Cover image courtesy of Inglis

At A Glance

>> The Inglis Ready2Race record was smashed by a Deep Field colt purchased by Louis Ho and the Macau Jockey Club for $610,000.

>> Numbers were up across the board with an aggregate of $10,964,000 compared to $8,051,500 in 2019, an average of $99,673 up from $79,718 and the median up by $10,000 from $60,000 to $70,000 this year.

>> The clearance rate sits at 64.8 per cent but is set to rise in the coming days as more juveniles are sold privately.

>> 36 lots sold for $100,000 or more (a 38 per cent year-on-year increase), 12 lots sold for $200,000 or more (33 per cent increase) and 6 sold for $300,000 or more (a 50 per cent rise).

>> The progeny of New Zealand champion sire Savabeel proved popular with three of his progeny sold for an average of $248,333, while first-season sire Capitalist was also popular as his progeny averaged $235,500 with four horses sold.

>> Busuttin Racing topped the buyers sheet, purchasing three 2-year-olds for a total of $740,000.

>> New Zealand operation Ohukia Lodge came away as leading vendor by aggregate, selling 14 of their 19 entries for a total of $1,447,500, while Lime Country Thoroughbreds were leading vendor by average as they sold five juveniles for an average price of $236,000.

Record breaking

It has been an uncertain few months leading into the 2020 Inglis Ready2Race Sale but the results fared well and a number of records were broken despite many sectors of the buying bench being unable to attend the Sale in person.

The record for the highest-priced horse sold at Inglis’ Ready2Race Sale was broken twice as Lot 35, a gelding by Capitalist from the Glenn Haven Thoroughbreds draft, realised $550,000 to the bid of The Everest-winning owner Bon Ho, before Lot 162, a colt by Deep Field was purchased by Louis Ho and the Macau Jockey Club for $610,000 later in the day.

There were an extra 17 lots offered at this year’s Sale compared to 2019 but the aggregate was still up 35.7 per cent from $8,051,500 to $10,926,500, while the average was up from $79,718 to $100,243 and the median rose from $60,000 in 2019 to $70,000 at this year’s Sale.

At the time of writing, the clearance rate sat at 64.8 per cent but that figure is due to rise in the coming days as more juveniles are sold privately.

Sebastian Hutch, Inglis General Manager Bloodstock Sales and Marketing, said the auction house was pleased with the way the Sale panned out given the current climate.

“We were very pleased with the quality of the catalogue and we were very optimistic,” Hutch said.

“There were going to be a considerable number of horses to sell well given the increased quality and the nature of the vendors we had committed to the Sale, so for it to play out in the manner that it did with the record price broken twice, a record gross and a record average was really very pleasing.”

Hutch said that there had also been positive feedback from the vendors despite the less than ideal conditions to be selling their Ready2Race juveniles.

“The feedback has been very positive,” he said. “We had a diverse buying bench and significant domestic and international participation from a broad cross-section of people at all levels.

"I think if they had a horse that met the vet criteria, breezed well and was a good physical specimen, you generally got well paid. It’s a challenge to have horses meet all of those criteria so it follows through the people there and they deserve to be well-rewarded.

"I think vendors are really very pleased. They’re not ideal economical or political conditions or the backdrop to be hosting a sale.

“There are challenges domestically and internationally for people to try and work through so for a bloodstock sale to be as strong as this and host record metrics, is really quite extraordinary.”

Deep Field colt smashes Inglis Ready2Race record

A colt by rising Newgate sire Deep Field smashed the Inglis Ready2Race Sale record on Tuesday when he was snapped up by the Macau Jockey Club and Louis Ho for $610,000.

The colt was consigned by Lime County Thoroughbreds on behalf of Regal Farm, who purchased him in partnership with Upper Bloodstock, Teng Long and McKeever Bloodstock for $230,000 at the Inglis Classic Yearling Sale.

