Calaway Gal winner Better Reflection sells for $350,000
Written Tycoon or Farnan on the cards for star country Queensland mare
John Wigginton, a laidback trainer from the beef capital of Rockhampton, has been down the breeding route before. Those experiences rendered any thoughts of holding onto Better Reflection (Better Than Ready) obsolete.
So, when he made the sudden decision late last month to retire the best horse he has had through his Central Queensland stable, a stakes-winning two-year-old no less, the only option left was to sell her on the open market.
Yesterday, that decision paid off when Better Reflection sold for $350,000 through the Magic Millions August Online Auction with the recently turned five-year-old bought by Suman Hedge on behalf of a long-term client.
Australia’s recently crowned champion sire Written Tycoon (Iglesia) or last year’s Golden Slipper Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) winner Farnan (Not A Single Doubt) are leading mating contenders for Better Reflection.
Wigginton has no regrets about selling Better Reflection, who has provided the trainer with four of his 352 victories as a trainer at a healthy 16 per cent strike rate.
“We just buy yearlings and race them, basically. It is a refined industry, the breeding caper,” Wigginton told ANZ Bloodstock News yesterday.
“I had a go at breeding myself many, many years ago. It was the biggest mistake I ever made as the first one I bred won its first start.
“I thought, ‘how easy is this?’ but I soon learnt, after getting another three mares and the dead foals being born or coming out with bent legs or whatever, I decided it wasn’t that easy.”
The auction result was the last and biggest financial windfall for Wigginton and Better Reflection’s co-owners who had already banked more than $336,000 in prize-money during her 16-start career.
They outlaid just $20,000 for her at the 2018 Magic MIllions Gold Coast March Yearling Sale.
“I just loved her when I saw her. She had good leg, length, an intelligent head and we really wanted a Better Than Ready that year, being a first season sire,” Wigginton said.
“I had seen him race, I knew a bit about him and I thought he was a really good horse who had untapped ability and, being a son of More Than Ready, he is a two-year-old winner-getter.”
It was quite some foresight from Wigginton with the Lyndhurst Stud-based Better Than Ready going on to be Australia’s leading first season stallion by winners in the 2018-19 season, siring 23 individual winners and three stakes winners.
After Better Reflection burst onto the scene in November 2018 with a nearly six-length maiden win at Rockhampton as an early season two-year-old, Wigginton took her to Brisbane for the Calaway Gal Stakes (Listed, 1110m) and she again toyed with her rivals despite a wide run.
She ran in the 2019 Magic Millions 2YO Classic (RL, 1200m), finishing 14th behind Exhilarates (Snitzel), before returning at three to win a further two races. The mare was subsequently plagued by issues which prevented her from performing at her best.
Better Reflection was to run at Doomben on July 24 but again trouble struck and Wigginton decided on immediately retiring her.
“She has had a few niggling injuries and she’d never quite come back the best. I was trying to keep her going to win another race with her but she wasn’t quite stretching out properly in her races,” he said.
“I actually had her nominated and accepted for Brisbane a couple of weeks ago. I went to put her on the float on the Friday morning and when she walked out of her box she was lame, so I thought, ‘that’s it, we’re going to have to pull the pin on you’.
“There was always something going not quite right, so rather than breaking her down on the track, we decided to sell her. It’s probably the right time to sell her – it’s not too late in the (breeding) season.
“She’s Danehill free, a stakes-winning two-year-old and everything else.”
Wigginton, who had the mare insured for $250,000 and thought that she would make around that figure, entrusted Kellie and Cameron Bond of Kenmore Lodge to sell Better Reflection on the owners’ behalf.
“I knew being a lightly raced, beautiful looking two-year-old stakes winner that she would be popular, but she exceeded all expectations,” Kellie Bond said.
“The phone didn’t stop ringing with enquiries.”
Wigginton has confidence that Better Reflection can produce high-quality offspring.
“I got a breeding certificate and the vet said she was a really, really well conformed mare for breeding. Everything about her was right,” he said.
“She is a good type, a good body, deep girth, and she’s got a really good temperament. If she has a Written Tycoon Group winner, it will be Danehill free and it will be worth a fortune.”
Better Reflection is expected to remain in Queensland in the warmer weather for another four weeks before either heading to Victoria or NSW for her maiden covering.
She came onto Hedge’s radar early last week and the eventual purchase continued the Melbourne agent’s strong activity in the commercial mares’ market this year.
“Dane Robinson from Magics called and just mentioned that she was part of this online sale that they were putting together and he felt that she was a really nice mare. James (Dawson) had inspected the mare and said she was a really nice type,” explained Hedge who made his first online bidding move at the $290,000 mark.
“I gave Kellie Bond a call and I know Kellie and Cameron well and they are very good friends with Rob Petith who I do a lot of work with (at Silverdale Farm), so I have a lot of time and respect for them. Kellie said she was a very nice mare, easy to deal with and a lovely type, so that satisfied the physical side of things.
“We looked at her pedigree and performance and she is a bit of a standout in the pedigree but she is a stakes-winning two-year-old, she is fast and she has some Star Kingdom in there as well as the More Than Ready.
“It is a nice page to work with and she suited quite a few of the stallions we are involved with. I haven’t quite decided where she will go, but it will be either Farnan or Written Tycoon. We will let the dust settle and then make a call on that.”
The intense market demand for broodmare prospects has not slowed down in recent weeks despite the strong volume and prices achieved at the series of live auctions conducted by Inglis and Magic Millions through May, June and in early July.
The online platforms in Australia and New Zealand have been the source of high-end stock for many breeders on the eve of the new breeding season and that is likely to continue next week when Inglis Digital offers Group 2 winner and Group 1-placed mare Moonlight Maid (Puissance De Lune) who was trained by Mitch Freedman at Ballarat.
Yesterday’s result achieved by Magic Millions with Better Reflection was an important stepping stone in the company’s attempt to make up market share on its rival Inglis.
It was one acknowledged by managing director Barry Bowditch.
“There were many buyers on her. It was obviously a duel at the end but she was on the market at a realistic price and there was a lot of confidence to get involved,” Bowditch said.
“The sale averaged $18,000 and cleared particularly well for an online auction and that is for the second month running for us, off the small numbers.
“It deserves to grow and it is a great option for people to put their horses on going forward.
“We are very happy with how it is going at this point. Getting the results like we have today should give the market confidence that it is a platform that they need to participate in.”