Capitalist comes out on top while Coolmore’s big stallion play appears Justified
Colt by Newgate Farm’s leading first season sire tops Inglis Weanling Sale at $400,000
The progeny of Australia’s leading first season sire Capitalist (Written Tycoon) and the first foals by unbeaten US Triple Crown champion Justify (Scat Daddy) have dominated the top of a rising Inglis Australian Weanling Sale market, the first of the 2021 series.
Newgate Farm’s Golden Slipper (Gr 1, 1200m) winner Capitalist, whose fee has been increased to $99,000 (inc GST) on the back of his brilliant season, had six weanlings sell for six figures at Riverside Stables in Sydney yesterday, while Coolmore’s shuttler Justify had four to a top of $300,000.
The most expensive lot of the sale, a Capitalist colt, made $400,000 and was bought by Sydney father and son owners Ray and Brett Gall in conjunction with Peter Morgan, who trained their super sire I Am Invincible (Invincible Spirit).
Consigned by Middlebrook Valley Lodge as Lot 137, the colt is the seventh living foal out of Laylia (Redoute’s Choice), making him a half-brother to Group 3 winner Shamalia (Shamardal) and Listed winner Emperor’s Way (Roman Emperor).
Laylia was bought by Jaquers Investments’ David Digney carrying the sale-topping colt for $65,000 at last year’s Inglis Australian Broodmare Sale from the Newgate Farm draft.
“Sixty-five thousand dollars into $400,000 in a year, it’s pretty good, hey. It’s not bad this breeding game,” Digney said.
“We purchased the mare online last year, sight unseen as an 18-year-old, but when she arrived here to us you’d swear she was ten, she was sprightly and such a beautiful type that Newgate had looked after so well.
“(Inglis bloodstock consultant) Will Stott was instrumental in the purchase, he’s been guiding me so this result, it’s just fantastic.”
Laylia is currently in foal to Darley’s first season shuttler Blue Point (Shamardal).
Middlebrook Valley Lodge’s Verna Metcalfe also held the colt in high regard.
“He was a cracker the minute he walked on to our farm. I was entrusted to sell him for a client from Victoria and he is just an outstanding colt, he never turned a hair. He paraded like a professional every time he came out of that box,” Metcalfe said.
“He fitted in like he had been on this farm all his life. He was just a super colt.”
Metcalfe recommended to Digney that the colt would be a profitable weanling prospect and the decision was made to offer him through the Inglis auction.
“Ray and Brett Gall, who bought him, are great clients of the farm, they buy off us a lot. We’ve got mares for them as well, so it’s great to get a good result,” she said.
“I thought we’d get between $250,000 and $360,000, but I didn’t think he’d go to $400,000.”
Middlebrook Valley Lodge was last year sold by Mike Mant and yesterday’s sale result for an important one for the Hunter Valley stud.
“I’ve got new owners, and our farm is taking a different direction and they want to go for quality,” Metcalfe said.
“They are spending money on the farm, so when we sell a horse like that, it helps a lot.”
Brett Gall revealed the colt would most likely be retained to race and be trained by Randwick-based Ron Quinton.
“We had Media Starguest win (on Wednesday at Canterbury) and he was bought at this sale as a weanling,” Gall said.
“The Capitalist was the best colt in the sale, a nice looker, everything was right about him, so it was a no-brainer.”
Prominent Hong Kong-based buyer Tony Fung was also active at yesterday’s sale, purchasing a colt by Capitalist from leading vendor Fairhill Farm for $260,000.
He is the sixth living foal out of Keeping Score (Keeper), making him a half-brother to three winners.
“We bought him specifically for a racing program,” Fung’s bloodstock adviser Shane McGrath said.
“He’s a lovely colt, I really liked him, his sire is obviously on the rise and he is doing everything right. He fits the model and the profile we are looking for, so we will grow him out.
“It will be six months before we are getting aggressive for our next lot of yearlings … and I would have thought they’ll be hard to get going forward as Capitalist’s star won’t be waning any time soon.
“He’s now in that proven sire category and that’s what has worked for us so far.”
Justify makes early statement
There may not have been a bigger investment made in a young stallion than Coolmore’s in unbeaten US Triple Crown champion Justify and the market responded to his first southern hemisphere-bred crop.
