‘When you have a sale of this much depth and quality it provides a perfect storm for buyers’
Anticipation is high ahead of the Magic Millions yearling sale which gets underway on the Gold Coast on Tuesday and the auction houses’ managing director Barry Bowditch is confident the ‘deep’ catalogue will present buyers with a plethora of opportunity at every level of the market.
A total of 1021 lots have been catalogued for Book 1, which will reach its crescendo on Friday with 300 lots being offered at the inaugural Howden’s Super Session, which Bowditch believes will provide the perfect entree before the $20 million Magic Millions raceday on Saturday.
“The way the catalogue falls, I think there’s great depth from lot one all the way through to 1021, but luckily we’ve got some fireworks late in the sale, which’ll create a really, really good vibe here on Friday evening,” he told ANZ Bloodstock News.
“I’m just really looking forward to seeing the trainers, syndicators and everyone just bring their owners and friends out here, and we’ll have bars set up and food trucks and create a really fun kind of pre-raceday vibe.”
The creation of the super session and axing any action in the ring on Saturday, was a decision Bowditch said Magic Millions did not take lightly and one that has been well received by the industry.
“I think the new formula with the super session is very exciting and the industry has embraced it,” he said. “When we introduced it – we consulted our stake holders – the vendors and buyers – leading into it and it wasn’t a decision we took lightly, but on the whole it has been very well supported.”
Bowditch said the sale presents an important barometer for the market early in 2025 and has historically set the tone for the rest of the sales that follow in its wake throughout the year.
“It is a really important sale for our industry, being the first sale of the year and it gets the economic confidence in the industry going, especially from a southern hemisphere point of view,” said Bowditch. “It sets the scene, not only for what we are doing here, but for the rest of the season.
“We are very, very happy with the depth of the catalogue we have got this year and the reports we are hearing back from both vendors and buyers is very, very positive. There is lots of vetting going on and we are hearing that there is very little tail to the catalogue which is good.
“When you have a sale of this much depth and quality it provides a perfect storm for buyers given the fact there is not as much depth in the market from a buyers perspective. Any buyer that has done their work, this sale will present a massive opportunity to maybe buy a horse they didn’t expect they would be able to purchase and be buying it for a price they will be very happy with.”
While revered stallions such as Hunter Valley powerhouses I Am Invincible (Invincible Spirit), Zoustar (Northern Meteor) and Snitzel (Redoute’s Choice) and Victoria’s leading stallion Written Tycoon (Iglesia) will be well represented by some of the best bred lots over the next four days of trade, some of the attention will also be focused on the new kids on the block as a host of sires with their first crops all aim to convert a wealth of racetrack success into brilliance in the breeding barn.
They include the likes of Coolmore’s dual Group 1 winner Home Affairs (I Am Invincible), who is the most represented among the new stallions, Newgate’s 2021 Golden Slipper (Gr 1, 1200m) hero Stay Inside (Extreme Choice) and intriguing shuttle stallions, including Coolmore’s St Mark’s Basilica (Siyouni) and Darley’s Pinatubo (Shamardal), the latter having already made a promising start to his career in the north.
“We are in a great position down here right now when you look at proven horses – I Am Invincible, Written Tycoon, Snitzel and Zoustar – they are the big ones who have huge numbers this week,” Bowditch said.
“Then you have the new group coming through such as those huge shuttle stallions like Wootton Bassett and Too Darn Hot, who both have 30–odd yearlings catalogued and they are two of the sexiest sires on the planet at the moment.
“Then we have our first season horses which we are always so lucky to have – Home Affairs and Stay Inside are obviously two of the best credentialed horses to have been bred and gone to stud in Australia in the last couple of years. The second season horses have also started very well.
“The catalogue is a fantastic melting pot of well-credentialed sires whether they be young or proven at all ends of the market, and that has to be a good thing for the buyers who are here to take a horse home and if they are syndicating they will be relatively easy to sell.”
