Well-bred I Am Invincible filly leads the way at the Inglis Premier sale
A $500,000 filly with a timely link to Saturday’s Australian Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m) winner Feroce (Super Seth) topped a second day which closed an Inglis Premier Yearling Sale which not only defied downturn fears but was described by Inglis’s Sebastian Hutch as “verging on extraordinary”.
At the close of selling on Monday, the sale’s average was $140,846 and the median $100,000, with the gross $51.5 million and clearance rate 75 percent.
Despite fears set by a soft bottom end at Magic Millions Gold Coast and Karaka, the average and median compared favourably to 2024 Premier’s $127,632 and $90,000.
By the evening, the gross had reached $52.5 million – closing on last year’s $52.7 million. While the clearance rate was still marginally softer than last year’s 82 per cent, Hutch ended Book 1 delighted with the results.
“I’m really very pleased,” the Inglis Bloodstock CEO said. “If you’d said to me, or any other participant, in advance of the sale that we’d end up where we are now, with figures up on 12 months ago, I don’t think anybody would’ve believed you.
“People expected the sale to be down, which is in keeping with how the balance of sales have been in Australia to varying degrees in 2025.
“So at this stage for the sale to be up, is verging on the extraordinary.”
While two $1 million colts on Sunday became the fourth and fifth seven-figure yearlings sold at Premier, day two’s highlight came for half their price through Lot 487, a filly by I Am Invincible (Invincible Spirit) offered by Victoria’s Noorilim Park. She was bought by agent Julian Blaxland and the Hunter Valley’s Riverstone Lodge, in partnership with her future trainers Anthony and Sam Freedman.
The beautiful dark filly is the fourth foal of the Listed-placed Special Lover (Pins), and is a half-sister to 2022 Blue Diamond Preview (Gr 3, 1000m) winner Miss Roseiano (Exceed And Excel). Third dam Diamond Lover (Sticks And Stones) is the fourth dam of Feroce, whose Flemington triumph on Saturday came with brilliant timing for the filly’s vendors.
“She’s from a blue chip family and she’s by a three time champion sire in I Am Invincible, and he’s a wonderful sire of fillies,” Blaxland said.
“I’m very excited to get her. Nick Taylor and the team at Riverstone are putting together an elite broodmare band, so hopefully she can perform on the track and be a nice mare for them later on.
“Anthony and Sam will suit her. She’s big and strong, with a lovely loose action on her, and that beautiful quality I Am Invincible puts into his fillies.
“She looks a good three-year-old type, with a deep girth, she’s a lovely mover, great quality and with a great head.
“It’s a wonderful family and it just keep throwing up black type horses. I Am Invincible is a champion sire for a reason, and I think we’ll be breeding with his daughters for many years to come.”
Second-top lot on day was a $475,000 colt by Earthlight (Shamardal) bought by Yulong from Alma Vale Thoroughbreds’ draft, who’s a half-brother to the twice stakes-placed Matisse (Microphone).
“He was the stand-out in our draft and a very high quality colt,” said Alma Vale’s Verna Metcalfe, who sold him on behalf of Jeff Kruger of Queensland’s Lyndhurst Stud. “He paraded very well all week, and I thought he’d sell well.”
Third place on Monday was shared by two $420,000 colts by sires based in Ireland – one by Mehmas (Acclamation) and the other by Camelot (Montjeu).
The fact three of the day’s top four lots were by such non-mainstream sires as Earthlight, Camelot and Mehmas reflected the number and diversity of the 119 stallions represented at Premier.
Hutch paid tribute to vendors – particularly from Victoria – and Inglis’s team for assembling an attractive catalogue for Melbourne’s auction, and at a Classic sale last month which also performed better than expected.
“I had a huge amount of confidence in our team that we could deliver a good result here,” he said.
“We’ve got good traction in the market, graduates of our sales have been going well, people seem to be well engaged with the sales, and this sale in particular, and vendors here supported us with a group of horses, in reality led by Yulong, Rosemont and Gilgai, that appealed to the buying bench. That gave people incentive to attend, and once people were here … people saw the horses sufficiently appealing to participate to a good extent.
