'Beautiful' A$1.65 million I Am Invincible colt tops first day of Magic Millions

Three million dollar lots on day one of the Magic Millions Yearling Sale on the Gold Coast has the company poised to once again break new ground, with the auction ring action predicted to heat up on Wednesday as a full day of selling and potential record breakers go under the hammer.

Spending during the opening 185-lot session on Tuesday was in line with expectations as a huge cross-section of domestic and international investors featured on the buyers sheet, with a colt by I Am Invincible and fillies by Snitzel and Zoustar the headline day one acts.

The average price closed at A$271,343 (£154,000/€174,000), the median was at A$210,000, while the clearance rate was at 83 per cent.

The most expensive of the three seven-figure lots sold made A$1.65m (£934,000/€1,058,000) to trainers Michael, Wayne and John Hawkes, with the colt’s pedigree possessing an obvious attraction to the father and son-run stable.

The trio bided their time as sale-ring titans went head-to-head for day one’s star lot, the I Am Invincible son of the trainers’ 2014 Golden Slipper winner Mossfun.

As bidding reached A$1.6m and auctioneer Clint Donovan was poised to bring the gavel down, Magic Millions bloodstock consultant James Dawson took Team Hawkes’ only - and, more importantly, successful - bid for the prized Emirates Park-consigned colt.

The underbidder, playing online, did not make another move for the colt, whose half-brother Dajraan won the Festival Stakes for trainers Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott and owner-breeder Emirates Park last November.

The Hawkes’ have the unraced two-year-old sister to the session-topping colt in training at Rosehill.

Named Mathkhoora, she was runner-up in a Randwick barrier trial last October.

Wayne Hawkes said: “He’s a beautiful colt and we have the full-sister at home and she’s a ripper like he is. She’s unraced and has done everything right. This bloke is just a lovely, lovely horse.

“We thought he’d be around that mark but you never quite know where you’re at at the yearling sales.

“We’ve been getting blown away a bit today so we were prepared to flex the muscles.”

While the colt’s price tag creates headlines, the inflationary impact on the bloodstock market in recent times in Australia, spurred on by record prize-money, was put into perspective by Michael Hawkes.

“We’re racing for a lot of prize-money now and this colt just stood out when we saw him,” he said.

“You come to the sales expecting to go home with lovely horses and when you see a horse of this calibre, especially out of a horse like Mossfun that we had a lot to do with, it doesn’t get much better.”

Emirates Park general manager Bryan Carlson marvelled at the ride Mossfun has taken the team on.

“She had her first foal, Tumooh, who has an I Am Invincible yearling in the sale [Lot 504], and then we sent her to the UK where she had a Frankel colt, Dajraan, who came back here to race, and Sadmah, who will come back next week in foal to Kingman,” said Carlson.

“Sadmah was a handy filly and we never got to see the best of her. Mossfun has come back to Australia and she has a very good two-year-old with Hawkes and now this colt, so it’s her first progeny out of her to sell down here.”

Earlier, another colt by I Am Invincible was bought by Tony Fung Investments in conjunction with agent Dermot Farrington for A$700,000.

Annabel Neasham has been appointed to the Kia Ora Stud-sold colt, the third foal out of Listed-winning sprinter Modern Wonder, herself a sister to the top-class Group 2-winning juvenile Away Game.

TFI’s racing manager Sally Williams said: “He’s a lovely, athletic colt and a great mover. We love that he’s out of a Snitzel mare, that’s a great influence, obviously he’s by a champion stallion in I Am Invincible and he looks like any early runner.

“It’s a family we’ve had a lot of success with Away Game, so we’re really excited to get him. We’ll get him home and break him in and decide on a trainer at a later date.”

Away Game was sold for A$4m at last year’s Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale by the syndicate of owners which included TFI.

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