The highest-priced Justify weanling sold was a $300,000 half-sister to Group 2 winner Fiesta (I Am Invincible) who was bought by the pinhooking syndicate of Suman Hedge and Steve Grant’s Silverdale Farm.
“The plan will be to hopefully get her to a nice early sale next year. She’s by a high-profile first-season stallion, who was a champion in America and from a proven mare, so she’s a filly with a bit of residual value as well,” Hedge said.
“This one was certainly in the mould of her sire and that was really appealing about her. He really stamped her. She’s a lovely moving horse, well-balanced, strong, plenty of size. I think she will be quite appealing to the buyers when she is presented next year.
“She is quite a strong, forward horse already. The thing in the back of our mind is that residual value, being a half-sister to Fiesta.
“There’s a fallback option there as those involved in our group are breeders as well.”
The combination enjoyed success from the sale last year, buying a Not A Single Doubt (Redoute’s Choice) filly for $280,000 and resold her in January for $750,000.
Catalogued as Lot 177, the Fairhill Farm-bred and sold Justify filly is the eighth foal out of Now Now (Danehill Dancer), the dam of three winners headed by the Chris Waller-trained Fiesta.
“This sale in particular has been very strong, and follows on from the strong results at the yearling sales, and I think it’s also indicative of the fact there is a lot of competition on these foals. There are some end users here as well, so it has been quite strong.” Hedge surmised.
“We’ve been quite disciplined, and we’ve missed on quite a few already. We had the opinion that if we ended up with one or two, it would be a good result.
“You try to estimate what the horses might make through the day, you see how strong the sale was, you probably had to adjust a little bit for that.”
Hedge and Silverdale Farm also bought a Spirit Of Boom (Sequalo) colt for $190,000, and fillies by So You Think (High Chaparral) ($140,000) and Deep Field (Northern Meteor) ($14,000) to be the leading buyer at the Australian Weanling Sale.
Newgate-China Horse Club go back to the well with Triple Crown winner
Meanwhile, the syndicate who raced the Bob Baffert-trained unbeaten US Triple Crown champion Justify, China Horse Club and Newgate Farm, was the first off the mark, purchasing a half-brother to Group 3-winning stallion Super One (I Am Invincible) and th stakes-placed sprinter Super Too (Hinchinbrook) for $280,000.
The first lot through the Riverside Stables ring, the Fairhill Farm-bred and sold colt is the sixth live foal out of Tails Wins (Tale Of The Cat).
Six lots later, another son of Justify was sold by Coolmore for $150,000 to Fernigg Farm, setting the tone for a vibrant market.
Newgate Farm’s Henry Field, the man credited with selecting Justify at the 2016 Keeneland September Yearling Sale for US$500,000, was immediately taken by the high-priced colt.
“We were super lucky to race Justify with Winstar and China Horse Club and he was a champion,” Field said yesterday.
“I couldn’t believe when I saw this colt that he looked so much like his sire, maybe a neater, more compact version, but he has very similar qualities and traits and we were lucky to pick him up for our partnership.”
Field is also familiar with the colt’s female side, having bought Singapore champion 2YO Super One.
“The mare’s thrown two incredibly fast horses in Super One and Super Too, so this horse had a little bit of scope about him, which I loved, and I think he looks very fast,” he said.
Justify, who was trained by Hall of Fame inductee Bob Baffert, completed an unbeaten six-start career with a triumphant performance in the 2018 Belmont Stakes (Gr 1, 1m 2f), completing the US Triple Crown to create history and enter US racing folklore.
Amid a frenzied negotiation, Coolmore landed a startling deal to buy the powerful stallion for a figure speculated to be in the vicinity of US$60 million and the global operation has since acquired some of the world’s best mares to support him at stud in both hemispheres.
Fairhill Farm’s Mike O’Donnell sold the colt on behalf of breeder Reg Kemister with the reserve set at $130,000.
He reasoned that breeders’ support of Justify in the southern hemisphere should be based on the stallion’s racetrack performance and precedence.
“Danehill was a shuttle stallion starting out once as well, wasn’t he? Justify was an unbeaten champion winner of the Triple Crown in his first prep, and so it’s very hard not to send our mares to him,” O’Donnell said.
“That level of horse hasn’t come out here before. If Secretariat had come out they would have jumped all over him.
“They are beautiful horses, and you’d think they would only improve from weanlings to yearlings.”
The strong market came as no surprise to industry observers, least of all Field.
