Ready2Race Sale reverts to early October slot
The Inglis Ready2Race Sale will return to its spot in the opening week of October, it was announced last night, with the auction to be held on Tuesday, October 5 at Riverside Stables in Sydney.
The first two-year-old auction of the season, the Inglis Ready2Race Sale will be held just three days after the first juvenile stakes races are run.
By moving the Inglis Ready2Race sale forward from the mid-October spot it has occupied in recent years, it ensures that buyers will be able to target early two-year-old races like the $1 million Golden Gift (1100m), the $500,000 Inglis Banner (RL, 1000m), the Maribyrnong Plate (Gr 3, 1000m) or the Ottawa Stakes (Gr 3, 1000m).
Last year, Predetermined (Headwater) stepped out in the Inglis Banner four days after being sold, whereas in 2021, an Inglis Ready2Race graduate will have 18 days before the rich feature.
“The Ready2Race market in Australia is very progressive, as evidenced by the involvement of a lot of the major domestic buyers in the 2020 renewal of our sale,’’ Inglis general manager of bloodstock sales and marketing Sebastian Hutch said. “More and more good horses are graduating from the sale – Nettoyer, Wishful Thinker, Allibor, Trumbull, Stageman and Malkovich among others – and the confidence in the format, thanks to the professional work of the preparers and consignors, just grows and grows.
“James Harron, Guy Mulcaster, Andrew Williams, Bjorn Baker, Bevan Smith, Matthew Smith, Mick Price & Michael Kent, Busuttin Racing, Gerald Ryan, First Light Racing, Duncan Ramage, Bluebloods, Roll The Dice, Mark Pilkington, Wattle Bloodstock and others were amongst the leading domestic buyers at the sale in 2020, while there were significant buyers like Waterhouse/Bott and Darby Racing who bid hard but just couldn’t land a horse such was the competition for horses.
“Combine that with the fact that international involvement in the sale through the likes of Bon Ho, Caspar Fownes, Shane Baertschiger, Aramco Racing, Bridle Bloodstock and Macau Jockey Club to name a few, was incredibly strong, and there is every reason to be optimistic about the market going forward.”
The upcoming Inglis Classic Yearling Sale is a traditional hunting ground for pinhookers looking to prepare horses for the October auction and Hutch expects that to be the case again in 2021.
“We are very much looking forward to our Classic Yearling Sale at Riverside in a little over two weeks and that sale provides one of the best opportunities of the year to purchase a yearling to then breeze up and trade through the Ready2Race Sale,” he said.
“We have brought the sale date forward slightly at the suggestion of buyers to allow them to target more of the spring two-year-old races with their purchases, but the breeze up schedule remains the same to last year.
“A number of the leading horse people and consignors have already committed their support to the 2021 renewal and we are optimistic that the sale can be the ‘best ever’ in terms of the quality of horses that will be offered and the results.’’
Last year saw an overall gross of $11.64 million on 120 lots sold, with a colt by Deep Field (Northern Meteor) – now named Deep Blast – fetching $610,000, the highest price for a two-year-old at public auction since 2006.
2021 Inglis Ready2Race Schedule
Friday, September 10 – Seymour breeze ups, Victoria (Synthetic)
Tuesday, September 14 – Eagle Farm breeze ups, Queensland (Dirt)*
Friday, September 17 – Warwick Farm breeze ups, NSW (Synthetic)
Monday, September 20 – Cambridge breeze ups, NZ (Synthetic)
Friday, October 1 – Warwick Farm alternate breeze ups, NSW (Synthetic)
Tuesday, October 5 – 2021 Inglis Ready2Race Sale, Riverside Stables
*TBC, subject to entry numbers