Deep Field and Iffraaj colts make $310,000 to bring down curtain on record Magic Millions
Alpine Edge’s half-brother to be trained on the Gold Coast, Iffraaj colt to head interstate
Yarramalong Park principal Richard Foster says the time was right to cash in on the success of exciting two-year-old Alpine Edge (Better Than Ready) by selling his half-brother by Deep Field (Northern Meteor) for $310,000, one of two colts to make the Book 2 top price at the Magic Millions Yearling Sale.
Bringing the marathon and record-breaking Gold Coast auction to a close, it was veteran local trainer John Morrisey who outlasted agent Denys Chan to buy the younger sibling to the Toby and Trent Edmonds-trained Alpine Edge, who was beaten a length and a quarter when finishing runner-up behind Shaquero (Shalaa) in Saturday’s $2 million Magic Millions 2YO Classic (RL, 1200m).
“We sold his half-brother by Better Than Ready last year for $160,000 and we kept 25 per cent of him. He’s gone on and won nearly $600,000 in three starts and there looks a lot more to come hopefully,” Foster said.
“With his colt, we thought we better sell him and take some money off the table. He was always a very nice colt, right from birth, as they all are out of that particular mare.
“I’m so happy John Morrisey has got him as we’ve raced plenty of horses with Johnny over the years, off and on, and he’s a great mate of ours and a great friend. We hope he has bought himself a champion.”
Catalogued as Lot 1244, he is the fourth foal out of the multiple stakes-performed mare Freezethemillions (Freeze) who has produced two winners from three foals to race, including the Phelan Ready Stakes (Listed, 1000m) and B J McLachlan Stakes (Gr 3, 1200m) winner Alpine Edge.
Morrisey bought the colt on behalf of long-time client Gundaroo Stud who has had horses with the trainer and his son Scott since he was training from Capricorn Park near Canberra in the 1990s.
“He’s a different type of horse to his half-brother, but he’s a very nice horse,” Morrisey said.
“He’s a little neat compact horse. The owner liked him more than me, but I thought he was a nice little horse.
“I feel he will make a two-year-old. We will try to see if he can be a horse that might make the race next year. We can only try.”
Foster, whose Yarramalong Park sold 14 yearlings across Books 1 and 2 for a total of $1,650,000, thought his Deep Field colt was well-placed in the second session.
“I didn’t push (for Book 1), because at that stage Alpine Edge hadn’t run in a race,” he said.
“We knew he was good but, at the end of the day, if Alpine Edge hadn’t won those races, he might have got lost in Book 1.
“The fact he has been sold after the Magic Millions race has been run was no disadvantage.”
Before the colt entered the sale ring, Foster thought he could have made anything from $250,000 to $500,000.
“We couldn’t value him. You have to let the market value horses like this,” he said.
“I can’t sell them and buy them, I can only sell them. When they get up into that kind of money, you leave it to the buyers to sort it out.”
Iffraaj colts popular for the second year in a row
Earlier in the session Hong Kong agent Chan, who operates Golden River Investments, made sure he put a big exclamation mark on his three-month stint in Australia with a quickfire $310,000 acquisition of a New Zealand-bred son of Iffraaj (Zafonic).
It was Chan who landed the sizable colt for a Hong Kong client after also signing for the $300,000 Scissor Kick (Redoute’s Choice) filly sold on Sunday on behalf of All Winners Thoroughbreds.
Chan, who was Facetiming his client throughout the bidding process, held off the challenge of a rival who was sitting on the other side of the auditorium.
“I like him a lot. He’s obviously a nice big horse who is a type. He is a good walker and he vetted all clean,” said Chan.
“He is for a Hong Kong client but he could race here in Australia before going back to Hong Kong on a PP (private purchase permit) or something like that.”
Iffraaj, whose shuttling duties to Haunui Farm in New Zealand ceased at the end of 2019, has now sired the top-priced Book 2 yearling for the past two years after Orbis Bloodstock went to $370,000 for another colt by the sire 12 months earlier.
The Darley stallion has sired 20 individual winners of 51 races in Hong Kong, including the stakes-placed Happy Era.
Offered by Bhima Thoroughbreds on behalf of Haunui Farm marketing manager Shannon Taylor, the colt received an important pre-sale pedigree update when his half-sister Cool Change (Showcasing) ran third in a recent Listed race at Pukekohe. Catalogued as Lot 1186, he is the fourth living foal out of Busted Love (Flying Spur), who herself is a half-sister to Singapore’s champion two-year-old of 2017, Be Bee (Showcasing).
Bjorn Baker or Greg Eurell, who will prepare the Capitalist (Written Tycoon) half-sister to Hong Kong champion Golden Sixty (El Prado) who was sold in Book 1 and secured by Chan, are in line to prepare the Iffraaj colt.
Bhima’s Mike Fleming, who has sold horses for a number of New Zealand clients on the Gold Coast, believes this week’s results could be the catalyst for more Kiwi breeders to send stock to market in Australia.
“He’s a lovely horse, obviously a Classic horse, and he got a good update at the right time. He paraded well all week, showed himself off well and his sire is doing a great job. I couldn’t be happier,” Fleming said.
