New dawn for Arrowfield with A$1.8 million purchase of Via Africa’s special The Autumn Sun filly

In John Messara’s eyes, the best horse in the Inglis Australian Easter Sale went through the ring after the sun had set on Tuesday and he believes the filly was worth the wait and the A$1.8 million (£971,000/€1.1m) price tag.  

The most expensive of the 26 million dollar yearlings sold over the two days of Inglis’s bluechip Sydney auction, the filly just happens to be by The Autumn Sun, a stallion anointed as potentially the successor to his own sire, as well as his paternal brother Snitzel, by Messara.

A three-quarter sister to Golden Rose winner In The Congo, a powerful sprinter with the ability to sustain an elite cruising speed, was bought by Messara in partnership with Hermitage Thoroughbreds’ Eugene Chuang who raced her champion five-time Group 1-winning sire.

The evening crescendo to the Easter sale came just 13 lots after Coolmore paid A$1.6 million for a Snitzel colt, one of four seven-figure yearlings Tom Magnier purchased on Tuesday, three of which were by the four-time champion Arrowfield stallion.

Arrowfield principal Messara, meanwhile, admitted the stud had been scarcely seen on the buyers’ sheet this year but the breeder saw The Autumn Sun filly as a long-term investment who would eventually join the farm’s broodmare band.

“We’ve been very quiet all year on the shopping side, but she was something a bit special,” Messara said. 

“She is by our stallion, we’re very proud of him and we are very hopeful about him and she was an absolute queen, a true athlete.”

Sheamus Mills, who has built his bloodstock business by acquiring high-end fillies, was the under bidder on the Newhaven Park-bred yearling who was pinhooked by Silverdale Farm for three times her A$600,000 Magic Millions National Weanling Sale purchase price.

The sales-topper is the fourth foal out of Via Africa, a champion three-time Grade 1-winning South African sprinter.

Her banner son In The Congo was officially retired to Newgate Farm last week at an introductory fee of A$33,000 (inc GST).

“I didn’t see her as a weanling but I know she sold for $600,000 and that was a lot of money for a weanling by an unproven sire, but of course since then he’s done quite a bit from very small numbers and our confidence in the stallion has increased,” Messara said. 

“Then I saw her here and she knocked us out. I think she’s a particularly exciting prospect because of her physical characteristics. 

“She had balance, she had scope, she had substance, she was a great mover, she had everything you look for.”

A trainer for the filly has not been decided, although if you were a gambler Chris Waller would be favourite given her breeding and the new connections.

Silverdale Farm sold seven yearlings for A$4.65 million and stud manager Rob Petith echoed Messara’s assessment of the daughter of The Autumn Sun.

“She was a queen, as everyone says, that gets thrown around a little bit, but she was certainly the most special horse I’ve ever taken to a sale, physically, her page and temperament, too, she was just an absolute superstar from the moment she arrived on our farm, through the prep, right the way through the sale she was just a pleasure,” Petith said. 

“Even there on the stage she walked around so calmly, she’s just got a beautiful temperament.

“We’ve been really fortunate across this sale that our horses have found some amazing homes and elite buyers, and to sell to an institution like Arrowfield is tremendous and we’re very happy.”

Coolmore feasting on Snitzels

Coolmore tried but came up empty handed on day one, but it was certainly not the case in the second session of the Easter sale with the perennial powerhouse, led by Tom Magnier, signing for four million-dollar colts for a spend of A$5.3 million.

While Yulong’s Zhang Yuesheng was the sale’s leading buyer, purchasing 25 lots either outright or in partnership for A$13.145 million, the most yearlings bought by a single person since 2008, Magnier and company made sure they added to the depth of their latest crop of colts, a strategy which in recent years has netted them stallions Home Affairs and recent Golden Slipper Stakes winner Shinzo.

And it was a A$1.6 million colt by Snitzel, the sire of Shinzo and Coolmore’s 2023 roster addition Best Of Bordeaux, who Coolmore is hopeful of being the next top-shelf stallion prospect for the Magniers and their partners.

