesia), the sole Ocean Park (Thorn Park) foal in the sale, and fillies by Tavistock (Montjeu), Hellbent (I Am Invincible) and Fighting Sun (Northern Meteor), the latter being from the family of Group winners Sistine Angel (Testa Rossa) and Sistine Demon (Excites).
“We’ll test the market and see how the market responds,” Carlisle said.
“They’re not all giveaway jobs. They are all nice, neat horses and they can all find themselves in sales next year.
“Overall, I think the sale will be generally pretty good. Typically, at this sale the top sells really well and then there’s a long tail and I don’t think it’s going to be any different to any other year.
“The good horses will make good money and the other ones will find homes hopefully.”
First up for Two Bays is the Extreme Choice filly who is the first foal out of the unplaced I Am Invincible (Invincible Spirit) mare I’m In Stitches and Carlisle is confident she will have buyers paying attention from the opening lot given the scarcity of foals by the Newgate Farm stallion.
Catalogued as Lot 2, she is just one of 15 second-crop foals by the sire of this year’s Golden Slipper Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) winner Stay Inside.
He said: “The first crop stallions this year have done an amazing job. A lot of people have sat up and watched them and are in awe of what they’re achieving.
“Any of the top three or four (such as Extreme Choice, Capitalist or Flying Artie) would have won a first season sires’ premiership in any normal year and Extreme Choice, with his lack of numbers, has smashed it out of the park.
“(Lot 2) is not an overly big filly. She’s a first foal and the Extreme Choices aren’t generally big horses either, but she moves really well, she’s clean-jointed and she gets along like a real little racehorse.”
Victorian agents braving the cool conditions over the past few days have included Damon Gabbedy, Jeremy Rogers and Suman Hedge. Cornerstone Stud’s Sam Pritchard-Gordon has crossed the border from South Australia while New Zealand buyers such as Dean Hawthorne, Lansdowne Park’s Dave Duley and Carlaw Park’s Nicole Brown have also made the trip across the Tasman to attend the sale.
Inglis general manager of bloodstock sales and marketing Sebastian Hutch was not shying away from the challenges presented to the auction house ahead of the Great Southern Sale for the second year in a row, but he says the Melbourne auction’s track record holds it in good stead.
“Not for one second is anybody saying these are optimum conditions for the conduct of the sale, but it’s been the feature of the past 18 months,” Hutch said.
“We’ve had to pivot and adapt and make things work despite the challenging circumstances and the vendors have been very good about that.”
A number of buyers have had to overcome the continual changes to domestic and New Zealand-Australia travel bubble restrictions in order to attend the Great Southern Sale but Hutch believes a competitive bench will be assembled.
“In terms of interest, our registrations for online bidding is very strong,” he said.
“We’re speaking to a huge volume of people, as are agents who we liaise with, so I think you will have situations whereby there are a number of different agents who are appointed representatives or are working with a very broad cross-section of buyers who aren’t here, but that’s not unusual for this sale.
“It’s traditionally a time of year where people go away on holidays and things like that, but that doesn’t mean they are any less engaged in the sale.
“They might not be here in person, so I would be guarded in using foot traffic as a definitive guide to the level of interest in the sale.”
The first of two days of selling, comprising weanlings and a condensed broodmare session tomorrow, starts at 10am today.
“The sale has a fantastic record of producing good racehorses and pinhook successes,” said Hutch.
“If you work through the catalogue, there’s a pretty broad cross-section of horses represented by a bunch of different stallions whether it’s the top echelon of sires like Written Tycoon, Zoustar, Extreme Choice, Capitalist, Street Boss, So You Think, etc, and there’s a number of young stallions represented in the catalogue such as Brave Smash, Harry Angel, National Defense, Lean Mean Machine and Santos.
“It’s got to be a buyers’ market with the volume of foals, so it’s got to be a good opportunity for people to be aggressive in the way they shop.
“Those who have tuned in and done their work or have worked with people to do so will have a great opportunity (to buy a quality horse).”