Marabi joins Arrowfield for $2.4 million with Virtual Sale topping price
Magic Millions believes breeding season auction concept has merit after maiden experiment
If at first you don’t succeed try again and for Arrowfield Stud it was third time lucky in securing Oakleigh Plate (Gr 1, 1100m) winner Marabi (I Am Invincible) for $2.4 million at Tuesday’s first edition of the August Magic Millions Virtual Sale.
Having come up short at least twice this year in an attempt to land a high-profile mare, the leading Hunter Valley nursery purchased the eight-year-old, who is close to delivering her first mating, a foal by Zoustar (Northern Meteor), to strengthen its broodmare band.
Marabi, the flagship lot of Magic Millions’ maiden breeding season-eve virtual sale, won her first seven starts for Ciaron Maher and his then training partner David Eustace, including Caulfield’s premier Group 1 sprint, was the sole seven-figure offering to be sold on Tuesday. Nine more lots sold for $100,000 or more during a short and sharp sale where buyers were selective and reserved in their budgets.
Arrowfield, however, was able to win the nine-bid battle for Marabi, who was catalogued as Lot 34.
“She is a beautiful mare, she was very fast who is by a great sire, a champion sire and she’s from a great family that goes back to one that Percy Sykes developed and then John Muir and then Greg,” Arrowfield bloodstock manager Jon Freyer said.
“Look, we were delighted to be able to get her and we rated her very highly.”
Marabi is a daughter of Sunline Stakes (Gr 2, 1600m) winner Nakaaya (Tiger Hill) and a half-sister to VRC Oaks (Gr 1, 2500m) winner Aristia (Lonhro), who was also placed in the Empire Rose Stakes (Gr 1, 1600m) and Vinery Stud Stakes (Gr 1, 2000m).
Marabi’s breeder Greg Perry, who recently dissolved his interest in Vinery Stud where his mares remain, retains ownership of Aristia but he made the decision to part with her three-time stakes-winning half-sister.
“I have sold out of Vinery and I have cut back my commitment to breeding to some degree, but I still have a number of mares at home that I am mating this season including her half-sister,” Perry told ANZ Bloodstock News.
Arrowfield, meanwhile, had demonstrated its intent earlier this year when just missing out on securing record-breaking $6.6 million mare Imperatriz (I Am Invincible) at the Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale and, less than a month ago, the John Messara-led stud also signalled it had lost none of its appetite to acquire a high-class mare, having been the under bidder on Coolmore Classic (Gr 1, 1500m) winner Espiona (Extreme Choice).
The Star Thoroughbreds-owned mare was sold for $4.15 million to Yulong associate Zhijun Zhao at a standalone Magic Millions Virtual Sale on July 31.
In 2021, Arrowfield also paid $3.2 million in 2021 for three-time Group 1-winning mare Arcadia Queen (Pierro) from owner-breeder Bob Peters, whose first yearling, the now two-year-old named Federalist (I Am Invincible), sold for $1 million at the Gold Coast in January.
“We have always been good buyers of high-quality mares … and we have probably been in the market for those mares for sometime, but we haven’t been able [to buy them],” Freyer said.
“We’ve been outbid, mostly by Yulong, but there comes a time when you need to refresh your broodmare band.
“We’ve been the leading yearling vendor for sometime, but time marches on and when you get an opportunity to get these sorts of mares that can into your broodmare band, they’re ones that you’ll keep and get daughters out of, so you’ve got to take those opportunities.”
Arrowfield will await the birth of Marabi’s Zoustar foal before deciding on her second mating.
The second highest-priced mare to sell was the 2022 VRC Oaks (Gr 1, 2500m) third placegetter Queen Air (Toronado) who was purchased by leading Brisbane trainer Tony Gollan for $350,000.
Previously trained in Victoria by Lindsey Smith, Melbourne metropolitan winner Queen Air struggled to find her best form this year, finishing unplaced in five starts before being spelled and entered for Tuesday’s sale.
Magic Millions managing director Barry Bowditch said buyer interest had been strong leading into the sale but admitted to his disappointment about the fact that 18 of the 45 horses offered did not find new homes.
The clearance rate was at 60 per cent with the prospect of a few deals being reached in the coming days.
