Extraordinary Magic Millions National Weanling Sale closes on a high

In the immediate aftermath of an extraordinary Magic Millions National Weanling Sale stakeholders remain divided about whether the frenzied competition for young stock would permanently change the dynamic of the Australian foal market.

Vendors, buyers and the auction house itself had differing views about whether this week’s record sale - a million dollar colt was sold for just the second time in the southern hemisphere and the average was more than A$100,000 (£54,500/€63,500) for the first time - would spur more investors on both sides of the fence to have a bigger presence in the weanling market.

Nine of the top ten foals sold on the Gold Coast this week were purchased with the intention of retaining them to race rather than attempting to on-sell them at next year’s yearling sales.

The most expensive foal sold at the recent Inglis Australian Weanling Sale, a A$400,000 colt by Capitalist, was also expected to be held back as a racing prospect.

Magic Millions managing director Barry Bowditch said: “The market is in a great place at the moment and we were delighted with the horses we had to offer. But even as confident as we were, this has far exceeded our expectations. To average well over A$100,000, have a clearance rate of 88 per cent, which is really good for this market, and to gross over A$31.5 million is extraordinary.

“It’s a new dimension to the sale, and I think going forward you will see a lot more of it.

Barry Bowditch: “The market is in a great place at the moment and we were delighted with the horses we had to offer.'

“I think with end users now at the sale supporting the high and middle end, it will give vendors the impetus to keep bringing the better horses to the sale. They can come here with confidence that the result they can achieve here can be extraordinary.”

In comparison to 2019 - last year’s was held late in the year due to Covid-19 - this year’s National Weanling Sale gross of A$31,669,500 was up 14 per cent, the average of A$105,214 was up 66 per cent and the median of A$52,000 was up from A$36,000 two years ago.

Excluding the 20-lot Shadwell dispersal, which saw the unreserved draft of weanlings sell for A$5.435m at an average A$271,750.on Thursday, this year’s sale still averaged A$93,944.

Bowditch cited the graduate success of the Magic Millions’ weanling sale, specifically pointing to Group 1-winning colts Stay Inside, Pierro and Zoustar as evidence, had become too compelling for the end-user buyers to ignore.

He said: “We want to continue to grow our weanling market. We think it’s always been a strong market for Magic Millions, but this year it has gone to a whole new level.

“We could have sold plenty more horses than we had catalogued here and there was a lot of demand.

“There are a lot of frustrated pinhookers out there that weren't getting in and buying the horses they need to.

"When you have frustrated buyers, it means that you have delighted vendors and, with that, you would expect they would continue to support this sale with gusto going forward.”

I Am Invincible colt makes $625,000 on day two

The most expensive lot sold on the second day was a A$625,000 I Am Invincible colt who, like the majority of top lots sold at the weanling sale, will be retained to race.

He was the highest-priced of three colts bought at the sale by Tony Fung Investments after they also paid A$550,000 for an Exceed And Excel colt and A$210,000 for a son of Extreme Choice on day one.

Warwick Farm-based Annabel Neasham is expected to train the trio.

Fung’s bloodstock representative Shane McGrath said: “He's a lovely colt, he is obviously by a serious sire in I Am Invincible. Being a first foal, we really liked him, he had plenty of size and scope.

“The dam was a very good racemare herself. She probably could have won the William Reid and been a Group 1 winner.

“He's got size, substance and comes off a great farm. We have had a lot of luck buying horses off Kitchwin.

“They do a great job and he was well presented. He made his money, but he was a proper colt.”

The sale of the day’s top lot, the first foal of Group 3 winner and Group 1-placed mare Ellicazoom, continues Kitchwin Hills’ success they have enjoyed with the former Perth-trained mare who joined the Hunter Valley nursery’s team midway through her racing career.

Kitchwin Hills’ Mick Malone went to A$420,000 to buy Ellicazoom at the 2018 Magic Millions Perth Winter Mixed Sale. She was sent to Victoria to be trained by Lindsay Park.

