Quality over quantity for Ready2Race Sale
Inglis takes strategic approach to its two-year-old sale format
Inglis will offer a smaller catalogue of two-year-olds for this year’s Ready2Race Sale in October, a result of the rationalisation of the bloodstock market, but the company maintains that the 2024 group of horses is the best it has compiled.
Last year’s Inglis two-year-old sale had 44 vendors offering 226 lots when the catalogue was printed whereas that number has dropped to 30 consignors educating 196 lots for the October 15 sale to be held at the Riverside Stables complex in Sydney.
Inglis Bloodstock chief executive Sebastian Hutch believes the smaller number of vendors offering two-year-olds this year is a byproduct of an increasingly “discerning market” that has in the past 18 months lost key Asian jurisdictions of Singapore and Macau.
Macau’s racing industry closed earlier this year and Singapore is just weeks away from its final meeting, which is scheduled for October 5.
“Buyers in this part of the market are very particular about the criteria they want to tick. There’s no disguising that this market has been hindered by the demise of Singapore and Macau, but we’ve worked hard over a number of years to cultivate strong domestic interest in the sale,” Hutch told ANZ Bloodstock News.
“It has worked out that graduates of this sale have performed to a very high level in Australia over the last number of years.
“There’s a long list of high-class graduates of the sale that have gone on to race in Australia and [the Ready2Race Sale is] not what it used to be.
“It used to be a feeder market for international investors, now it’s a sale that domestic investors can also engage with and participate in very effectively.”
The criteria used by traders looking to pinhook into the two-year-old sale has also become more sophisticated, according to Hutch.
“With the catalogue, it’s an evolving sale format in this part of the world. Year after year, we learn new lessons out of the sale and improvements that we might make,” he said.
“There’s a huge amount of interaction involved with the people who prepare and consign the horses for the sale, possibly more so than any other sale format, and that is from identifying stock that might be suitable early, preparing for the breeze, liaising with buyers and promoting those horses post the breeze leading up to the sale.
“You accumulate a huge amount of knowledge and we feel we’ve worked very effectively with our vendors to put together the best catalogue we’ve ever had for this sale.”
Respected breeze-up consignors such as Blake Ryan, Baystone Farm’s Dean Harvey, Tal Nolen, Glenn Haven Thoroughbreds’ Matt Vella and a cohort of New Zealand vendors will all offer two-year-olds at the Ready2Race Sale.
Among the new exponents of the craft going out on their own is Shane McGrath, a well-known industry figure, who will offer a draft of eight juveniles by proven sires such as Toronado (High Chaparral), Snitzel (Redoute’s Choice), Deep Field (Northern Meteor), Nicconi (Bianconi) and Shamus Award (Snitzel).
McGrath selected the horses using the same yearling sales approach which in the past has yielded him and his clients horses of the calibre of Golden Slipper (Gr 1, 1200m) winner Farnan (Not A Single Doubt), fellow first crop two-year-old sires Prague (Redoute’s Choice) and Anders (Not A Single Doubt) as well as stakes winners Bruckner (Snitzel), Dubious (Not A Single Doubt) and Young Werther (Tavistock).
The bloodstock industry identity has leant on the likes of Harvey, Segenhoe’s Peter O’Brien and Hutch as sounding boards prior to making the jump into consigning at the Ready2Race Sale under his own name.
The horses are currently based at Cranbourne with trainer Clinton McDonald preparing them for the Victoria-based breeze-up session, which this year will be conducted at Wangaratta on October 1.
“We’ve got a pretty good system there where the horses that we sourced are by proven sires that will suit both the domestic and international market,” McGrath told ANZ Bloodstock News.
“They have gone through the same system as Hayasugi and Stanley Express, being broken in at Matt Vella’s, then they went to Segenhoe with Peter O’Brien before going onto Clinton McDonald who will prepare them not dissimilarly to how Baystone does it with Troy [Corstens, Flemington trainer] and Dean.
“Most trainers are traders anyway, so that’s part and parcel of the model.”
McGrath acknowledged the potential pitfalls of selling at the two-year-old sales, given the possible reliance on Hong Kong buyers, but he said he was well aware of those challenges when he decided to go out on his own.
“I tried to steer towards proven stallions from proven nurseries and these horses came off the likes of Vinery, Newgate and Widden, farms that are synonymous with good rearing success,” said McGrath, whose son Darcy is currently assisting McDonald with the two-year-olds and who will be at Riverside Stables to help look after the horses in the lead-up to the October sale.
“Hopefully people will see that when they see the draft and, I think over the years, I have developed a reputation for having a fair eye for what a decent horse looks like. The proof will be in the pudding at the sale, but there’s a number of options with these horses.
“The prize-money here in Australia, the likes of the Snitzel and the Toronado, they’re push-button ready-to-go horses that could get rolling early.
“There’s also a Deep Field colt, he has a big future ahead of him wherever he ends up.”
The three breeze up sessions will be held across two days, September 30 and October 1, with vision uploaded to the Inglis website and iPad app within 48 hours.
Magic Millions is scheduled to hold its Horses In Training Sale on October 22, a week after Inglis, with New Zealand Bloodstock’s two-day sale planned for November 20 and 21.
Click here to view the catalogue.
Inglis Ready2Race breeze-up schedule
State Venue Date
NSW Hawkesbury September 30
New Zealand Taupo September 30
Victoria Wangaratta October 1