Hanseatic’s unheralded son stands up in Showcase Session

$160,000 colt by Rosemont’s young sire to join Moody’s Pakenham stable

A son of Hanseatic (Street Boss) may have been in the Showcase Session of the Inglis Premier Yearling Sale, but the first crop colt wasn’t missed by the buying bench.

The Rosemont Stud-consigned colt, who is by the Victorian farm’s exceedingly fast two-year-old stallion, topped the Book 2 offering in Melbourne yesterday, selling for $160,000 to close out the 2024 Melbourne sale.

The developing colt was bought by Pakenham-based Peter Moody and Katherine Coleman, the prominent trainers’ eighth and final purchase over the three-day sale.

Rosemont Stud’s Anthony Mithen knew he had a nice colt on his hands when buyers constantly asked why the horse wasn’t in the main catalogue.

“Look, I got sick of being told for the last five days that this horse should have been in Book 1 and was better than some of my Book 1 horses and as proven the market is usually right, and it is right,” Mithen said.

“The horses people were picking on in Book 1 sold for less than that, so the smart judges know. 

“Poor old Inglis have a decision to make months ago on what horses they take and where they put them, so it’s a thankless task.”

The session-topping colt is the first foal out of Melbourne-winning sprinter Knowles (Starspangledbanner), herself a half-sister to juvenile scorer and stakes-placed two-year-old Mount Zero (Northern Meteor).

Merson Cooper Stakes (Listed, 1000m) and Blue Diamond Preview (Listed, 1000m) and Prelude (Gr 3, 1100m) winner Hanseatic has averaged $80,877 at public auction so far this year. He has sold up to $220,000 at Premier and $375,000 at the Magic Millions in January.

“We’ve been really pleased with the Hanseatics we’ve been able to sell around the place and get into good homes,” Mithen said. 

“That’s the whole point of the exercise when you come here with a first–season stallion that you’ve lived and breathed for the last few years.

“It’s nice to get market support from the right stables and we’re rapt with the reception we’ve got.”

Price is right for Peltzer colt

Long-time professional Hong Kong-based punter David Price describes his horse trading business as an “out-of-control hobby” but it’s one that he seems to have mastered.

On the final day of the Premier sale, expatriate Australian Price was at Oaklands Junction alongside his agents John Foote and Merrick Staunton and consultant Maree McEwan to buy a colt by first–season colt by Peltzer (So You Think) for $150,000.

He was the equal second highest-priced Showcase Session yearling sold in Melbourne alongside a Shamus Award (Snitzel) filly who was bought by Graeme Gathercole’s Rich River Meat Exports enterprise.

Price’s bloodstock agents Foote and Staunton co-signed the docket for the Twin Hills Stud-consigned Peltzer colt early in the third and final session of Premier 2024.

“With that one, John Foote and Merrick both liked him, so when they both like one you’re always happy to have a few more bids,” said Price, who was also seated with his son Max.

“Most of them [horses bought] are independent [opinions] and the overlaps aren’t as often as you’d think, but when they are, they’ve probably got a good strike-rate.”

The mid-November born colt is the third foal out of Admission (Bernardini), herself a half-sister to stakes winners Strat’s Flyer (Strategic) and Bauble (Hurricane Sky).

Price and his wife Jenny Chapman, who is a mounting yard expert for Hong Kong racing television broadcasts, operate Price Bloodstock Management and have a large number of horses in training in Australia, the aim being to on-sell them to Hong Kong owners.

“It has probably been an out-of-control hobby for 20 to 30 years and it’s just continued down that path,” Price explained. 

“It’s very difficult to do the exact maths, it’s such an inexact game, so it just seems to chug along and work, but volume is probably the key to it.”

He added: “I don’t mind a November foal because you’re not trying to win two-year-old races. We are in the four, five and six-year-old racing centre basically [in Hong Kong], so you are probably playing a different game.”

The Price-owned horses carry the red, blue and white silks of the Western Bulldogs Australian Rules football team and are spread around the stables of trainers Patrick Payne, Lindsay Park, Jason Williams and Adelaide’s Richard and Chantelle Jolly, who are likely to be given the Peltzer yearling. 

“Symon Wilde strategically sat down before and ended up with one, too, so well played, Symon,” Price joked.

“We probably make stuff up on the run a little bit, each day’s different, each sale’s different. There is no absolute set menu. The Hayeses have also strategically sat themselves next to us to get a few as well, which I thought was clever.”

