HEAT may have sapped energy from both buyers and horses, but fireworks sizzled around the sale ring with a remarkable opening round of selling at the Inglis Classic Yearling Sale at Newmarket last Saturday night.
The top price was $400,000 for the Not A Single Doubt/Pinocchio colt, who was among 57 horses offered during the inaugural Gold Riband session, a section for select yearlings that Inglis believes have pedigrees and confirmation to be competitive in the elite two-year-old races.
Sold from Linda and Lawrence Monds’ Tyreel Stud, Agnes Banks, the top lot was knocked down to Carmel Size, and was the second highest on the Classic Yearling Sale record.
Tyreel also had the honour of selling the second top of the session with a filly by hot sire I Am Invincible selling for $360,000 and going to Boomer Bloodstock/Murray Thoroughbreds, Queensland.
The session’s average soared to $130,200, with an 88 per cent clearance rate.
“We were hoping to work up to an average of $100,000 for the Gold Riband session in the first two years, but to get an average of $130,000 in the first year is beyond our wildest expectations,” managing director Mark Webster said.
“It was a new idea, we were trying something fresh and those things don’t always work.
“But thanks to the support of our vendors and a strong buying bench, we’re delighted with results.”
The Gold Riband session’s accolades continue with a record number of 10 youngsters selling for $200,000 or more, while five fetched $300,000 or more.
The Mitchell family’s Scone stud Yarraman Park enjoyed excellent success with its seven sales aggregating $982,500.
As expected, progeny by their home-based sire I Am Invincible sold brilliantly with Yarraman’s colt from stakes placed winner Ambers Waltz selling for $240,000 to Carmel Size, while Fairview Park, Grose Wold, sold a colt from Aroha Cat for $300,000.
Renewed success of the Written Tycoon stock saw a black filly by the Iglesia sire sell from Kenmore Lodge Queensland for $350,000.
Buoyed by recent success of group 1 filly Yankee Rose, Scott Darby’s Darby Racing was the leading buyer with six purchases.
Total day one sales amounted to a $10.81 million gross, for an average of $90,845, way up on the opening day average of $57,053 at last year’s auction. The sale concluded earlier this week.
As well as receiving a magnum bottle of Moet champagne, buyers of the Gold Riband horses have the added bonus of Inglis paying the nomination fee into the Golden Slipper Stakes.
Inglis will also provide a $100,000 bonus to the vendor or supplier of the Gold Riband session’s first stakes winner.
Hussterical wins at Hawkesbury
IT may have been hot outside but the winners’ room had cool air circulating as cheery part-owners from around the country were lapping up a win after Hussterical won the Australian Thoroughbred Breeders Club (ATBC) Class 1 Handicap at Hawkesbury last week.
Among the owners included Mark Slack-Smith from Tamworth, Ray and Lynne Loveridge, Lake Macquarie, and Robert Brown, who took the day off work to travel down from Bourke to witness the Gai Waterhouse and Arron Bott trained Beneteau filly win.
For the Hawkesbury headquartered ATBC, it was celebrating 35 years since its inception.
“A lot of people said we (ATBC) would not succeed, but here we are 35 years down the track,” secretary Barbara Robertson said.
“We invented the Stallion Tender Scheme - which is still run annually, have bus trips, and guest speakers, and give recognition for our members’ breeding achievements.”
Louis Mihalyka’s well-known Sydney based Laurel Oak Thoroughbreds also celebrated a Hawkesbury win when Manhattan Rain filly Bright Lights Baby won the Abbott Locksmiths Maiden Plate.
Abbott Locksmiths principal Bob Polley was on hand to congratulate part-owners Louis Mihalyka as well as Matt McCabe from Newcastle.