“We had some really incredible prices for particular horses, and from our point of view what’s encouraging is the variety of people participating. There always seemed to be a different underbidder, and there was a huge variety amongst the buyers. That’s a good sign in the market.”
With Inglis hoping for the clearance rate to rise last night to match 2024’s 82 per cent, Hutch said seeing some unusual names at the top of the sires’ board reflected the work of his team.
“Putting a sales catalogue together, to all intents and purposes, isn’t a complicated thing, but it does require a certain level of nuance,” he said. “I have to give full credit to our team across Classic and this sale. They worked hard with vendors to identify suitable horses for each of the sales.
“It’s not as if, in the case of Camelot or Mehmas or Earthlight, any of those horses have had some sort of amazing domestic result to change the market’s assessment of them.
“But our team went to the farms, saw the horses, and gave those people confidence that if they went to Premier they’d be rewarded, with what in some cases have been astonishing results.”
Lot 428, a son of Mehmas sold from the first draft of new Victorian operation Penfold Thoroughbreds to Feroce’s trainer Dom Sutton, in partnership with Johnny McKeever and US-based Australian buyer Byron Rogers.
And Lot 339, a son of Camelot, was bought by Woodside Park’s Eddie Hirsch from the draft of Victoria’s Blue Gum Farm.
Breeder Darren Dance sent that colt’s dam Mrs Bannock (Shamardal) – a winner in Britain and a half-sister to two stakes winners – to Coolmore Ireland in 2022 for a southern-timed cover from Camelot, mostly inspired by his Irish-bred son Russian Camelot’s Australian heroics. Those included winning the 2020 South Australian Derby (Gr 1, 2500m) as a northern hemisphere-time three-year-old, before taking the Underwood Stakes (Gr 1, 1800m) four months later.
The result was a colt Hirsch was determined to buy, and who’ll be trained by Vin Malady.
“We just loved him – he was our favourite horse in the sale,” said Woodside’s Mark Dodemaide.
“I said to Eddie before I went in, ‘You’re going to have to be brave with this’, because I knew there were a lot of people looking at the horse, and he was. So we got the horse we wanted and are very happy.
“He’s just a lovely horse. I know you’ll be dreaming Derbies with a horse like him but he maybe looks like he might be a bit sharper. He might be there on Caulfield Guineas day with a bit of luck.
“It’s a really strong pedigree. We just thought he really looked like a Camelot and had a lot of class about him.”
Blue Gum proprietor Sean Dingwall said the colt was an eye-catcher who shaped as a Classics horse.
“So many good judges loved him. If he was by Zoustar or someone like that he would’ve topped the sale,” Dingwall told ANZ Bloodstock News. “He’s a fabulous walking horse and very well balanced. You can see him standing up and being a 2000-metre horse all day long.”
Dingwall, whose farm ranked third on aggregate sale, said Premier had shown marks of the 2025 season in that lower-end stock were difficult to sell.
“What we’re finding, like every other sale this year, is people narrow down what they want,” he said. “There are a lot of people on the nice horse, but horses who are off the mark a little bit, there’s no-one on them. We just have to accept that. That’s the market at the moment.”
Leading vendor by aggregate was Victoria’s Yulong, with 35 lots sold for $5.93 million, ahead of dual-state (VIC/NSW) operation Widden (28 for $3.28 million) and three more Victorian concerns in Blue Gum (20 for $3.18 million), Rosemont (15 for $3.15 million) and Gilgai (11 for $2.95 million).
On top by average – with three or more lots sold – was Gilgai ($300,000), ahead of Rosemont ($210,000) and NSW’s Emirates Park ($200,000).
Top sire by averages was Frankel (Galileo), with three lots sold at an average of $520,000, including his $1 million colt on day one. Second was Zoustar (Northern Meteor), with seven sold at $311,000, ahead of Toronado (High Chaparral), with 13 at $283,000.
Leading buyer by aggregate was Yulong, with nine purchases for $2.58 million, ahead of Shane McGrath Bloodstock (ten for $1.72 million), and Hong Kong trainer Ricky Yiu (six for $1.36 million).