She won the Cockram Stakes and was placed in the William Reid Stakes under new ownership before Kitchwin resold her for A$800,000 at the 2019 Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale.

Malone negotiated a deal to retain 50 per cent of the mare and the partnership mated her with I Am Invincible.

“You come to these weanling sales and he was a horse that was probably going to end up at a racing stable, not so much a pinhook,” said Malone.

“He was such a lovely, lovely colt. She's a beautiful mare and has done such a terrific job. We had a video of the colt as a young foal galloping through the paddock. It was unbelievable.

“He had this amazing presence from the day he was born. He really just stood out on the farm.”

Ellicazoom is in foal to Exceed And Excel.

Kitchwin Hills sold 12 weanlings at the sale for a total of A$1.683m.

Malone said: “It’s such an amazing place to be, Australia at the moment, isn't it? A lot of parts of the world are crippled by Covid and here we are buying horses like we would buy houses.

“We brought a couple of Capitalists here and they have sold really well and we brought the I Am Invincible colt as well.

“I felt the market was going to be a bit like this off the back of the yearling sales, they often want to tip into these weanling sales.

"He was always such a proper weanling and forward enough to be here. Sometimes you do those things and they come back and bite you, but you have to be prepared to cop that. When people get good results, they will come back and buy another one off you.”

Arguably spurred, in part, by the Shadwell Stud Australasia dispersal sale on Thursday and Gilgai Farm presenting a sought after draft of foals, led by the sale-topping A$1m I Am Invincible colt, some vendors are considering bringing more of their stock to the weanling market.

But Malone stopped short of adopting that approach on a permanent basis.

“One thing I have learned about this industry is try not to learn things from what happened the year before,” he said.

“If the market is running one way I tend to look the other way. I think you just tackle each year as it comes.

“We have still got a lot of babies at home, so it’s not like we are tipping in any more than we would.”

‘You get what you pay for’: Frankel filly makes $530,000

Octogenarian Bruce Mackenzie, 83 next month, compared his latest high-priced investment in a young filly to a game of two-up on Anzac Day, but he has no qualms about his A$530,000 spend on a daughter of Juddmonte’s champion sire Frankel.

The former Port Stephens mayor, who races the Oakfield-named horses around NSW, bought the Coolmore-consigned filly, who is the first foal out of the European stakes-placed winning mare Ilex Excelsa, a half-sister to South African Grade 2 winner Gibraltar Blue, Group 3 winner Scream Blue Murder and the stakes-placed Blue Cabochon. She was catalogued as lot 387.

Bruce Mackenzie snapped up a filly by Frankel for A$530,000

Mackenzie’s acquisition comes three months after he bought a Zoustar filly for A$450,000 at the Inglis Classic Yearling Sale.

Mackenzie said from the back of the Gold Coast sales ring soon after signing for the filly alongside his adviser Darren Smith: “You get what you pay for. I didn’t pay $15,000 for her like some of them do. She has residual value and all she’s gotta do is win one race in Sydney and she’s worth double that, especially if it’s a stake race.

“You only have to look at her - and she has the page. She was one of the nicest fillies here, I thought.

“She’s the same as that Zoustar filly I bought in Sydney. I liked that one and she’s at home getting broken in as we speak and she’s a magnificent animal.

“You’ve got a chance if you buy those types. I like to pay that for the good stuff and play two-up on Anzac Day because that’s what it’s like: heads or tails.”

The filly was last night on her way to Mackenzie’s farm, where she will be allowed to grow out. Despite the filly’s tag, Mackenzie will maintain his patient approach in educating her.

He said: “She won’t get broken in until this time next year. She will be handled and looked after. When I take her home tonight she will munch in the paddock, have two weeks in the stable, go on the walker and back out again.

“My horses when you see them at the barriers, they never ever don't go into the barriers because I teach them to go in from the time they are foals.”

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