Victorian sires to the fore for Inglis Premier 2024
The resurgence of the Victorian stallion ranks will be on show at next year’s Inglis Melbourne Premier Yearling Sale, where a host of the progeny of the state’s most sought after sires will go under the hammer.
At a time when Victoria’s lucrative Vobis scheme has also undergone a rejuvenation, pumping millions of dollars back into owners and trainers’ pockets, next year’s Premier sale presents an opportunity not seen in the southern state for some years.
That’s the view of Inglis Bloodstock chief executive Sebastian Hutch, whose auction house last night released the catalogue of 800 lots for the three-day, 800-lot sale to be conducted at Oaklands Junction from March 3 to 5.
The catalogue features 30 yearlings by the returning Written Tycoon (Iglesia), the champion stallion’s first crop conceived at Yulong; an upgraded group of 32 by Rosemont’s Shamus Award (Snitzel); and 30 first crop yearlings by barnmate Hanseatic (Street Boss), while Swettenham Stud’s proven sire Toronado (High Chaparral) has 29 lots set to go under the hammer.
Emerging Yulong sire Alabama Express (Redoute’s Choice) – who has made an excellent start to his stud career with three first crop winners so far this season headed by Golden Slipper (Gr 1, 1200m) contender Shangri La Express and Ottawa Stakes (Gr 3, 1000m) winning filly Karavas – also has 21 lots catalogued
Darley shuttler Blue Point (Shamardal) has 21 lots and fellow Darley stallion Brazen Beau (I Am Invincible) has 13.
“It’s certainly the strongest line-up of yearlings by Victorian stallions that I think we’ve had for a Premier Sale for some time,” Hutch told ANZ Bloodstock News.
“This is the first year that Written Tycoon stood at Yulong, there’s Toronado, it’s the start of the well-bred Shamus Awards, there’s Blue Point and Alabama Express.
“Then there’s a good line-up for first season stallions such as Earthlight, who is an interesting horse, and then there’s Hanseatic, so it’s a strong line-up of Victorian-sired yearlings and they form a strong base for the catalogue.”
Hutch believes that Vobis remains a major driver for owners and trainers based in Victoria and for good reason.
“If you can buy a horse who is eligible for those bonuses, it is a significant payday on top of what is already strong prize-money across Victoria,” he said.
“Ultimately, if you can find a horse who lands in some of the Inglis Series races on top of that, the capacity to earn significant returns against your investment are strong and growing.”
While underpinned by the Victorian-sired progeny, of which there are 528 lots who are Vobis Silver nominated, the depth of the Premier catalogue is enhanced by a suite of interstate and international stallion talent, in a catalogue which has 69 individual vendors.
Yearlings by I Am Invincible (Invincible Spirit), Snitzel (Redoute’s Choice), Extreme Choice (Not A Single Doubt), Zoustar (Northern Meteor), Exceed And Excel (Danehill), Deep Field (Northern Meteor), So You Think (High Chaparral), Justify (Scat Daddy), Dundeel (High Chaparral), Capitalist (Written Tycoon), Per Incanto (Street Cry) and Russian Revolution (Snitzel) will also also be offered at Victoria’s main sale of 2024.
Frankel (Galileo), Camelot (Montjeu), Lope De Vega (Shamardal), Lord Kanaloa ( King Kamehameha) and Night Of Thunder (Dubawi), the sire of Saturday’s Inglis Nursery (RL, 1000m) winner Odinson, are also represented, as is stock by 24 first season sires who have made the Premier cut.
They include Wootton Bassett (Iffraaj), Farnan (Not A Single Doubt), Bivouac (Exceed And Excel), Fierce Impact (Deep Impact), Tagaloa (Lord Kanaloa), Peltzer (So You Think), Prague (Redoute’s Choice) and Russian Camelot (Camelot).
The reputation of the Premier sale is one that “out-performs its profile”, said Hutch, and that was only helped in recent months with Victorian sale graduates Think About It (So You Think) winning The Everest (1200m), Griff (Trapeze Artist) taking out the Caulfield Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m), Attrition (Churchill) landing the Toorak Handicap (Gr 1, 1600m) and I Am Me (I Am Invincible) winning multiple Group races and twice being Group 1–placed.
“Any sale that you can go to that, year after year, produces Group 1 winners is a sale that people like to approach with confidence,” Hutch said.
“The best way for us to surmise this is that people now approach a sale in expectation of being able to buy good horses and Premier has always been a sale that produces good horses, but it just seems to do it with regularity now and I don’t see any reason why we won’t see a host of good horses emerge from the sale in 2023 and I think that will elicit further confidence going into 2024.”
The Premier Sale services a wide range of buyers, from high-end colts partnerships, syndicators and traders looking for horses from $20,000 to seven-figures, but Hutch admits the 2023 sale was somewhat caught in the crosshairs of an economic downturn.
“There’s no disguising the fact that the sale in 2023, off the back of consecutive years of record sales at Premier, was more challenging,” he said.
“It came at a time when there’d been consecutive interest rate rises, I think the ASX hit its low point for the year in advance of the sale and the market sentiment was very subdued at that juncture.
“Clearly, that didn’t help the sale, but the sale’s had a fantastic year again in terms of graduates. I think people like buying from the sale and they recognise the fact that a sale that significantly outperforms its profile.”
Related links
2024 Inglis Premier Yearling Sale catalogue
https://inglis.com.au/sale/2024-premier-yearling-sale