Posting a breeze-up time of 10.3s, he is the second foal out of winning Exceed And Excel mare Wind Shift, who herself is a grand-daughter of Group 3 winner Blue Storm (Bluebird {USA}) and is from the family of G1 Thousand Guineas winner and $1.2 million earner Flit (Medaglia D’Oro {USA}).

Like all New Zealand vendors, Shane Crawford of Regal Farm was unable to be at Riverside Stables for the Sale but entrusted experienced racehorse sellers in Lime County Thoroughbreds to present their draft.

“I think it was just a case of Kiwis looking after each other and big ups to them for taking them on,” Crawford said.

“It’s really exceeded our expectations. It was a really long process, all of the horses were bought in Australia originally and then we had to get them back to New Zealand, broken in and prepared and keep them all in one piece so it was a lot of hard work.

“He was always bought specifically to go through Sydney, that was always the idea and we just thought he’d be a really good fit for that Sale.

“He’s been A-grade. He’s had a fantastic brain on him from the get-go and what I really like about the horse is that he just kept improving all the way through and he’s just a real athlete.”

Crawford said that he always expected the colt to sell well but a price tag of $610,000 was beyond his wildest expectations.

“We had a feeling he was going to sell being by Deep Field who is going really well and is very popular in Hong Kong and he breezed really well, but to reach the level he did, that was beyond our wildest dreams,” he said.

“It’s been a tough sale but I think if you’ve got the right article, you can do okay. We put a lot of hard work in to looking at these yearlings to start with and to get the results at the end is a great feeling.”

The colt is set to head to Lindsay Park in Victoria with the long-term plan to send him to Hong Kong to be trained by David Hayes, and the trainer said he was delighted to have secured him.

“We’re ecstatic to secure the colt." Hayes said. "Louis Ho from the Macau Jockey Club was instrumental in purchasing the horse. The horse will now go to Lindsay Park in Euroa to let down and a further decision will be made on his future in coming weeks after a short spell.

“We just loved him. He’s a particularly sharp looking horse with great balance who breezed up well.

“He’s another good product by the sire and we’re thrilled to be taking him home.’’

Everest earning invested at Inglis

Three days after winning The Everest with Classqiue Legend (Not A Single Doubt), owner Bon Ho reinvested some of his earnings when purchasing Lot 35, a gelding by Newgate first-season sire Capitalist, for $550,000.

Consigned by Matt Vella’s Glenn Haven Thoroughbreds, the gelding posted an impressive breeze-up time of 10.17s and Ho said that he will remain in Australia to be trained by Vella.

“He breezed up very well and he came highly recommended by Matt Vella of Glenn Haven Lodge,” Ho said.

“I have a few Capitalists myself already and they are all promising types. I think this stallion is going to be very successful so I was very happy to be able to add another one to my stable.

“As the Sale suggests, this horse is ready to race. He will stay in Australia and be trained by Matt Vella.

“I have a lot of respect for Matt as a horseman, he’s very capable and I look forward to this horse showing us all how good we think he is.”

The gelding was purchased as a yearling by Mitchell Bloodstock for $170,000 at the Inglis Classic Yearling Sale and James Mitchell was thrilled with the result.

“He had obviously been popular throughout the inspections,” Mitchell said. “Having Capitalist sire his first winner on Saturday was perfect timing and it couldn’t have been any better.

“We thought he would make in the $300,000 to $400,000 range, we couldn’t have imagined he would have made $550,000.

“As a yearling, from a physical standpoint we really thought he was faultless. He had lovely strength and a lot of quality.

“He did have a bit of an attitude, so we did end up gelding him to make the process a bit smoother. That worked a treat, he has been an absolute saint throughout the whole process, so that was a stroke of genius in hindsight. He was a good solid colt who looked fast to us and he is out a good running mare.”

