‘I genuinely feel vendors in this part of the world are very well serviced by the auction houses’
Entries open for Inglis’ 2025 sales season
The appetite from breeders to offer yearlings at select sales and the competition for places at Australasia’s premier thoroughbred auctions next year will be as hot as ever, according to Inglis’ Bloodstock chief executive Sebastian Hutch.
His early assessment of the 2025 yearling market comes as Inglis officially opens entries for next year’s sales series, principally its February Classic in Sydney, Melbourne Premier and the blue-riband Easter Yearling Sale next April.
“The yearlings that people are selling in 2025 are the product of matings that were considered in 2022, so I don’t expect to see a significant change in the volume of stock being put forward for sale and, as ever, it’ll be hugely competitive for people to try and find places in sales across Australia and New Zealand,” Hutch told ANZ Bloodstock News.
“I think each of the three major sales companies across Australasia work hard to try and facilitate as many people as they possibly can and try to achieve as many positive results for as many people as they possibly can.
“I genuinely feel vendors in this part of the world are very well serviced by the auction houses and we feel at the forefront of that and plan to continue to be in 2025.”
The 2025 sales series opens with the Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale in January, before attention turns to New Zealand Bloodstock’s National Yearling Sale at Karaka and that is followed by Inglis’ Classic offering at Riverside Stables in Sydney.
Hutch foresees that buyer demand in next year’s Australasian yearling sale market won’t be too dissimilar to how the 2023 sales played out in which he admits vendors had to “work harder to get their stock sold”.
“Figures year-on-year compare very favourably with 2023 and I see 2022 as a record year, certainly a year that appears unlikely to be surpassed any time soon in terms of turnover at bloodstock auctions, but the amount of money traded through bloodstock in 2024 is very similar to amount traded in 2023,” he said.
“While across some sales the adjustment in the figures were more pronounced than at others, at the end of the day, the vast majority of people were given a fair opportunity to sell their stock through 2024.
“If you’re starting off with a singular objective of what you want to do, you’d want to make sure everyone has a fair opportunity to sell their stock and I think that was the case in 2024.”
The level of international investment in the Australian market was also a feature of 2024 and it’s a segment that Hutch says Inglis will be focused on again next year.
“There was some concern about the depth and the strength of the domestic market and, as it turned out, it held up well, but we really did work hard to try and identify international investors in our sales series and that bore fruit,” he said.
“Whether it was people looking to invest from New Zealand, they were fantastic through the year, the expectation is that it’ll be a part of that market that will continue to strengthen.
“Our sales, particularly Classic and Premier, appear to also be a favourite for investors from [Asia]. They’ve had success from those sales and they support it accordingly and then you get a sale like Easter that draws people from across the bloodstock spectrum.”
Inglis, of course, set a new $10 million record for a yearling sold at auction when Debbie Kepitis’ Woppitt Bloodstock purchased Winx’s (Street Cry) only foal to date at the Easter sale.
It was an overseas investor, relative American industry newcomer John Stewart, who was the underbidder.
“There were major investors from Hong Kong, Europe, the Middle East, South Africa and the US,” Hutch said.
“That’s something we’re looking to develop and grow. The Australian racing product really appeals to people across the world in principle. It’s just a case of trying to have circumstances materialise in a way they get to experience it firsthand.
“For people who come to Australia to experience top-class racing in Sydney and Melbourne … they never leave with anything other than an enhanced opinion of it.”
Entries for the Inglis yearling sales will close on August 16.