Miss Roseiano set for Justify after Coolmore go to A$1.275 million at Inglis

The 2023 Australian book of mares for Coolmore’s returning US Triple Crown champion Justify has been bolstered by the A$1.275 million (£662,000/€772,000) acquisition of Group 3-winning two-year-old Miss Roseiano.

Coolmore Australia principal Tom Magnier late on Tuesday secured the Blue Diamond Preview -winning mare - a descendent of the potent Eight Carat family - to support Justify, Australia’s leading first-season sire, through a bespoke Inglis Digital auction.

The countdown started at 4pm, with bids going back and forth for 56 minutes, a drawn-out auction reminiscent of two years ago when Group 1-winning mare Funstar - the most expensive horse sold through Inglis Digital - made A$2.7m in a process that took almost one and three-quarter hours.

Magnier, who this year has paid A$3.6m for Nimalee at the Inglis Chairman’s Sale and A$3m for Coolangatta’s dam Piping Hot at the Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale, signed for Miss Roseiano after warding off the online competition.

“She’s been bought to go to Justify, the team and I think she’s an ideal match for him both physically and on pedigree,’’ said Magnier.

Justify: "He could not be going any better"Credit: Edward Whitaker

“She’s from a great family, she was an exciting race filly and Justify could not be going any better, having both the highest rated two-year-old colt and two-year-old filly in Europe, in addition to some hugely exciting horses here, including [Inglis Millennium winner] Learning To Fly, who we know well.

“It was a pretty intense bidding scenario, as it can be on Inglis Digital, who always do a great job with this platform, but we were delighted to get her.

“In quite a coincidence, literally as the bidding clock ended, Justify was landing in Australia to cover another hugely exciting book of mares, which now includes Miss Roseiano, so hopefully there is a positive omen there.’’

An imposing chestnut stallion, Justify is returning to Coolmore Australia this year after being rested last season on the back of siring three stakes winners and eight overall winners to date from 19 runners in 2022-23. 

Justify also has 12 stakes winners from two crops of racing age in the northern hemisphere, including the hugely promising juvenile City Of Troy, who has been installed as favourite for the 2,000 Guineas after his emphatic Group 2 win at Newmarket on Saturday. A day later, his daughter Ramatuelle cantered home by four lengths in the Group 2 Prix Robert Papin at Chantilly.

Rising four-year-old Miss Roseiano is the second million-dollar mare sold through Inglis Digital in seven days, her purchase coming after the twice Group 1-placed mare Another Award made A$1.2m last Wednesday when purchased by Yulong.

Coolmore’s new mare burst onto the scene in January last year by winning the Blue Diamond Preview before finishing runner-up in the fillies' Blue Diamond Prelude. She was unplaced in the Blue Diamond, which was won by Daumier.

She earned A$214,350 in prize-money for connections in her 12-start career with trainer Peter Gelagotis, who bought her with his brother Manny, agent James Bester, also a confidant of the Magnier family, and the Osher Group for A$300,000 from the 2021 Inglis Melbourne Premier Yearling Sale.

Manny Gelagotis, the Victorian stable’s general manager and assistant trainer, on Tuesday recalled how the precocious Miss Roseiano delivered on the racecourse much earlier than he expected her to.

“I just went and looked at my [yearling sale] comments and I said, ‘She’s a Thousand Guineas filly and if she matures she could be a really nice broodmare for the future with a pedigree like that’,” Gelagotis told ANZ Bloodstock News.

Tom Magnier: buyer of Group 3-winning two-year-old Miss RoseianoCredit: Mark Evans

“Anyway, we didn’t get it all right, but she really matured [after the Premier sale]. The unfortunate part of it all was that she didn’t quite live up to the early promise she showed, but that doesn’t mean anything, because at the time she was high-class and clearly the best two-year-old filly in Melbourne and the rest is history.”

Miss Roseiano raced nine times as a three-year-old, filling two placings, before the decision was made to spell her and put her up for auction.

“From a training perspective, everything she does on the track is of a Group-horse standard,” said Gelagotis. 

“The damage was done early, you can’t take the black type off them and she was well and truly a black-type horse from day one, that’s for sure.”

The Osher Group’s Wade Burridge reflected on the brief but euphoric ride the filly provided his group of owners.

“That was probably the greatest thing, to win a Group 3 on debut at Caulfield, she exceeded everyone’s expectations and then to be beaten half a head in a Group 2 at her second start [was exciting],” said Burridge. 

“She started in the market in the Blue Diamond and we had 60 or 70 people there. She never really turned up in her next couple of campaigns, and who knows why, but she did beat Giga Kick on the [training] track, so I think she’s a pretty cheap buy for Coolmore as she is going to be a good mare and her progeny will sell well, that’s for sure.”

Bred by Noorilim Park’s Peter and Glen Carrick, Miss Roseiano is out of Special Lover, a stakes-placed mare who Carrick snr purchased for NZ$160,000 (£77,000/€89,000) at the 2014 New Zealand Bloodstock National Yearling Sale and entrusted Robert Smerdon with to train, has also produced five-time winner Easy Single.

Special Lover’s latest foal, a rising two-year-old daughter of champion sire I Am Invincible, was bought at this year’s Premier sale by Tony Fung Investments for A$1.1m, the highest-priced lot of the 2023 Victorian auction.

The valuable filly was underbid by the Gelagotis’ and members of the Miss Roseiano syndicate. 

Special Lover’s second dam is the unraced Special Diamond, a sister to Group 1 winner Don Eduardo and a three-quarter sister to Octagonal, Mouawad, Shower Of Roses and Tristalove, herself the dam of AJC Spring Champion Stakes winner Viking Ruler, Group 2 winners Lovetrista and Kempinsky and the Listed winner Diamond Like.

Rising 11-year-old Special Lover, who did not get in foal in 2021, is due to again foal to I Am Invincible in September.

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