The gelding is the first foal out of Listed Gosford Guineas winner Lady Sniper (Snippetson), who herself is out of a half-sister to Listed winners Easy Landing (Mister C {USA}) and Misty Dawn (Mister C {USA}).

In his first year as a Ready2Race vendor, Vella and his Glenn Haven Thoroughbreds banner have quickly become a major player in the breeze-up market and the astute horseman was not only thrilled to sell the colt for the high sum, but also secure him to race in his own name.

“A few guys here saw the horse and liked him and they approached Mr Ho. He text me to ask me if I liked him, given he was in my draft and I told him I did,” Vella said. “He’s a very nice horse to be taking home.

“I’m thrilled to be able to train this horse and I’m very grateful to Mr Ho for the support he’s given me. He’s bought himself a nice horse. It just shows you can find nice horses at these sales.

“It’s the first draft I’ve done and I’ve learned a lot from it. I thought he’d bring between $400,000 to $500,000 but the fact he’s made even more than that doesn’t surprise me.

“As I said in every interview I did pre-sale, I urged the owners to take the horse out of the Sale and give him to Peter Snowden or someone like that and run him in the Breeders' Plate but true to their word, they kept him in and it’s great they’ve got this result.”

Vella, who predominantly trains for Sir Owen Glenn, believes the colt is good enough to head to the races early and said he will now set the speedy colt on a path to the $2 million Inglis Millennium.

“He’s on an Inglis Millennium prep. That’s the race to target,” Vella said. “The Golden Slipper, that might be getting ahead of ourselves but all the good horses I’ve broken in, including Slipper winners, they were all like this bloke, very forward and very strong.

“Most definitely the race he will be targeted at is the Inglis Millennium. He’s been in the paddock since the breeze-ups, he’s ready to go into work, eight weeks off a trial and then go from there. Everything will be aimed toward the Millennium.

“He definitely strikes me as a horse that could be a very, very good 2-year-old. He’s very forward very educated and every good horse I’ve broken in that have been 2-year-olds like Dame Giselle, I never really had to do anything, they did it themselves and this horse is the same as that.

“He very well could be one of the better 2-year-olds you’ll see."

Pride Of Dubai colt sets the pace early

After a slow start to the day, a Hannover Lodge consigned colt by young Coolmore stallion Pride Of Dubai, who breezed-up in 10.86s, got things going when he sold to Hong Kong-based buyer K F Cheng for $530,000.

Catalogued as Lot 21, the colt is out of dual Listed winner Impressive Eagle (Rubiton), making him a half-brother to G2 Danehill S. runner-up Thorondor (Fastnet Rock).

Impressive Eagle herself is also a half-sister to G1 Queensland Derby winner Eagle Way (More Than Ready {USA}) and Listed Proud Miss S. winner Assertive Eagle (Danewin) as well as Soaressa (Twining {USA}), the dam of multiple stakes winner Thermal Current (Exceed And Excel).

The colt was originally purchased by B Watson and McKeever Bloodstock for $120,000 at the Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale and Hinnerk Hueppe, owner of Hannover Lodge, was delighted with the result.

“Obviously we’re very pleased,” he said. “We knew he was a class individual and he just kept improving throughout the whole prep.

“We’re pleased for the clients, they bought a quality yearling at the Sale originally and they’ve got some very good people involved.

“He’s just kept getting better and better so we were hoping for a good result but we’re just very overwhelmed and grateful that he sold this well and also that he goes to Hong Kong and hopefully everyone will have great success with him.”

Hueppe said he was confident the colt would sell well but never imagined he would crack the $500,000 mark, especially in the current climate of the world.

“We were hoping he would be a sale topper but you never expect to get to those figures and come over half a million, but we were expecting him to be the best in our draft.

“I think it really lifted everyone’s spirits. The Sale started very slow and it’s difficult when you don’t get the atmosphere when people can’t come to the Sale and be involved and everyone gets to enjoy it.

