Emerging cohort of stallions provide much-needed choice for buyers at Magic Millions
‘Last time I checked, there were 15 first season sires who have had a winner and I think that is phenomenal’
Three metropolitan two-year-old winners by first season sires in the space of 21 hours at the weekend has added weight to the belief that the current freshman stallions could be the crop to provide much-needed diversity to breeders and buyers in a market justifiably dominated by a select few in recent years.
When the Lloyd Kennewell-trained Abseiler scored at Flemington on Saturday to become Extreme Choice’s (Not A Single Doubt) third individual winner – two in Australia and one in New Zealand – it followed on from Shalaa’s (Invincible Spirit) Saasmit winning her first start at Murray Bridge almost an hour earlier and a daughter of Winning Rupert (Written Tycoon) in Hi Hi Hi scoring comprehensively at Canterbury the previous night.
Golden Slipper (Gr 1, 1200m) winner Capitalist (Written Tycoon), Flying Artie (Artie Schiller), Frosted (Tapit) and Star Turn (Star Witness) are also among those to sire talented city winners before the New Year.
It is that fact that has agents such as Sheamus Mills paying closer attention to the emerging crop of stallions.
“Last time I checked, there were 15 first season sires who have had a winner and I think that is phenomenal,” Mills said.
“I don’t think that has ever happened in my time watching horses and I think it is very, very promising for the industry. The great thing about it is that they are winning in town, they are winning at Flemington, they are winning at Canterbury.
“The last couple of weeks in Melbourne, there have been two quinellas of first season sires in these two-year-old metropolitan races.”
For investors and agents such as Mills, who participate on both sides of the fence, the emerging stallions are a welcome boost to follow on from the elite proven stallions such as four-time champion Snitzel (Redoute’s Choice), I Am Invincible (Invincible Spirit), Fastnet Rock (Danehill), Exceed And Excel (Danehill) and Written Tycoon (Iglesia).
“As a breeder and so on, we need options. It creates a bit of tension on service fees and it just gives you more options when mating your mares. I hope they all go on with it,” he said.
“A lot of people who are buying horses here need them to be by sires who are popular enough with their client base and, with these stallions, such as Winning Rupert who has now had a couple, Extreme Choice’s has had a couple and obviously there’s Shaquero for Shalaa as well, as I said, so you’re not trying to sell something off the back of a backwater result somewhere.
“They look like genuinely promising horses with the stock of their first season two-year-olds and a lot of these stallions will come onto the radar of people who may have steered clear of them in the past.”
While an unprecedented number of inspections were conducted on-farm by agents and trainers in the lead-up to this week’s sale, Victorian Mills chose to only look at those yearlings located in his home state prior to travelling to the Gold Coast.
“Even before Covid times, I never really (went to the farms) because I prefer to see them as finished products,” Mills said.
“The farms prep them all so differently, some farms are ready to parade three to four weeks before they get here and some farms prep their horses so they are basically not ready to parade until the last few days of their prep.
“I prefer to compare apples to apples, which means seeing them once they get here.”
The classification of Greater Sydney as a Covid-19 hotspot by the Queensland government since before Christmas has meant many trainers from the city have been unable to get to the Gold Coast.
Some Victorian trainers have also elected not to take the risk of coming to Magic Millions and have instead enlisted the help of agents.
Mills revealed his workload had increased due to trainers and owners being unable to inspect the horses themselves.
“I would be doing some work for Bluebloods anyway, but they are unable to make it, and a partner David (Mourad) from Import Racing can’t either, so that I suppose is not a new job, but the number of horses I will need to look at for them, and the amount they rely on me, will be much higher than usual,” he said.
“Outside that, there’s been a smattering of interest from those mid-tier Victorian trainers, the guys that are good trainers, but they don’t have the staff there to be able to miss potentially 14 to 20 days and not be hands-on (at the stables).”
Yoshida does hard yards to get to Millions
Meanwhile, the number of internationals at the sale will be scarce, but US-based Marie Yoshida was one agent who was not letting the pandemic stop her from attending the season-opening Australian yearling auction.
Acting for the Hong Kong-based Liang family who race the California-monikered horses, Yoshida arrived in Sydney prior to Christmas in order to undertake her two weeks of hotel quarantine.
She arrived on the Gold Coast last Thursday and has been busy since then inspecting the catalogue of more than 1,000 yearlings where she hopes to uncover another California Zimbol (I Am Invincible), a Peter and Paul Snowden-trained Group 3-winning mare, or another California Rad (Fastnet Rock), a promising sprinter in Hong Kong.
Last year, Yoshida bought three yearlings including the I Am Invincible sister to Magic Millions 2YO Classic (RL, 1200m) winner Houtzen for $1 million at the Magic Millions and a further three lots, a Hinchinbrook (Fastnet Rock) colt and two fillies by I Am Invincible, at the Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale for a combined $3.405 million.
“The Liang family kindly keep investing and they keep wanting the best quality possible,” Yoshida said.
“It is 2021 but what we are buying now, these yearlings, is for ‘22, ‘23 and, in the case of the fillies and broodmares, it is for the future, so it is very important that we don’t miss an important sale like Magic Millions.
“If we did that, it would create a gap in the story and we cannot afford gaps because sometimes it starts small, but then you realise later on that you have missed something important.
“We also hope that the market will maybe be easier to buy. It would be nice if it’s a buyers’ market and we have to be here to try.”
When ANZ Bloodstock News caught up with Yoshida yesterday, she was inspecting a number of lots from the Yarraman Park Stud draft, including progeny of young sires Hellbent (I Am Invincible) and Capitalist, as well as the farm’s premier stallion I Am Invincible.
“I’ve fallen in love with a few yearlings already. It is an extremely good quality catalogue, which is typical of Magic Millions with early, precocious types,” she said.
“As we also look for something a bit more Classic or more three-year-old types, we hope that there is a buyers’ market there.
“We have to applaud and to be very grateful to the Australian breeders who are riding wave after wave of difficult times between the weather and the pandemic and they still deliver a top product.”
The Asian Bloodstock Services principal added: “Every year we try to anticipate something that is coming up and it is important, like I said, to be here to see what type of yearlings the new sires are producing and the line of sires such as Hellbent.
“It is very interesting to follow I Am Invincible and to see if he can do it (as a sire of sires).”
Yoshida is scheduled to return to Kentucky on Sunday but is hopeful of returning to Australia in mid-March so she can attend the Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale in early April, despite the prospect of facing another 14-day stint in hotel quarantine.
“It was my first time ever spending Christmas, Boxing Day, New Year’s Eve, New Year’s Day alone, but you have to do what you have to do, and I truly respect the Australian authorities,” she said.
“It is very smart to do the two weeks’ quarantine to save so many lives and it is the right thing to do.
“It is a very easy pill to swallow…to save lives and avoid spreading this terrible virus.”