Yearlings to bring marathon selling extravaganza to a close on the Gold Coast
November-born American Pharoah filly has mouth-watering pedigree is one of the star attractions at Magic Millions
Selling yearlings in June, as a rule, is not the first port of call for many breeders and pinhookers but as often happens with horses timing can be everything and if for various reasons they could not be sold at earlier sales it leads to opportunities for astute buyers.
As a result, this week’s Magic Millions National Yearling Sale of 616 lots, features some well-bred fillies and well-credentialled colts who will go under the hammer, bringing down the curtain on a massive three weeks of trade on the Gold Coast.
Yearlings by big-name stallions such as I Am Invincible (Invincible Spirit), Dundeel (High Chaparral), Exceed And Excel (Danehill), Capitalist (Written Tycoon), Deep Field (Northern Meteor) and Sebring (More Than Ready) will be on offer.
Coolmore has an American Pharoah (Pioneerof The Nile)-Pretty Penny (Encosta De Lago) filly, a half-sister to four stakes winners and three stakes-placed horses, to be offered tomorrow as Lot 1502, while Widden Stud has a Zoustar (Northern Meteor) sister to this season’s Reisling Stakes (Gr 2, 1200m) winner Glistening, Lot 1688.
Widden also has a colt by Zoustar (Lot 1777), the first foal out of Group 2-winning mare French Emotion (Snitzel), who had to be withdrawn from the Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale.
Coolmore’s American Pharoah filly, a half-sister to Group winners Sertorius (Galileo), Pretty Brazen (Brazen Beau), Dollar For Dollar (High Chaparral) and Clifton Red (Sebring), was also withdrawn from the Easter sale.
“She is going to furnish and improve a lot over the next six months to a year. She is a late November foal, so it’s all ahead of her and her pedigree keeps improving,” Coolmore Australia’s sales and nominations manager Colm Santry said yesterday.
“A lot of her siblings are very good older horses, Pretty Brazen, Dollar For Dollar, Sertorius, they’re all horses who have trained on later in their careers and proven to be very high-class racehorses.”
Santry did not put a value on the filly yesterday, but suggested the Dr Denis O’Brien-bred yearling held significant residual value.
“If she walked through the ring last week (at the National Broodmare Sale) God only knows what she would have made as an unraced four-year-old?” he asked.
“It is all ahead with American Pharoah, it’s all going to happen with his three-year-olds over seven furlongs and a mile-plus.”
Santry bought Pretty Penny, who was carrying Pretty Brazen at the time, for $570,000 at the 2016 Magic Millions National Sale for his long-time client O’Brien of Clairden Racing.
O’Brien more than recouped his investment when the Tony and Calvin McEvoy-trained Pretty Brazen made $700,000 at the 2018 Australian Easter Yearling Sale.
The Gold Coast-based breeder retained Pretty Penny’s unnamed two-year-old filly by American Pharoah who is in training with Chris Waller and Santry revealed feedback from the premier Sydney stable had been extremely positive so far.
Pretty Penny is in foal to Coolmore’s first season sire Yes Yes Yes (Rubick).
“The mare’s had seven foals, they’re all black-type, she’s had four Group 1 horses. She’s gone to seven different stallions for seven results. She’s an elite blue hen mare,” he said.
“I can’t think of any other mare in Australia like her.”
American Pharoah is the sire of three southern hemisphere-bred first crop winners and Santry is confident that the US Triple Crown winner’s progeny will excel in their three-year-old season.
“I have seen it all before with Zabeel, High Chaparral, Montjeu, So You Think and Pierro,” Santry reasoned.
“They’re written off in the spring of their three-year-old year and, all of a sudden, they get a couple of big horses. We’ve seen it with Pierro with his daughter Pinot winning the VRC Oaks in Melbourne.
“I think Pierro had three (first crop) stakes winners over the Melbourne carnival that year (2017) and he just took off from there.”
Coolmore has five yearlings by American Pharoah, three by Caravaggio (Scat Daddy) and one by No Nay Never (Scat Daddy) to be offered this week.
“Caravaggio’s doing an amazing job in the northern hemisphere,” Santry said.
“He was a very fast horse and his stock are very fast over five and six furlongs. He’s had six two-year-old winners as of today and is going really well.
“The breeze-up buyers should be looking at them as should the end users for these colts and fillies.”
The National Yearling Sale starts at 10am tomorrow.