“It’s good that people can bid at home online or over the phone but at the end of the day, everyone is here because they’re passionate about what they do and to create that kind of spirit I think it really lifted and hopefully it made people more positive about the rest of the Sale.”

Johnny McKeever of McKeever Bloodstock said the colt was originally purchased for Hong Kong clients who made the decision to send him to the Ready2Race Sale, which is a decision that has proved very successful.

“I went round all the yearlings at all the farms and made a list for some Hong Kong clients,” McKeever said. “We bid on some lots and we only ended up buying this one and one other.

“They decided to put him through the breeze-ups and they have been handsomely rewarded.

"Since we bought him as a yearling the horse has really grown and strengthened and he breezed well.

“Since we bought him Pride Of Dubai has been doing all the right things here and of course in Europe too, so suddenly the profile of the stallion was much, much better, which of course helps. It was a great result."

Family a winner

Where there’s a Savabeel to be bought, you can bet Trent Busuttin and Natalie Young will be in the market and that was the case at Riverside Stables on Tuesday as the Victorian-based trainers purchased two colts by the champion New Zealand sire.

Waikato Stud’s Mark Chittick was far from surprised when his Savabeel colt, Lot 117, was secured by Busuttin Racing for $330,000.

The youngster hails from one of the Matamata farm’s best-performed families and was offered through Jamie Beatson’s Ohukia Lodge.

“It was a very good result and Trent has got himself another good one,” Chittick said. “He trained Savabeel’s son Sangster to win the G1 VRC Derby and now he’s got one of this year’s favourites Albarado.

“You don’t have to be Einstein, he’s just continuing to do what works for him.”

The colt purchased this afternoon is a son of the O’Reilly (NZ) mare Simply You (NZ) and she is a daughter of the Chittick family’s dual Group 1 winner Glamour Puss (NZ) (Tale Of The Cat {USA}) and her half-brother Vision And Power (NZ) (Carnegie {Ire}) was also twice successful at the top level.

Their half-sister Rare Insight (NZ) (O’Reilly {NZ}) produced the G1 Coolmore Classic and G2 Breeders’ Classic winner Steps In Time (Danehill Dancer {Ire}).

Busuttin and partner Natalie Young also won last season’s G2 Thousand Guineas Prelude with the Waikato Stud-bred and raced Acting (NZ) (Savabeel), who is a close relation to the colt.

“You don’t have to describe, you know what Savabeel does year in year out,” Busuttin said. “Obviously we’ve got Albarado who is going to be one of the favourites for the Derby who was bred on the same cross as him and he comes from a farm that produces Group 1 winner after Group 1 winner and he was just a lovely individual with a good page to back it up.

“We’ve always been strong supporters of the ready to run sales. A lot of good horses come out of them so we’ll always be big supporters of ready to run sales in both Australia and New Zealand especially.”

With Victorians unable to attend the Sale, Busuttin said he used some astute judges on the ground at Riverside Stables to assists with their purchases but the trainer also credited Inglis for providing all the necessary information online.

“We’ve had a couple of good judges in Mike Kneebone and Jim Clarke checking out the horses for me and with the footage from the vendors and Inglis, you can watch a lot online,” Busuttin said.

“It’s certainly not the same as being there but we make sure all the boxes are ticked before we put the name to the paper.”

Asked whether the colt could be a Derby contender in 2021, Busuttin said he will let the horse tell him but thinks he could become a sharper type like his close relation Acting.

“Acting had the second dam Glamour Puss on her page but she was a sharper Savabeel so we’ll just let the horse tell us. They (Savabeels) win at all distances so we’ll let the horse do the talking,” he said.

Late in the session Busuttin Racing also secured Lot 220, another colt by Savabeel, for $310,000 from the draft of Lime Country Thoroughbreds who offered him on behalf of Trelawney Stud. The colt breezed-up in 10.82s and is also out of a winning O’Reilly mare in Dubonnet (NZ) who has produced two other winners including G3 Maribyrnong Plate fourth Fanaar (Stratum).