The colt is the final foal out of Ultimate Fever, making him a brother to Group 3 winner Sprightly Lass, stakes scorer Le Cordon Bleu and Grenville Stud stallion Stratosphere.

The sale of the colt, whose dam was bought in foal to Flying Artie for A$100,000 at the 2020 virtual Inglis Australian Broodmare sale by breeder Paul Jelfs, put a big exclamation mark on the Easter sale for Greg and Jo Griffin’s Lime Country Thoroughbreds.

Magnier also went to A$1 million for another son of Snitzel, the Michael and Brad Crismale-bred half-brother to Western Australian Derby winner Tuscan Queen from the Lime Country draft. 

The Kiwi expats, who moved to Blandford from the NSW Southern Highlands in 2021, set a farm record three times in two days with the selling of three million-dollar yearlings.

“I never, ever expect a million dollars for a horse. We knew we had a really good draft, the economy is not so affected at that top end of the market where every breeder and consignor aims to be. I knew we had good horses,” Jo Griffin said.

“We broke our record with the Fastnet Rock filly, lot 101, who made A$1.1 million, so that was our highest price and then we sold this colt for A$1.6 million [and the other Snitzel colt for A$1 million] and everyone of those breeders today and at this sale, the million dollar ones, were the highest-priced yearlings they’ve sold and they’ve been in it for a long time, so I am really happy for them.”

On the purchase of the two Lime Country-bred colts, Magnier said: “We really liked the two horses and we kind of said if we had to have one, we had to have both.”

Magnier also signed for the A$1.5 million Arrowfield-consigned, lot 254-catalogued colt by Snitzel earlier in the day.

“He is a very nice type. All the team really liked this colt and the horse will go to Chris [Waller], he’s by Snitzel and we’re trying to find the next Shinzo,” Magnier said.

“He is a great mover…and Arrowfield had this horse looking very well and hopefully we can have a bit of luck with him.”

The competition for the Arrowfield-offered colt was coming from Team Coolmore and Waller, situated to the rear of the media table, and from Kia Ora and Tony Fung Investments in an upstairs gallery suite.

Coolmore outlasted Kia Ora - partners in elite juvenile filly Learning To Fly - for the first foal out of US Grade 3-winning mare Ms Bad Behavior, herself a half-sister to stakes winners One Bad Boy and Blessed Truly.

Purchased by Arrowfield’s Jon Freyer for US$600,000 at the 2019 Fasig-Tipton November Sale, Ms Bad Behavior has provided an immediate return for her investors after her maiden foal set the early part of day two alight.

A Claiborne Farm-based stallion, who stands at US$25,000, Blame is the sire of 45 stakes winners and 12 black-type scorers as a broodmare sire, including the Todd Pletcher-trained Grade 1 winner Forte, who has won six of his seven starts.

As a vendor, Coolmore sold 30 yearlings for A$11.91 million.

“I think we’ve always said Easter has great pedigrees and in fairness to Inglis they’ve got all the right people here,” Magnier said. 

“This is the sale people from all over the world are tuning into.”

Final figures

Throughout the two days, 422 horses were sold at an average of A$390,283, down A$16,000 on last year, but still up A$19,000 on 2021, while A$137.77 million changed hands, again down on 2022 but up on two years ago. The clearance rate improved throughout to reach 84 per cent last night.

Inglis Bloodstock chief executive Sebastian Hutch was confident of a healthy marketplace but said he was surprised by how strong it turned out to be.

“Two weeks before the sale we did inspections. In our pre-sale inspections, we were really very pleased with the quality of horse and that helps build excitement into the sale because I think that this sale is somewhat unprecedented in terms of the gap from when horses are inspected at the sale and when the sale actually happens,” Hutch said. 

“A lot of the horses to be sold in April are inspected in August and September, so there’s a massive gap.

“Given the gap, the familiarity isn’t quite what it would be with horses at earlier sales. When you get that refresher in the horses on the farm pre-sale, around the complex pre-sale, it is very reassuring to see lots of nice horses.

“I think that gave us confidence going to the sale that at the least we were going to be bringing very nice horses to the market on behalf of what was a really strong line of vendors. But for it to play out the way it has, I would say has been a pleasant surprise.”

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