Twin Hills principal Olly Tait was delighted with the sales ring result, which was an important endorsement of his resident sire Peltzer, who won the Stan Fox Stakes (Gr 2, 1500m), the $1 million Bondi (1600m) and the Eskimo Prince Stakes (Gr 3, 1200m) in Sydney at three.

“He was a lovely horse and just shows you, the buyers will find them wherever they are,” Tait said. 

“He was a lovely horse who had been admired all week and we had a great result.” 

Meanwhile, Gathercole and his private Mornington-based trainer Jerome Hunter sat in the sales complex’s public seating area to buy the Crossley Thoroughbreds-offered Shamus Award filly, the fourth living foal out of Celestial Dance (Galileo), before leaving Oaklands Junction soon after.

She was the pair’s only purchase of the Premier sale.

The trainer of multiple Group winner and three-time Group 1-placed filly Barb Raider (Rebel Raider), Hunter believes the filly had the physique of a stayer, matching her pedigree which also features Caulfield Cup (Gr 1, 2400m) and Rosehill Guineas (Gr 1, 2000m) winner Diatribe (Brief Truce).

“I think if she was in the first couple of days [Premier Session] she would have gone for more as she’s a nice type of horse,” Hunter said.

“We just like good walking horses, she’ll get the distance with her breeding and everything, so we were looking for a staying filly.

“We’ve had a bit of luck with an Oaks filly in Barb Raider, so we’re trying to look for our next Barb Raider.”

The Gathercole-owned Barb Raider, who ran third in a MRC Thousand Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m) and finished runner-up to Gypsy Goddess (Tarzino) in the 2022 Queensland Oaks (Gr 1, 2200m), a position she also filled in that year’s Australasian Oaks (Gr 1, 2000m), is in foal to Arrowfield Stud’s three-time Group 1-winning first–season sire Hitotsu (Maurice). 

Sale wrap

No one ever suggested it would be easy but the bottom end of the yearling market is feeling the economic pinch, although yesterday’s Showcase Session was “far healthier than I was anticipating”, according to Inglis Bloodstock chief executive Sebastian Hutch.

The Showcase session averaged $41,111, the median was $30,000, while the clearance rate was 71 per cent. There were 17 lots which sold for $100,000 or more on the third day, compared to seven last year.

Across both the Premier Session and Showcase Session, the Melbourne sale turned over $58,873,500 with 549 horses sold, the fewest since 2013.

Rosemont principal Mithen believes this year’s market sentiment, that is the bottom end of catalogued horses proving difficult to sell, will be here for the foreseeable future.

“They know the ones they want and they don’t even want to pay to feed the ones they don’t want, so that makes it a bit tough if you’re ten per cent off and I think it’s going to be like that for a while,” Mithen said.

“It’s an expensive exercise, racing a horse, and I acknowledge that, but there’ll be some nice horses that slip through the cracks given how selective the market is.”

Agent James Mitchell, who bought an Alabama Express (Redoute’s Choice) colt for $100,000 yesterday to be trained on the Gold Coast by Lee Freedman, said buyers had the upper hand this week.

“We’ve bought horses we liked within our budget and probably even a fraction under,” Mitchell said. 

“It’s been a buyers’ market in the middle, as it has been all year, but the top of the market is strong.”

Inglis decreased the size of the Premier Session catalogue by 40 horses, allowing Book 1 to run over two days, then the auction house increased the size of the Showcase Session to 240 lots for yesterday’s third day compared to 2023.

The Book 1 year-on-year Premier sale aggregate was down $6.4 million.

“I think that [change in format] would account for a significant portion in the change in gross because … I don’t think what might have been Book 1 horses 12 months ago ended up in the Showcase Session. I just don’t think that’s the case this year, I just think we were down 40 Book 1 [quality] horses,” Hutch said. 

“We catalogued it that way because the vendors’ preference was that we run a two-day Premier and a one-day Showcase rather than having the [Book 1 session] spill onto the third day.

“Even allowing for a blending of that, I feel like the market is down slightly. All the previous sales reflect that, but is the market unhealthy? No, I would say it’s not. It still feels like the market is in a good spot.

“You bring a nice horse into the ring and more often than not it sells well. When that stops being the case then we have a problem, but it’s certainly not the case at the moment.”

There will be back-to-back Magic Millions yearling sales, with the March offering on the Gold Coast next Monday and Tuesday and the Adelaide sale the following week.

Sale statistics – Showcase Session