“Looking at the amount of people who were engaged to bid online and on the phone, there were plenty of people who had intentions of participating, but the reality was we expected to sell a few more and that’s probably the most disappointing thing,” Bowditch told ANZ Bloodstock News.
“We would have hoped that the clearance rate would have been slightly higher. But if you had asked me a month ago whether we would have had a sale that grossed $5 million, I would have taken that, but obviously half the gross right now is made up by an outstanding mare in Marabi.”
Bowditch believes that the virtual sale concept staged in the lead-up to the breeding season has legs and Arrowfield’s Freyer agrees, indicating that Magic Millions “did a good job with the sale”.
“There’s nothing wrong with the purely online version, but the virtual sale feels more interactive and I think it’s a good concept,” Freyer said.
“The timing for some of the other stock I guess wasn’t perfect, being that we’re right on top of the [breeding season] and people are busy with other things, but for the really top stuff like Marabi, there was always going to be a solid market.”
Bowditch added: “We will look to tinker with the format, but I think the concept’s really strong. Obviously, vendors were willing to get behind it, which is great, and on the whole there were plenty of good buyers who participated in the sale.
“So, we are pleased with that, but again we would have liked to have had a few more sales [completed] along the way.”
If you needed a snapshot of the current landscape of the Australian breeding landscape, Tuesday’s inaugural Magic Millions sale reinforced the widening gap between the top and the bottom of the market and the must-haves and have-nots.
Magic Night Stakes (Gr 3, 1200m) winner Steel City (Merchant Navy), a half-sister to Group 1-winning sprinter September Run (Exceed And Excel), was passed in for $775,000. The Lime Country Thoroughbreds-consigned Stormy Revolution (Russian Revolution) was another to be initially passed in, but was later sold for $220,000 to JC Bloodstock.
Stormy Revolution is the half-sister to Golden Slipper (Gr 1, 1200m) and young Newgate Farm-based sire Stay Inside (Extreme Choice).
The owners of Have A Good Day (Adaay), a European Group 3 winner in foal to Frankel (Galileo) on southern hemisphere time, also elected to retain their valuable commodity after also being passed in on Tuesday.
John Singleton’s unraced mare Miss Enfield (I Am Invincible), a daughter of his champion filly Samantha Miss (Redoute’s Choice), was also retained after failing to find a buyer at a $500,000 reserve.
Of course, the small catalogue of just 48 lots, 32 of which were mares, magnifies the volatility of the broodmare market that can often be smoothed over by the volume of a larger live sale, particularly across multiple days.
“Whether it be the digital market or the virtual market, it’s one and the same so to speak, although they’re different formats, the fact the horses are at home [on farms instead of a sales complex], you do get sellers having a shy at the stumps and they’ve got a plan B if they don’t sell them and that’s all part of it,” Bowditch said.
“From the buyers’ perspective, there is that slight uncertainty out there and it did reflect in parts of today’s sale.
“Obviously, there’s a great thirst for black type and the horses by the right sires, they’re the ones that seem to hit the mark and sell particularly well across the board.”
Lot 2 Aureus Angel (Turffontein) got Magic Millions off the mark, fetching $160,000, a good return on the stakes winner for owner Andrew Baddock who paid a paltry $2,500 for the mare at an Inglis Digital sale in September 2022.
The winner of the Bright Shadow (Listed, 1110m) at Doomben in May for trainer Chris Munce, Aureus Angel was purchased by Hollymount Stud’s Matthew Sandblom who also operates Hunter Valley stud Kingstar Farm.
Sandblom also backed up two lots later, paying $22,000 for the Lindsay Park-trained Croatian Belle (Brazen Beau), a mare who won her first two starts as a pre-Christmas juvenile who also contested the 2023 Magic Millions 2YO Classic (RL, 1200m).
Hollymount Stud also paid $100,000 for Nevershotthedeputy (Written Tycoon), a daughter of black-type winner Miss Power Bird (Mukaddamah) who is in foal to Darley’s champion first-season sire Too Darn Hot (Dubawi).
Extreme Threat (Extreme Choice), a winner who was placed in last year’s Blue Diamond Prelude (Gr 2, 1100m) on debut for trainers Mick Price and Mick Kent Jnr, sold for $220,000 to Normandy Racing.