Doncaster winner Nettoyer added to Chairman’s Sale as catalogue confirmed
Inglis releases select 60-lot offering of elite breeding stock for one of industry’s night of nights
The Inglis Chairman’s Sale, described by Sebastian Hutch as one of the year’s premier bloodstock events on the Australasian bloodstock calendar, will feature a select 60-lot offering of high-end race fillies and broodmares in Sydney on May 7.
The sales company had already foreshadowed many of its star attractions – Group 1 winners Pippie (Written Tycoon), Celebrity Queen (Redoute’s Choice), In Her Time (Time Thief), El Dorado Dreaming (Ilovethiscity) and Danzdanzdance (Mastercraftsman) – and, upon finalising the make-up of the elite sale, yesterday announced that Doncaster Mile (Gr 1, 1600m) winner Nettoyer (Sebring) would also be offered at the auction.
The rising eight-year-old mare, trained by Wendy Roche at Warwick Farm, also won three Group 3 races leading up to last year’s crowning glory, her sensational come-from-behind Doncaster victory.
Nettoyer will be offered as Lot 41 through the Middlebrook Valley Lodge draft at the Chairman’s Sale, which features as the highlight in a week-long series of breeding stock sales at Inglis’ Riverside Stables, with the session starting at 5.30pm on Friday, May 7.
“It is the best catalogue we have put together for a Chairman’s Sale – the quality is exceptionally high,” said Hutch, Inglis’ general manager of bloodstock sales and marketing.
“It is a boutique sale, but by the same token, it is not just a catalogue of inaccessible stock.
“For a 60-horse catalogue, there’s fabulous variety in it. There’s top-class race mares, there’s two-year-olds, some very well-bred mares and some proven producers among them.
“There’s something for a very broad spectrum of buyers.”
Mares will be offered in foal to some of the most proven commercial stallions in Australia, including I Am Invincible (Invincible Spirit), Fastnet Rock (Danehill), Lonhro (Octagonal), So You Think (High Chaparral), Written Tycoon (Iglesia), Zoustar (Northern Meteor), Deep Field (Northern Meteor) and Capitalist (Written Tycoon).
Mares in foal to high-profile first season sires Too Darn Hot (Dubawi), Pierata (Pierro), Exceedance (Exceed And Excel), Microphone (Exceed And Excel) and Brutal (O’Reilly) will also be centre stage at the Friday night session.
First season Victorian-based sires Alabama Express (Redoute’s Choice) and I Am Immortal (I Am Invincible) also have mares in foal set to go through the ring.
Twin Hills Stud will offer UK two-year-old winner Mia Diva (Exceed And Excel) in foal to Darley’s European-based sire Night Of Thunder (Dubawi) to southern hemisphere time at the Chairman’s Sale. The 2,000 Guineas (Gr 1, 1m) winner sired three stakes winners from just 18 runners as his first and only crop of southern hemisphere-bred runners took to the track for the 2019/20 season.
Mia Diva, a sister to Group 3 winner Queen Of Bermuda, was bought at last year’s Tattersalls July Sale by Kern and Lillingston Association for 28,000gns.
Twin Hills’ Olly Tait is offering Mia Diva, who he describes as a “fairly unique commodity given that she is in foal to Night Of Thunder who has been so successful with his only Australian crop”, on behalf of clients.
“Mia Diva is obviously an Exceed And Excel mare who won at two, so there is a good Australian flavour there in herself, but the covering will garner the most interest given she is one of the very few in foal to that stallion (to southern hemisphere time),” Tait told ANZ Bloodstock News yesterday.
“They bought her as a mare to go to Night Of Thunder because they felt she’d be suitable for him and they are going to see what the market thinks of her.”
Tait predicts the mares’ market to follow the trend experienced at the Australian yearling sales so far this year which, across the board, have reached record levels.
“It is logical that it will and mares are without doubt the safest investment in bloodstock,” he said.
“They hold their value very well, particularly a mare like Mia Diva. The opportunity to get out on the pregnancy is absolutely realistic and then you have got a nice valuable mare that is paid for.”
The offering highlights how the globalisation of the bloodstock industry continues to grow, with breeders increasingly taking on a world view with their matings.
Cootamundra-based Tait said: “Over time it’s increasingly common that mares are covered to southern hemisphere time in the northern hemisphere and, as a result, there is a greater quantum of successful horses bred that way.
“Frankel, for instance, has had great success in Australia and I think that will continue to happen. We’ve got a Kingman foal here on the farm, so there are a number of mares who are being covered by the elite stallions in the northern hemisphere and brought down here.”
Twin Hills will also consign the early-running two-year-old and MRC Chairman’s Stakes (Gr 3, 1000m) winner Mildred (Hinchinbrook) at the Chairman’s sale for her owner Neville Begg.
The winner of three of her first four starts in a career that started as a September two-year-old, Mildred is being offered as a breeding prospect only.
“She was an absolute quality two-year-old filly and … when you’re selling yearlings, the horses who the market thinks can run early are highly sought after and Mildred is that horse,” he said.
“It was certainly Neville’s choice that he send Mildred to the Chairman’s Sale but, again, the results of the Chairman’s sale over the past few years for these elite fillies and mares has been very strong and buyers would find a horse of the quality of Mildred wherever she landed.
“The Chairman’s Sale is a great platform to be able to show her off in.”
The Chairman’s Sale could yet increase in numbers, with wildcard entries for the select sale set to close on April 23.
“We sold the sale-topper through the supplementary session two years ago (Maastricht for $2.25 million), so that is evidence that you’re not compromised in any way, shape or form by being a supplementary and, in some cases, their prospects might even be enhanced being later in the catalogue,” Hutch said.
“People who are looking to place nice mares, be it a filly off the track or a mare in foal, to take advantage of the hot market, there is the opportunity to be part of the wildcard session.”
The Chairman’s Sale will be preceded by the HTBA Yearling Sale on May 2 and 3 and the Australian Weanling Sale on May 6.
The Australian Broodmare Sale is scheduled to be held on Sunday. May 9.
The catalogues for the weanling sale and broodmare sale, comprising 264 lots and 237 lots respectively, were also released yesterday.
The HTBA Yearling Sale catalogue will be available next week.
“There’s going to be plenty of interest in the weanling sale, which has a great record in producing some fantastic pinhook results and some really good racehorses have come out of the sale as well,” Hutch said.
“The mare sale on the Sunday, there are plenty of stories from people having bought well with pregnancies or mares that they subsequently covered who go on to be fantastic racehorses or breed some expensive sale yearlings.
“I think over the course of the eight days, it’s going to be a very busy period of trade and there’s going to be a lot of good stories to come out of it.”