All eyes on Inglis Easter online sale as industry unites in face of adversity

When the opening lot enters the virtual Riverside Stables ring on Tuesday, signalling the start of the most dramatic Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale in the company’s 153-year history, Jonathan D’Arcy’s overtures from the rostrum are sure to trigger a wave of emotions for all stakeholders connected to the blue-chip auction.

The 2020 Easter catalogue offering, widely regarded as the best collection of yearlings in the southern hemisphere each year, has been slashed from 514 lots to 352 as vendors and breeders attempt to navigate their way through treacherous economic conditions sparked by a global coronavirus pandemic.

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The remarkable resilience of the thoroughbred industry, one that has often defied wider economic factors in the past, will be tested to the limit in a scenario not broadly thought possible just months ago when rival Magic Millions opened the selling season.

As for what will transpire today from 10am no one can be certain, but Sebastian Hutch, Inglis’s general manager of bloodstock sales and marketing, remains optimistic about what will occur over the next two days despite the challenges inflicted by Covid-19.

“Obviously, the world economy is in a most unusual place given it is driven not by economic factors but by a consequence of a global pandemic, so people are taking confidence in the fact that we don’t have a fundamental economic problem but an economic problem all the same,” he said.

“By the same token, there are people who very much envisage life after coronavirus and part of that for people involved in bloodstock will be racing good horses and breeding good horses and Easter represents a fantastic opportunity for people who want to own and race good horses.”

Lower Hunter Valley vendor Evergreen Stud is offering a draft of six yearlings, highlighted by a Frankel filly out of champion New Zealand mare Princess Coup, and proprietor Tony Bott admits to having to revisit valuations on what he might have expected two to three months ago when early sales were buoyant.

But how to put a price tag on valuable bloodstock remains a conundrum for Bott and many of his fellow Easter vendors.

“We]'re at a little bit of a loss because normally we’d be at the sales complex and you get a chance to have a look at your competition to know what they are all like,” Bott said.

“With this one, we are all virtually confined to working from our own farms, so that hasn’t been the case.

“Therefore, it is a little bit hard to say that you think your horse is a nice horse but there might be five others that are better than it in the sale.

“We are adopting an attitude of what we thought three months ago and we are probably marking them down somewhat and that is anything from ten to 40 per cent, just depending on the individual animal.”

The first 50 lots offered today will be telling “because I think there’s going to be a lot of people sitting back and trying to digest what is in fact taking place,” Bott said.

“We are like everyone, we are in uncharted waters to some extent, and I’d probably rather be a buyer than a vendor at this stage but it is what it is and we’ve got to see if we can make the most of it.

“I think the bigger horses will probably look after themselves - quality always sells. If you’ve got waterfront real estate it doesn’t seem to go down as much as something that’s 50 miles inland and that’s similar in art auctions or livestock."

He added: “But the middle market is probably going to be the big sufferer because I think some of the syndicators and some of the trainers are probably going to be a bit gun-shy.

“Some of the little speculators who are normally there will at the moment be worried about whether they’ve got a job or haven’t got a job and whether their business is going to reopen in a few months time.

“Buying a horse or a share in a horse is one of the furthest things from their mind at the moment.”

The depth of the buying bench could be impacted like never before over the next two days but Hutch believes the scenario could also see some new faces on the sign-up forms alongside the well-known identities who generally play at Easter.

“The nature of this sale has meant that fillies, in particular, might have been perceived to be unattainable to people, but now they might present as an opportunity, so we’ve seen plenty of interest from breeders and stud farm owners in the sale from the point of view of potentially trying to pick up some fillies,” he said.

“Similarly, in the case of the colts, we feel that we have a very strong group. Those horses, if they can race at the highest level and be successful at the highest level, hold tremendous value irrespective of the economic circumstances.

“There’s still a massive appetite to try and find those really good colts and manage them into winning the best races. That appetite is going to draw people into the market, but quite where it ends up we don’t know.”

Hutch also pointed to the fact that Doncaster Mile winner Nettoyer and victorious Australian Derby performer Quick Thinker were Easter graduates who on Saturday were successful on one of the biggest days on the Australian racing calendar.

“I think people looking to buy fillies as future broodmares from this sale will have also taken confidence from the fact that of the four Group 1 winners at Randwick, the dams of three of them were sold as yearlings at Easter,” he said.

“Again, it was a great way to advertise the long-term value to be found at this sale.”

Evergreen Stud’s draft comprises two colts and four fillies, three of them by Nettoyer’s sire Sebring. The Frankel filly, a half-sister to Hong Kong Group 3 winner Thewizardofoz, is the eighth foal out of Princess Coup, whom Bott’s E Thoroughbreds paid A$3 million for at the 2009 Magic Millions Gold Coast National Broodmare Sale.

“She’s a little bit unique to us as, while we have some of the family, we probably won’t get another chance to send the mare back [to the UK] to get another Frankel and she is quite an outstanding specimen,” Bott said of Lot 143.

“Therefore, we will try and set what we feel is a realistic figure without giving her away, but it probably won’t be what we might have been hoping for two months ago.

“Some people might say that’s too much in this market, but the market will tell us that.”

Interest in Evergreen’s draft has picked up in the past week, once it was confirmed that the Easter sale would be conducted online.

“The buyers had to regroup and run around, back-tracking and doing farms they hadn’t visited before,” he said.

“Luckily, with the Frankel filly being a very desirable article in our draft, that has dragged some of the buyers in to look.

“Some of the professionals like James Harron and some of the other big buyers, they do every horse, so they were always coming [and others have also made the effort as well].”

Read our Life in Lockdown Q&As with industry figures

Jamie Lloyd: 'Staff have had all their own gear labelled, even wheelbarrows'

Micheál Orlandi: 'The stallions are flying and that gives me great hope'

Richard Venn: 'The French are in a good position to get back racing sooner'

Tim Kent: 'It's difficult to plan when we don't know when racing will resume'

Russell Ferris: 'Weatherbys had contingency plans that we activated at once'

Grant and Tom Pritchard-Gordon: 'Inglis Easter has kept us busy since January'

Peter Hockenhull: 'The social side of meeting and chatting to breeders is gone'

Polly Bonnor: 'We've fulfilled every feed order, including all our exports'

Richard Lancaster: 'We're fortunate that some Shadwell staff live on site'