Busuttin and Young also snapped up Lot 163, a colt by Triple Crown-winning Coolmore shuttler American Pharoah (USA), for $100,000 from the draft of Blake Ryan Racing.

Sprint prospect snapped up

Wattle Bloodstock’s Peter Twomey had a speed order to fill for a Hong Kong-based stable and a son of Star Turn, Lot 23, from Valiant Stud’s draft was the perfect fit and he secured the colt for $250,000.

“He really improved from when he was a yearling. I remember seeing him at the Inglis Classic Sale and I liked him then, but over the past sort of seven months he has really improved,” Wattle’s Peter Twomey said.

“I bought the horse for Hong Kong trainer Caspar Fownes and I was looking for a real powerhouse of a sprinting type, but also one that has improved. We have had the advantage here of seeing it breeze-up and seeing it as a racehorse and hopefully he will keep going in the right direction.”

Twomey said the calibre of 2-year-olds on offer at the Sale had continued to improve.

“I was really impressed with the horses at this Sale and I think it is really heading in the right direction.

“Compare the Sale with five or six years ago the improvement in quality is just immense. We are seeing that people are selective, picking and choosing the ones that we really like.”

The Star Turn youngster is out of In The Moment (NZ) (Keeper) who was successful three times and is a half-sister to the two-time Group 3 winner Autumn Jeuney (Jeune {GB}) and the family of the G1 New Zealand Derby winner Crown Prosecutor (Medaglia D’Oro {USA}).

Fergal Connolly’s Valiant Stud completed a good day when a Written Tycoon colt, Lot 79, also realised $250,000 when purchased by Bevan Smith Bloodstock and Oculus Racing.

He is out of the winning Foxwedge mare Play For Time and she is a half-sister to the former champion South African sprinter and multiple Group 1 winner Laisserfaire (Danehill {USA}).

A recent pedigree update was delivered to this family by Personal (Fastnet Rock) when she finished runner-up in the G1 Thousand Guineas at Caulfield earlier this month.

Valiant also sold a son of Odyssey Moon, Lot 193, to Singapore trainer Shane Baertschiger for $130,000, Star Turn colt, Lot 87, to New South Wales interests for $92,500 and Lot 128, a Better Than Ready colt for $40,000 to PJ Racing.

Williams and Harron team up for Nicconi colt

After Goulburn trainer Danny Williams lost his unbeaten 2-year-old Hot N Hazy (Snitzel) in a fatal race fall earlier this year, astute bloodstock agent James Harron used his social media presence to team up with Williams and purchase him another juvenile.

The pair came away from Tuesday’s Inglis Ready2Race Sale with Lot 37, a colt by Nicconi from the Blake Ryan Racing draft who they purchased in partnership for $85,000.

The colt posted a breeze-up time of 10.45s and is out of stakes-placed mare Lil Red Corvette (Henny Hughes {USA}).

“It’s very humbling,” Williams said. “It’s a great thing that James has done and it’s given us a lot of lift. We were very down on things and financially it hit us hard as well but I couldn’t thank the people and James enough. It’s been fantastic.”

Harron added: “Andrew Bensley did an interview with Danny and it was pretty tough to listen to.

“We threw a line out on social media and got an amazing response. They’re wonderful people behind it and they’re all jumping in and texting and tweeting and they’re all very excited.

“Let’s hope we can end a really sad story with a good story with this new boy behind us. We were delighted to get him, he’s a lovely colt, he breezed well and he’s got a super attitude.

“I’m really looking forward to having a horse with Danny, we’ve gotten to know each other over the last few weeks and I’ve been up tp Goulburn and seen his facilities so it’s really exciting.”

Top lots

Top buyers

Top vendors by aggregate

Top vendors by average (3 or more sold)

Top sires by aggregate

Top sires by average (3 or more sold)