Classic: the sale no buyer can ignore
Fears? What fears. After three further days of remarkable trade in the Australasian yearling market, the Inglis Classic Yearling Sale continued in the same vein as preceding sales at the start of the year, the Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale and New Zealand’s Karaka Yearling Sale, producing astonishing figures as the sales ground reverberated with energy.
Aggregate; up. Average; up. Clearance rate; up.
With metrics soaring across the board, over recent years and to varying degrees and timelines, the Inglis Classic Sale is becoming the yearling auction that no player can afford to miss.
Building from a value sale, focused on type for the domestic market, it has evolved into a global powerhouse, delivering champions for the influential Asian jurisdictions in Hong Kong and beyond, a goldmine for the rapidly-growing syndication industry and, fueled by the sheer number of stallions the sale has produced, colt funds and stud masters are increasingly discovering it to be a catalogue that delivers commercial opportunities for standing stallions.
“We looked at the stats,” said James Harron after purchasing the sale’s second top lot by Capitalist (Written Tycoon) out of Mystical Tale (Encosta De Lago) for $600,000 on Sunday.
Among those statistics he would have discovered I Am Invincible (Invincible Spirit), his sire-sons Brazen Beau and Hellbent as well as Arrowfield stallion Castelvecchio (Dundeel) as graduates of the sale.
Asia has already reaped the rewards. Group 1 winner, Hot King Prawn (Denman), is a 2016 graduate of the sale, while Nothingilikemore (Husson), winner of the Hong Kong Classic Mile (Listed, 1600m), passed through the Classic sales’ ring a year prior, purchased for just $40,000 from the Toolooganvale draft.
A decade ago, results from the 2011 edition of the Inglis Classic Sale saw Asia take home just 1.7 per cent of the offerings sold from the Inglis Classic.
Fast forward through the next ten years and those figures have rocketed. Asia, led by trainer Ricky Yiu, clients for leading bloodstock agent John Foote, as well as George Moore and family saw a peak spend of a tick over $6 million at the 2018 Inglis Classic Yearling Sale, with this year’s edition farewelling just under $5 million of horseflesh to the jurisdictions of Hong Kong, Singapore and China, among others.
A notable spike can be viewed in 2017, where spend increased by $2.5 million to $3,070,000 for an 8 per cent share of trade.
For syndicators, a swelling industry indicative of the very vibrancy of the thoroughbred business and appetite for racing ownership on these shores, the sale offers exactly the type of horse and price range for their eager target market.
A decade ago, syndicators were responsible for less than $1 million in purchases from the sale, a 6.4 per cent share of trade. Triple Crown Syndications, with a spend of $185,000, led a handful of promoters seeking to secure horses for syndication.
Enter Coolmore Stud Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) winner Brazen Beau (I Am Invincible) (Ontrack Thoroughbreds), Golden Slipper (Gr 1, 1200m) winner She Will Reign (Manhattan Rain) and Group 1 winner Yankee Rose (All American) (both Darby Racing), among others, and spending at the Inglis Classic Sale by syndicators has increased exponentially, peaking at $6.7 million in 2018, with 2021’s spend falling just shy of that figure. Market share, similarly, has grown from a lowly 6.4 per cent in 2011, to 12.5 per cent in 2021.
For colts’ funds and stallion masters, this is a sale that has been incrementally chomped at. Aquis Farm, jumping on to the scene in 2017, had invested heavily, buying ten colts that year.
But the emergence of James Harron and his much envied battalion of high-flying investors seems a significant launch into the Classic Sale. Harron, whose syndicate has raced the likes of Capitalist, Pariah (Redoute’s Choice) and King’s Legacy (Redoute’s Choice) on the track, purchased four colts from this year’s Classic sale, up from two a year ago and a solitary Spirit Of Boom (Sequalo) purchase in 2019. In 2018, his cheque book was reserved for elsewhere.
Newgate Farm and the China Horse Club syndicate, too, have invested here in recent years, securing the Zoustar (Northern Meteor) colt out of Blazing Snitzel (Snitzel) in this year’s edition, while three colts in 2020 went the way of the racing and breeding giants.
It is an evolution that has the propensity to propel the Inglis Classic Sale into the next realm on the auction ladder and, from humble beginnings, this evolution makes it a sale that no one can ignore.
*Figures include Book 1 only
| 2011 Inglis Classic Sale | Aggregate spend ($) | % Share |
| Asia | 244,000 | 1.70% |
| Syndicators | 921,500 | 6.43% |
| 2016 Inglis Classic Sale | Aggregate Spend ($) | % Share |
| Asia | 563,500 | 2.08% |
| Syndicators | 3,285,500 | 12.15% |
| 2017 Inglis Classic Sale | Aggregate Spend ($) | % Share |
| Asia | 3,070,000 | 8.52% |
| Syndicators | 4,935,000 | 13.70% |
| 2018 Inglis Classic Sale | Aggregate Spend ($) | % Share |
| Asia | 6,017,000 | 12.39% |
| Syndicators | 6,722,500 | 13.84% |
| 2021 Inglis Classic Sale | Aggregate Spend ($) | % Share |
| Asia | 4,925,000 | 9.58% |
| Syndicators | 6,410,000 | 12.47% |