‘We were only hoping we might be able to pay off a car loan’ - huge profit landed as A$1,500 Harry Angel colt sells for A$525,000

A colt by Harry Angel bought as a weanling for just A$1,500 (£716 / €851) turned into a dream horse for a NSW boutique breeder when he sold for a session-topping A$525,000 (£250,942 /€298,126) at the Magic Millions Gold Coast National Yearling Sale on Tuesday.

Bred by Sledmere Stud, bought and reared by tiny Temerity Park, and prepared and sold by Alma Vale Thoroughbreds, the colt topped day two of a healthy last yearling sale of the season, selling for 350 times his price last year when put through the Inglis Australian Weanling Sale.

He was bought online at that sale by TJ Le Breton and her husband Greg, who concentrate mostly on agistment at Temerity Park near Gulgong, and who had the then-weanling’s catalogue photo as their only visual clue.

The colt arrived at their farm looking every cent worth about A$1,500, having contracted a cold at the weanling sale. But reared by the Le Bretons, and with Alma Vale putting what its owner Verna Metcalfe called “the finishing touches” on him, he became the second-top lot of the National sale overall when purchased by Hong Kong trainer Manfred Man.

Ranking second overall behind Monday’s sale record-equalling A$850,000 Extreme Choice colt from Baramul Stud, Temerity Park’s colt added a memorable story to an auction which pleased Magic Millions managing director Barry Bowditch, with the clearance rate up from last year’s at 76 per cent, and the average almost matching that of 2024.

Having had hopes her Harry Angel colt might scrape into six figures, TJ Breton said the windfall had come at a perfect time.

“I’m off on holiday to America tomorrow with my daughter,” she told ANZ Bloodstock News. “And we’re going to Las Vegas. Good thing the money won’t come through before then.”

Le Breton, who’s been running Temerity Park full-time for five years, and with a previous best sale of A$70,000, said Tuesday’s result had been a welcome in other ways.

“We were only hoping we might be able to pay off a car loan. Jeez. We weren’t expecting this,” she said.

“And we weren’t even going to send him to the sale. My husband wanted to race him. But we were sending one, so we thought we might as well send two.”

The farm’s original intended lot - a Bivouac filly - was passed in A$4,000 short of a A$10,000 reserve.

“Thank goodness we had two in there, or it would have been a disappointing sale,” she said with a laugh, able to look back with enormous satisfaction on her bargain basement purchase from Sledmere’s draft 12 months ago at Riverside, when only six weanlings sold for less.

“I think he just got missed in the market. He might have dropped off a bit after being weaned, and the Harry Angels weren’t as popular then as they are now.

“But I just bought him purely off his photo. The photo might have looked better than the reality at the time.”

The colt is out of the unplaced Enclosure, a daughter of William Reid Stakes heroine Wrap Around, who’s the granddam of four stakes winners including AJC Sires’ Produce Stakes victor Fashions Afield.

Temerity Park produced four yearlings this season, with Le Breton pointing out their two at the National sale were “the leftover ones”.

“When the Harry Angel colt showed up at our place, he’d got sick from the weanling sale, so he didn’t look great for a while,” she said. “Inglis came to inspect our yearlings late last year and I just said, ‘Oh don’t worry about looking at the Harry Angel’.

“But I guess we were able to help him turn a corner and he blossomed at just the right time.”

Harry Angel: "He is now a red-hot sire"

Le Breton was at pains to credit Metcalfe and her team at her new farm Alma Vale, who ended their first sale season on another high, having also been leading vendor at last month’s edition of the Inglis Australian Weanling Sale.

“We’re only a small property, and we’d only had small drafts before and we couldn’t get the exposure,” she said. “So this time we said, ‘Let’s put them in a big draft’.

“Alma Vale’s been going so well and Verna’s so good to deal with and has a great reputation, and that brings the buyers in. We thought we’d give it a chance and see whether it’s worth putting them in a bigger draft, to see if we get a better price. I’d say it’s worked out very well.”

The adulation was mutual.

“It’s a pretty awesome result and - even better - it’s for good people who are battlers,” Metcalfe told ANZ. “They’re smaller breeders, and that’s what it’s all about.

“They look after their horses very well and they’re really nice people. They asked us to prep this bloke, and that was very easy because he was a very nice colt when he arrived. We just had to put the polish on him.

“He’s a nice, big strong colt. He wasn’t too heavy, but sometimes the Harry Angels can just be a bit plain. But he’s a very nice horse, with a lovely head, a good stride, and a good length of girth.

“It’s a great result for our farm, because we’re only a new business. We’re very pleased with how the year’s gone, and this is just a wonderful way to end the season.

“It gives all the staff at the farm a boost as well. They all put a lot into it, and work really hard, and they deserve this.”

Man’s agent, Willie Leung of Magus Equine, was delighted to secure the son of Harry Angel, who’s had three winners from five runners in Hong Kong.

"Harry Angel is now a red-hot sire and is very popular in Hong Kong," Leung said. "He's had a couple of really good winners in Hong Kong and that's why we got him for Manfred.

"This one looks really outstanding in the sale and with his outstanding pedigree I think he's a good buy. We come here for the best and I believe he's the best.”

The colt was the stand-out yearling of day two, selling for almost three times the amount of second-best - Lot 1334 - another of Baramul’s four Extreme Choice yearlings at the sale. The filly, bred to northern hemisphere time and foaled on February 11, sold for A$180,000 to NSW’s David Newling.

Third-top was Taghadoe Stud’s Lot 1410, a colt by Coolmore’s former shuttler Churchill from the Listed-winning dam of multiple stakes-winning sprinters Unencumbered and Maharba, who sold to Hong Kong’s Michael Chang for A$170,000.

On Tuesday, the sale’s average stood at A$41,434, down from A$42,869 last year. The median of A$25,000 was down from A$28,000, while the clearance rate of 76 percent was up from 71 percent.

Twenty-one of the 273 lots sold (7.7 per cent) went for A$100,000 or more, up from 17 from 253 (6.72 per cent) last year.

"I thought today was another good, solid day's trade," Bowditch said.

"To have a clearance rate of 76 per cent and a gross of over A$10 million, which is well up on last year (A$8.36m), and to have at least 112 horses sell internationally is a huge effort.

"It was great to see A$1.7 million worth of horses to Hong Kong - a million up on last year."

Bowditch labelled the National Sale series, including last week’s weanling and mare auctions, a resounding success.

"We've been so pleased. From the weanlings which was an outstanding sale, through to the mares which was quite extraordinary with 24 million dollar plus lots and to the yearlings today and yesterday,” he said.

"Nearly A$120 million worth of horses with almost 900 horses sold - it's an outstanding effort."

"We have to thank all our vendors for supporting the sale. The buyers who have turned up globally and domestically - to all of the staff who have helped the breeders out to get their horses here.

"And the efforts of the whole Magic Millions team has been phenomenal. It's a huge job putting on the National Sale and I'm proud of everyone for putting in a huge effort to put on the southern hemisphere's premier breeding stock auction."

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