Magic Millions prepares to release Gold Coast Yearling Sale catalogue

Barry Bowditch is confident a quality line up of elite yearlings will attract a strong international and domestic buying bench for the 2019 Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale in January.

The sales company will on Tuesday officially release the catalogue for the Australasian sales series opener, with 888 Book 1 lots to be offered including the Snitzel sister to 2018 Golden Slipper Stakes winner Estijaab and a half-brother to brilliant filly Sunlight.

Magic Millions won the race over rival Inglis to offer the two well-bred yearlings, who are among 36 lots catalogued that boast relations to Group 1 winners, while the sale also has relations to 25 Group 2 winners, 46 Group 3 winners and 80 Listed winners.

In officially releasing next year’s catalogue, Magic Millions has compiled a slightly bigger Book 1 offering, up from 853 in 2018, meaning 265 lots are to be offered in the first three sessions from January 9 to 11.

Another 93 lots will be auctioned at the Saturday night session following the A$10 million Magic Millions race day held at the adjacent Gold Coast racecourse.

Bowditch, the managing director, said the Magic Millions bloodstock team had to employ a ruthless approach on pedigree and type to slash the 2,800 entries received for the sale down to a streamlined Book 1 catalogue.

"The quality of entries made our bloodstock team’s job harder than ever before and I would like to think that we have got a fairly watertight catalogue on type," Bowditch told ANZ Bloodstock News.

"When you have so many quality yearlings physically, you have got to be dictated to by pedigree, so therefore it is a really strong bunch of yearlings."

Domestic buyers led the way this year and while Bowditch said a strong domestic market will again prove vital to the success of the 2019 sale, he confirmed the Magic Millions team has been canvassing international buyers in recent months in a bid to bolster the depth of the buying bench.

"Our main driver for this sale each and every year is domestic buyers and syndicators, so we will be out there doing our best to ensure they get everything they need." he said.

“Internationally, we have already started working on our buyers. We have been to Europe a couple of times this year, we have been to Japan and we are going back to Asia.

“I have also just come back from America, so we are working hard to ensure that our vendors, who have provided us with a great catalogue, have a market to sell their horses to."

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