Squillani Park’s Kermadec colt tops day one with $270,000 bid
Momentum picks up at Magic Millions Adelaide Yearling Sale after slow start
Caulfield trainer Clinton McDonald continued his strong yearling sales season by landing the highest-priced lot on day one of the Magic Millions Adelaide auction, going to $270,000 for a colt by young Darley stallion Kermadec (Teofilo), in a session that got off to a “very sticky start”.
The auction opened with a six-figure lot while, another broke the $100,000 mark about an hour into the sale, before heating up late in the day when four were sold for the figure inside 18 lots to enter the ring, including the most expensive yearling of the day.
Magic Millions managing director Barry Bowditch said vendors and buyers took time to find a happy medium on the value of stock, but once that was achieved the clearance rate picked up.
It was at 76 per cent last night after being around 60 per cent earlier in the day.
“The buyers are doing their due diligence. They are being very selective on what they walk in and bid on,” Bowditch told ANZ Bloodstock News last night.
“If they meet all their criteria – be it pedigree, type, vet – they bid up and on those right horses they were very strong, but if they were at all off the pace, the market has become quite polarising.”
With the momentum of the sale picking up, the median of $30,000 was up $2000 on the same session last year, while the average of $39,617 was down four per cent year on year.
The slight decline in the average is against the trend of the 2020 yearling sales and that of pre-sale expectations, but Magic Millions has compiled a larger Book 1 catalogue in Adelaide this year, enabling buyers to be even more selective.
The financial markets have also fluctuated wildly in recent weeks as the seriousness of the coronavirus outbreak sweeping the world becomes apparent, which comes as Hong Kong deals with political unrest.
Bowditch said: “Who knows whether that is having an effect. It is hard for me to comment, but it is affecting the world, so why wouldn’t it be affecting a horse sale?
“Of course, that may have a significant bearing on what is going on, but the sale, from lot 70 or 80 onwards, was quite pleasing,
“Vendors were meeting the market and buyers were bidding with confidence. To have the clearance rate finish, from where it was earlier in the day, at 76 per cent was a great effort.”
Agent Will Johnson, who was involved in the purchase of a $140,000 Street Boss (Street Cry) colt yesterday, admitted that the economic downturn could have clouded the opening session.
“The sale was strong in parts, but after a very turbulent week on the stock market with uncertainty surrounding the coronavirus, this matched the atmosphere in the air at the sale and the economy at large,” Johnson said.
“Like any sale the nicer horses were well found and vendors have to meet the market to ensure that trade is strong, so no doubt there will be plenty of trade on those horses that didn’t sell in the ring after hours.”
Emotional result Squillani Park
The session-topping Kermadec colt, who was bought by McDonald and Hong Kong-based Australian agent Justin Bahen, was consigned by South Australian farm Squillani Park Thoroughbreds.
Offered as Lot 211, the colt is a half-brother to the Listed winner Falcool (Falvelon) and the stakes-placed I’m Cool (Falvelon). He is the eighth foal out of the placed mare Bay Breeze (Belong To Me), who has the perfect record so far, with five foals to race for five winners.
He was bred by the late Terry Board, the proprietor of Squillani Park, who lost his battle with cancer last November, and the first yearling the operation has sold for more than $100,000.
“It’s just fantastic, it’s absolutely brilliant. It definitely exceeded our expectations and we are thrilled to bits,” Squillani Park’s Kerrie van Tijn said.
“He spent more time out of his box than in it over the past few days. He was extremely popular and he sold himself. He’s a nice colt. He is impressive to look at, from a good family, so there wasn’t a lot not to like about him.”
Bahen was given the authority by McDonald to keep bidding to ensure the son of Kermadec returned to Victoria.
“I thought he was one of the nicest colts on the complex,” Bahen told Racing.com.
“We got pushed pretty hard on him. He was a nice relaxed colt and I’ve got a good opinion of Kermadec.
“Clinton was very keen on him, he popped over and looked at him over the past couple of days and said ‘just buy him’.”
At last week’s Inglis Melbourne Premier Yearling Sale, McDonald revealed that he would enter a training partnership later this year but did not divulge who that would be.
McEvoy continues Zoustar love affair
Trainers often develop an affinity with the progeny of certain stallions and Tony McEvoy makes no secret of his love affair with the offspring of Zoustar (Northern Meteor) who, of course, is the sire of his brilliant multiple Group 1-winning mare Sunlight.
Since the success of Sunlight, who emerged from the first crop of the now permanently Widden Stud-based reverse shuttling sire, McEvoy has endeavoured to secure the best-credentialled yearlings by the stallion each year.
So, yesterday, he landed another filly by the champion first season sire of 2017-18, for $160,000 from the draft of Tasmanian farm Armidale Stud, in conjunction with his agent Damon Gabbedy of Belmont Bloodstock.
“Zoustar I love, of course, and she was very different to my star mare Sunlight, this filly,” McEvoy told Racing.com.
“She has a lot of scope and reminded me a lot of a filly I train called Zoulah who won really well the other day and I think is up to black–type standard.