“He came over and was prepped here. She targeted him for the Book 2 sale, so (Haunui) can take all the credit, we just prepped him and put him through.”
The end of the Magic Millions sale also brought a conclusion to Chan’s extended stay in Australia after first quarantining in New Zealand last October.
“I came into Australia in late October, then I did the Hunter yearling inspections for this sale,” he said.
“The market has been very strong, but it’s been a good sale, though. The quality is just unbelievable. I think it’s been one of the best yearling sales in the southern hemisphere.
“I will fly back to Hong Kong on the 20th and then maybe I will be back in May/June for the National Yearling Sale.”
Fogden convinced she’s made the right Choice
Kacy Fogden’s emergence as a public trainer on the Gold Coast was given a boost yesterday with the acquisition of a $220,000 son of young Newgate Farm sire Extreme Choice (Not A Single Doubt).
Offered by Queensland’s Lyndhurst Stud Farm as Lot 1157, the colt is the sixth foal out of Anabarbie (Anabaa), a half-sister to the stakes-placed multiple winner Honourable Aussie (Honours List) and he is by the same sire as recent Flemington winner Abseiler, the talented Kiwi Palamos and the stakes-placed Extreme Warrior.
“We went back and saw him a couple of times. He’s just a belter – the more you looked at him, the more you liked him. He’s got a really powerful walk, a good hindquarter and a good action and he’s really strong, too,” Fogden said.
“He’s the first one we’ve had by Extreme Choice, so we are really excited about that. Being in Book 2, we had him valued just under that, so we had to go an extra bid just to secure him but we are certainly rapt.
“I had heard a few people talking about him, so there was good mail on him, a lot of good judges on him.”
Fogden, who has been an integral part of Aquis Farm’s success with its string of high-profile colts in recent years with her overseeing their pre-training, will maintain her two-stable operation.
“We have gone out on our own and we’ve managed to get a few done already (horses sold to clients),” she said.
“We have got boxes on-course at the Gold Coast and we have 60 boxes based at Aquis, so we lease those boxes.
“We’re really lucky to have those as the tracks there are amazing and we’re a bit spoiled for choice. It’s a perfect set-up really between town and the farm.”
Oaks winner’s half-sister makes $180,000
Prominent Sydney owners Frank and Christine Cook were also active on the final day, with the husband and wife unable to resist taking home the half-sister to their 2016 VRC Oaks (Gr 1, 2500m) winner Lasqueti Spirit (Beneteau).
With the assistance of agent John Foote, the Cooks’ Mystery Downs bought the Alexia Fraser Bloodstock-consigned Spirit Of Boom (Sequalo) filly for $180,000.
Listed as lot 1110, the filly is the sixth living foal out of Supriym Story (General Nediym), the dam of three winners with the former Lee Curtis-trained Oaks winner Lasqueti Spirit the best of them.
Rosehill-based Curtis, who is now in a training partnership with his wife Cherie, will prepare the filly.
Cook had already bought six yearlings from the Gold Coast and had resolved to not purchase any more but the temptation proved too much.
“I had already bought too many horses. I was not going to buy any more, and I kept going back to her and looking at her online,” Cook revealed yesterday.
“I was caught down the Central Coast, but I had Cherie Curtis up there looking at them for me. She loved the filly, and prompted me to have another look
“When I looked at the video, I thought ‘you do walk out well’. We did the scopes and x-rays and I got her vetted out and everything seemed fine. It came down to only wanting to pay a reasonable price, between $100,000 and $150,000.
“Her head is very much like Lasqueti Spirit. Lee said she was probably a bit more compact than what Lasqueti Spirit was as a yearling. She walked out well and Lee said we should have a go if we’d love to have her.”
The seven-day selling extravaganza, meanwhile, wrapped up with the Summer Racehorse Sale featuring a draft of Godolphin horses and it was Hoss and Gillian Heinrich who bought four lots.
They included the three highest-priced horses, the recent Randwick winner Hilo (Lonhro) ($220,000), last-start Warwick Farm winner Deference (Exceed And Excel) ($150,000) and lightly raced maiden Chilliwack (Exceed And Excel) ($100,000).
Bowditch thrilled with Book 2 close
The Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale, the company’s biggest and most important each year, broke $200 million in trade for the first time and last night the aggregate was sitting at $211,721 million at a clearance rate of 87 per cent.
With a larger Book 2 offering this year, combined with an increased Book 1 as well, the year-on-year average of $208,387 was down from $217,402, but the median held at $150,000.
Magic Millions elected to offer a larger Book 1 catalogue, which led to Book 2 horses unable to arrive at the complex until last Thursday night, but managing director Barry Bowditch declared the move a success.
“I firstly thank the vendors for working with us because the logistics of this (Book 2) sale were a little bit more challenging than what they have encountered in the past. But they worked with us and the results reflect that the buyers still got behind the sale and that it worked,” he said.
“There’s a great thirst for horses out there at all ends of the market and in most cases we had buyers here for those horses, which is our mandate.”