Yarraman Park’s I Am Invincible, Australia’s reigning champion sire, could create fireworks during the opening session when a filly by the stallion out of multiple Group 1 winner Avantage (Fastnet Rock) (Lot 182) enters the ring. Her filly by Wootton Bassett (Iffraaj) topped last year’s sale when Te Akau Racing’s David Ellis, who raced Avantage, purchased her for $2.1 million.
She will go through late in the day, just three lots before the first foal out of 2020 Magic Millions 2YO Classic winner (RL, 1200m) Away Game (Snitzel) (Lot 185) – a filly by Written Tycoon – while other lots on the opening day include a brother to Amelia’s Jewel (Siyouni) (Lot 234) and a Farnan (Not A Single Doubt) colt who is a half-brother to leading Golden Slipper fancy Bel Merci (Extreme Choice) (Lot 200).
Home Affairs’ sale-bound yearlings, who were conceived off a fee of $110,000 (inc GST), will undoubtedly command plenty of attention when they go through the ring; and perhaps most notably his filly by Sunlight (Zoustar) (1007), a colt out of Booker (Written Tycoon) (Lot 225) and a filly out of Champagne Cuddles (Not A Single Doubt) (Lot 256).
As usual, colt syndicates will be out in force on the hunt for their next big name in the breeding barn, but Bowditch believes the depth of fillies in this year’s catalogue poses an exciting prospect.
“As is always the case we are really strong for colts this year and this year we have some bespoke fillies who are rare to market that any racehorse owner or broodmare farm would love to have back home,” he said.
“We are very lucky they are here to meet the market and be sold and we are excited by the prospects of what those horses could make when they enter the ring over the next five days.”
The graduates of this sale speak volumes for the quality that is offered year after year, they include this year’s Melbourne Cup (Gr 1, 3200m) winner Knight’s Choice (Extreme Choice), top-class sprinting mare Imperatriz (I Am Invincible), the great Winx (Street Cry), Coolmore Stud Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) winner Ozzmosis (Zoustar) and Militarize (Dundeel) to name a small few.
“We believe we have a catalogue of 1021 horses who are of Book 1 quality and that is the sort of sale which is going to have an average of somewhere between $250,000 or $300,000, which is our expectation,” said Bowditch.
“There is so much middle in the catalogue, whether you want a colt or a filly, a stayer, a sprinter, a two-year-old or a horse that will train on you only have to look at our graduate board – whether you want the best sprinter in the world, or Imperatriz, or Winx who is going to train on or a Melbourne Cup winner like Knight’s Choice or Private Life, they are most likely here on the grounds, you are not going to find as many of them at any other sale.”
The 2025 sale gets underway at the Bundall complex at 10am on Tuesday, with Book 1 coming to a close on Friday.
Following the Magic Millions Raceday at the Gold Coast Turf Club on Saturday, featuring the $3 million Magic Millions 2YO Classic and the $3 million Magic Millions 3YO Guineas (RL, 1400m), Book 2 gets underway at 3.30pm the following afternoon with the final lots set to go through the ring from 10am on Monday.
LOTS TO WATCH – DAY ONE
Lot Sire Dam Sex
Lot 11 Extreme Choice Tempt Me Not colt
Lot 17 Home Affairs The Natural filly
Lot 40 Exceed And Excel Tomorrow’s Dream colt
Lot 101 Home Affairs Witherspoon filly
Lot 107 Written Tycoon You Hadme At Hello colt
Lot 122 Written Tycoon A Little Jewel colt
Lot 138 Snitzel All That Jazz filly
Lot 141 Wootton Bassett Allinthistogether filly
Lot 144 Written Tycoon Always Inthe Munny colt
Lot 182 I Am Invincible Avantage filly
Lot 185 Written Tycoon Away Game filly
Lot 196 Wootton Bassett Battleofwinterfell colt
Lot 224 Zoustar Bonaria colt