“She’s just a beautiful, flowing filly with a lot of scope who looked to have a lot of class, to me.
“I’ve seen her five times and her temperament has stayed the same all the way through. Zoustar fillies can be a bit feisty but I think this filly was just gorgeous, so I am very happy to buy her.”
Catalogued as Lot 35, the filly is a half-sister to three multiple winners, being the fifth foal out of the juvenile-winning mare Phyl’s Choice (Savoire Vivre), who in turn is a sister to the stakes-placed, 11-time winner With Decorum.
Later, McEvoy Mitchell Racing and Belmont Bloodstock combined for another six-figure yearling, going to $110,000 for a colt by Brazen Beau (I Am Invincible) from the draft of NSW vendor Edinburgh Park Stud.
Murphy snaps up I’ll Have A Bit’s brother
Well-known South Australian trainer Sue Murphy also struck for a yearling from the draft of Armidale Stud, purchasing a Smart Missile (Fastnet Rock) brother to the Group 2-winning, Group 1-placed sprinter I’ll Have A Bit.
The Naracoorte-based Murphy was taken with the look of the colt as soon as she inspected him at Morphettville and stretched the budget to ensure he joined her stable.
“He is a lovely type and he attracted us as soon as he came out. The full-sister has also done well,” Murphy told Racing.com.
“There’s a limit to what you can go to, but we thought we might just go that little bit higher to try and purchase him.
“He has a top page, a lot of black type, and that is the sort of gamble you have got to take if you find a nice yearling at the sales and we’re happy with what we’ve got.”
Offered by the Tasmanian stud as Lot 126, the colt is the sixth foal out of Melbourne winner Take All of Me (Jeune) who in turn is a daughter of the Group 2 winner Tickle My (Perugino).
The colt will be immediately broken in at Ballarat before heading to Murphy’s care.
Armidale Stud was the leading vendor (three or more lots sold) by average, selling five yearlings for $88,500 apiece.
Moore buys Starcraft colt for $140,000
The purchase of a Starcraft (Soviet Star) colt first-up at the Adelaide sale yesterday was the biggest indicator yet that champion Hong Kong trainer John Moore will continue his career in Australia as soon as next season.
The Hong Kong Jockey Club has so far rejected pleas to extend Moore’s training career in the Asian hub, having already done so past the initial compulsory retirement age of 65 by five years.
The Gold Coast and Sydney have been suggested as potential locations for Moore to set up a stable and his brother, Rosehill trainer Gary, yesterday said: “Brother John’s coming back to Australia to train, but that can change every week, so he is going to be a nice addition to his stable with my assistance.”
Offered by Miranda Park as Lot 1, the Starcraft colt is the first foal out of the six-time-winning sprinter Nadeem’s Melody (Nadeem) who hails from the family of Group 3 winner Vivacious Spirit (Bel Esprit).
Selected by Moore and John’s son, agent George, he was signed for by Queensland-based breeze-up operation Symphony Lodge.
“I just thought he presented well. He has a lovely temperament and he looks like he will go early when you think that the dam’s won six races and came off a good farm as well,” Moore said.
“The dam sire is Nadeem who we have had a lot of luck with through Happy Galaxy. Like I said, he’s one of the best horses on the ground.
“We probably had a little more. Brother John really liked the colt when we presented the videos and photos to him. You have got to pay that sort of money for nice colts these days. Look at all the sales of recent times. They have been very expensive, these good colts.”
Melbourne trainers were also active at the Adelaide sale, with Mick Price and Michael Kent Jr teaming up with agent Suman Hedge for the Akeed Mofeed (Dubawi) sister to stakes-placed Sunset Watch and Anthony Freedman to train a colt by Street Boss (Street Cry). Both yearlings made $140,000.
Bahen partnered with fellow agents Johnson and Julian Blaxland to buy the Street Boss colt for Freedman.
It was the same sale that Johnson, under the De Burgh Equine banner, secured this season’s Victoria Derby (Gr 1, 2500m) winner Warning (Declaration Of War) for $65,000.
Catalogued as Lot 146, the Rushton Park-consigned Street Boss colt is the third foal out of the five-time winner Truffle (Testa Rossa), whose third dam is AJC Champagne Stakes (Gr 1, 1600m)-placed mare The Cloisters (Godswalk).
“He is a strong precocious two-year-old type. He looked like a running colt and between the Freedmans, Julian Blaxland and Justin Bahen, we went through a few horses that we liked and thought he was worth teaming up on,” Johnson said.
“Anthony and Sam know the breed well and Anthony liked the colt when he was in Adelaide this week.
“He looks like a type that will be able to target those early two-year-old races. Given he is by Street Boss and out of a Testa Rossa mare, who is proving to be a good broodmare sire, he certainly ticked a lot of boxes which gives us a lot of confidence going forward.”
Freedman trains Golden Slipper Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) contender, the Street Boss colt Hanseatic, who was runner-up in the Blue Diamond Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m).
Day two of the Magic Millions Adelaide Yearling Sale, which will see the completion of Book 1 and a Book 2 session, starts at 10am local time.