Buyers panning for riches at Melbourne Gold
Inglis’s Victorian bloodstock manager James Price believes there is no shortage of quality to be found for buyers in today’s Melbourne Gold Yearling Sale, which this year sees reduced numbers and a change to a one-day sale format.
The 232-lot auction to be held at Oaklands Junction is down from the 339 lots consigned a year ago, with the sale having adapted to recent changes in the Australian bloodstock landscape which has resulted in more vendors targeting the online sale platforms to sell some of their yearlings, leaving a more select group consigned for the Gold sale.
“There is no doubt that the one-day format will be a success,” Price told ANZ Bloodstock News yesterday.
“Buyers come here and want to see nice horse after nice horse. It is easier to be looking at a smaller catalogue of better types than what may have been harder in the past of finding that nice horse.
“I think vendors, too, are getting better at moving their stock through our (Inglis Digital) online platform which they understand have a particular value and therefore they feel that moving online and reducing their costs is the better way to go. With the smaller catalogue, we feel we have probably traded those lesser types, if we can call them that, through an online platform. I think the one-day sale will work very well.
“It is probably going to be a little bit difficult to compare it to last year’s sale. We are down to a tighter book of 230-odd horses, so given that, we would expect the average to rise, but a good indicator for us is getting a good clearance rate which means vendors and buyers are coming to an agreement on what a horse is worth.”
The Inglis Gold Yearling Sale has been a notable auction for delivering high-class horses at a value price point, exemplified by the likes of Group 1 winners Savatoxl (Kuroshio) ($8,000 yearling buy), Lunar Fox (Foxwedge) ($40,000) and Media Award (Shamus Award) ($5,000) who have all been sourced from this sale in recent years, while big prize-money earners Snitz (Snitzel) and I’ll Have A Bit (Smart Missile) are also graduates of the sale.
The result is that a strong buying bench from all sectors of the industry has been amassed for the auction, scanning the catalogue for the next bargain buy money spinner or pinhook prospect.
“The buying bench is fairly widespread, there’s been a number of metropolitan trainers here looking to top up their stables, there’s country trainers represented, we’ve got a few buyers from NSW and South Australia and particularly the traders, the breeze-up participants, who are looking to buy a yearling then turnover into a breeze-up sale later in the year. From what I have seen, I think there’s a lot of nice horses here who will fit the bill,” Price said.
“We’re really pleased with the representation of yearlings we have on the grounds. Buyers have been coming in in their droves. I think many of them avoided the weather yesterday, which was not ideal for looking at yearlings, but there’s plenty on the ground at the moment. Having seen all the horses, I am pleased with what’s to go under the hammer tomorrow.”
The sale features yearlings by leading Victorian-based stallions Toronado (High Chaparral) (seven yearlings), Nicconi (Bianconi) (one), Frosted (Tapit) (four) and Rubick (Encosta De Lago (eight), as well as Hunter Valley stallions Russian Revolution (Snitzel) (two), Street Boss (Street Cry) (one) and Deep Field (one).
First season sires represented include Yulong’s Grunt (O’Reilly) (four), The Autumn Sun (Redoute’s Choice) (one), Lean Mean Machine (Zoustar) (five) and National Defense (Invincible Spirit) (six).
The sale is placed as the pretext to this weekend’s VOBIS Gold race meeting at Caulfield, which boasts over $2.5 million in prize-money, with the lucrative $1 million The Showdown (1200m) for juveniles featuring runners by stallions who are all well represented at the Inglis auction today. With 58 per cent of the catalogue VOBIS eligible, buyers will have ample opportunity to source a runner for next year’s raceday.
“For whatever reason, there’s different stories to each yearling that we have to offer, whether it’s by, at the time of cataloguing, a less fashionable stallion, a yearling might have had a setback, for a variety of different reasons that there are horses here to find a very good home and realise good money for the vendors because they stand out amongst the crowd which is often seen as a value sale compared to say the Premier sale we held here in March,” Price said.
“I think if we draw a comparison to the field of the $1 million Showdown on Saturday and the stallions represented in that race, the majority of those stallions are represented tomorrow, your Brazen Beaus, Impending, Ilovethiscity, Manhattan Rain, Street Boss, Overshare. I think they will be able to find a yearling by a stallion who is getting runners.”
The first lot will pass through the ring at 10am today.