‘Chairman’s quality’ mares to go under the hammer at Australian Broodmare Sale
Friday night’s Chairman’s Sale was an undoubted success, but let’s face it, with an average of more than $500,000 only a small percentage of the industry’s breeders can play at the elite level.
For that reason, today’s 248-lot Inglis Australian Broodmare Sale will see a much broader buying bench participating at Riverside Stables and Inglis’ general manager of bloodstock sales and marketing Sebastian Hutch is confident there is quality breeding stock to be found.
“Without wanting to sound ridiculous, we very specifically pitched to particular vendors to target the sale on Sunday as we felt there was an opportunity for people to stand out in that session. There are Chairman’s quality mares in that session,” Hutch said on Friday night.
“It sounds silly because I’ve just said we’d like to grow the Chairman’s session, but we get asked to offer advice to vendors and the best advice is to do what they are doing and hopefully they get rewarded.
“I saw people looking through the catalogue for Sunday (on Friday night) because they knew they weren’t going to be able to lay a glove on what they wanted in Chairman’s.
“It is a different form of market but certainly the better stock will sell very well I think.”
Today’s sale boasts mares in foal to stallions including Capitalist (Written Tycoon), Exceed And Excel (Danehill), Zoustar (Northern Meteor), Trapeze Artist (Snitzel), Written Tycoon (Iglesia), Deep Field (Northern Meteor), Justify (Scat Daddy), Snitzel (Redoute’s Choice) and So You Think (High Chaparral).
Mares with covers to Shalaa (Invincible Spirit), Yes Yes Yes (Rubick), Zousain (Zoustar), Microphone (Exceed And Excel) and Brutal (O’Reilly) will also go through the ring.
A reminder of the potential upside in buying mares in foal was seen at Thursday’s Australian Weanling Sale when Victorian breeder David Digney bought a mare in foal to Capitalist for $65,000. The resulting weanling colt made $400,000 last week.
Reflecting on the Chairman’s Sale, which achieved a new high after Group 1-winning mare Celebrity Queen (Redoute’s Choice) made $2.5 million, Hutch suggested the auction had a major place on the calendar as a must-attend event.
“Buyers weren’t stopping at $400,000, $500,000 or $600,000. They just kept going and going,” Hutch said.
“The phrase FOMO (fear of missing out) was used two years ago and if people had FOMO then, they definitely have it now.”
The Australian Broodmare Sale at Riverside Stables starts at 10am.