He said: “It’s a good market, as it was always going to be. It should be a great market as we’ve had a great yearling market and everyone’s buoyant and confident and the weanling market’s following on.”
Fairhill Farm grossed $2,209,000 after selling all 29 weanlings offered at an average price of $76,172.
Smashing Hellbent colt makes $250,000
Tyreel Stud’s Linda Monds’ decision to offer a son of second crop sire Hellbent (I Am Invincible), a move aimed at showcasing the colt’s mother, paid off in spades when he made $250,000.
He was bought by Binalong Bloodstock’s Murray Shaw, who also bought two Capitalist colts for $190,000 and $180,000, a Justify colt for $145,000 and a So You Think (High Chaparral) colt for $100,000 to end the sale as the leading buyer.
The most expensive of Shaw’s haul was the Hellbent colt whose dam Family Crest (Fastnet Rock) is being offered in Sunday’s Australian Broodmare Sale as Lot 395 in foal to Newgate Farm’s first season sire Brutal (O’Reilly).
“It’s an outstanding result, which was based on his physical and he was very clean on X-rays,” Monds said of selling the Hellbent colt.
“It’s also a great result for Hellbent. For a start, he consistently throws outstanding types and I think next year’s going to be very, very exciting for that stallion (with his first progeny) on the track.
“It’s just a brilliant result for our farm and the mare as she is in the broodmare sale on Sunday.”
The colt is a half-brother to two-year-old Literary Magnate (Written Tycoon), a Matthew Williams-trained filly who was runner-up in last month’s $1 million The Showdown (1200m).
“Family Crest was one the first mares we ever bought and I am finding that I do have to part with some of my favourites who I’ve kept,” Monds said.
“I just felt having them in the same sale would confirm to people what sort of types she throws and also, based on the fact that Literary Magnate, who is the two-year-old out of the mare by Written Tycoon, has got a very, very exciting 12 months ahead.”
‘We expected it to be really strong’
The select session of the Australian Weanling Sale set another record, continuing the upward spiral of the local thoroughbred market in 2021, after 190 foals changed hands for a total of $8,438,000 yesterday.
Compared to 2019 – last year’s sale was held in July due to Covid-19 restrictions – the average of $44,411 and median of $24,000 were up 23 per cent and 33 per cent respectively.
“We expected it to be really strong as there was a good feel to it during inspections and a pragmatic man says that on the back of a strong yearling market that the weanling market should be confident and robust and that’s how it played out,” Inglis general manager of bloodstock sales and marketing Sebastian Hutch said.
One of the key strengths to the top-end of the market has been buyers’ confidence in young stallions such as Capitalist, who had ten lots sell at an average of $147,500, and newcomer Justify whose four weanlings sold for an aggregate of $875,000.
“I think if you want to be involved in the yearling market in 2022, you have to make some pragmatic decisions around the stallions you want to be involved with,” said Hutch.
“Breeders made those decisions two years ago, when they did their matings, but the landscape can change significantly since that time.
“There are certain stallions that people feel like they have to be a part of going into the yearling sales season next year.
“Horses like Capitalist, Justify, So You Think, Extreme Choice, these are the sort of horses that people feel they need to be a part of and they sold extremely well.”
Chairman’s Sale to proceed
Tonight’s Inglis Chairman’s Sale will proceed at Riverside Stables in Sydney but it will be restricted to registered buyers, registered sellers and invitees only.
Inglis confirmed the change last night in reaction to Covid-19 restrictions put in place yesterday by Premier Gladys Berejiklian in the wake of an unexpected outbreak of the virus in the eastern suburbs.
Hutch last night confirmed that the 66-lot sale, featuring Group 1 winners In Her Time (Time Thief), Celebrity Queen (Redoute’s Choice), Pippie (Written Tycoon) and Danzdanzdance (Mastercraftsman), would go ahead, although the auction would be monitoring the situation and that minor changes would be made to ringside dining and entertainment.
“It is very rare you get the opportunity to buy stock as good as Celebrity Queen, or Pippie or In Her Time, so you have just got to take advantage of that. You can’t do it in most other places around the world,” he said.
“Interest has been great. We will have domestic and international participation. I think the situation in NSW over the last 24 hours is that bit more palatable to people given what has gone on in the last 18 months.”
The Chairman’s Sale will start at 5.30pm this evening.