Easter market stays strong, with eight million-dollar yearlings
The Australian yearling market continues to defy global uncertainty, with Inglis’ Easter Yearling Sale posting strong opening day results and seven different buyers across the top seven lots.
A resilient bloodstock industry has shrugged off a Middle East conflict and global chaos, allying Sebastian Hutch’s pre-Inglis Easter Yearling Sale apprehension about how the company’s pre-eminent auction would transpire.
Eight million-dollar yearlings – four colts headed by a $3 million son of Extreme Choice and four fillies – were sold on day one, with seven different entities responsible for the seven-figure sellers.
Coolmore bought the Extreme Choice-Pretty Brazen colt while a filly by the same phenomenal Newgate Farm-based sire sold for $1.8 million to Blue Diamond-winning trainer Clinton McDonald and agent Shane McGrath.
The Zoustar sister to William Reid Stakes-winning stallion Schwarz also sold for the same price, with prominent owner Jonathan Munz’s agent Dean Hawthorne winning a spirited bidding duel for the Widden Stud-sold filly.
Inglis compiled a larger catalogue for this year’s blue-chip Easter sale and, as a result, trade surged to $65.86 million, up $2.8 million on last year, with 144 horses sold on Sunday, the first of two days of selling at Riverside Stables, at an average of $457,361.
“Obviously, I was apprehensive in advance of the sale because it’s very hard to speak to people’s mindset,” said Inglis Bloodstock chief executive Hutch.
“Everybody was here, everybody did the work, the vendors seemed in a good spot, but it’s very hard to speak to people’s mindset at the start of a day like this.
“And ultimately, it’s played out that people wanted to buy nice horses and pursued them with real vigor.
“We get to the end of the day with a set of figures that if you’d offered me at the start of the day, I’d have bitten your hand off for.”
McGrath and McDonald have formed a formidable combination, with the pair winning the 2024 Blue Diamond with Hayasugi and following it up this year with Streisand, who also finished runner-up in the Golden Slipper.
They upped the stakes with the purchase of the Extreme Choice-Speak Fondly filly, a half-sister to stakes-winning sprinter Compelling Truth.
“I actually looked at every stakes-winning and Group-winning Extreme Choice that came through the sales just to try and find a common denominator,” McGrath said.
“I also had a good chat with Jim Carey down there and he said all the real good Extreme Choices have all got a beautiful action and that’s what she had.
“She’s an October foal, so I think there’s plenty of growth and maturity and with an Extreme Choice, you don’t know what you have, but it’s a ticket in the lottery.”
Kiwi agent Hawthorne, who has worked for Munz for many years, praised his long-term client for backing his judgment to such a high level for the Zoustar filly.
“We’ve bought Zoustars here in the past who are performing well for us and she was right up there (in terms of quality),” Hawthorne said.’
Hutch credited Inglis bloodstock operations manager Chris Russell for convincing Linda and Graham Huddy, the breeders of the top lot, to sell the son of Extreme Choice at Easter rather than at Magic Millions in January.
“Chris Russell went to see that colt in, I think it was in early September, and rang and said, ‘listen, I’ve just seen the best yearling I’m going to see all year’,” Hutch recalled.
“And I said, ‘where’s it going?’ He said, ‘I think it’s going to an early sale’. And I was like, well, you know, like, what are you going to do? Make a pitch for it, right?”
“So he drafted an email to Linda and Graham making the case as to why the horse would be best placed at Easter and, very thankfully, Linda was receptive to that.”
After such a satisfying result with the Extreme Choice colt, Hutch predicted another strong day of selling on Monday.
“There’s one major international buyer who bid a lot of money on a filly today who I’m hoping might end up on the sheet tomorrow,” Hutch said.
“Another couple of major international investors who I would expect to make an impression on the market and there’s some new domestic buyers here, too.”
Day two starts at 10am.
Easter day 1 statistics (2025 in brackets)
Lots offered: 191 (163)
Lots sold:144 (129)
Clearance Rate: 75% (79%)
Average Price: $457,361 ($488,798)
Median Price: $355,000 ($375,000)
Top Price: $3,000,000 ($3,000,000)
Gross: $65,860,000 ($63,055,000)
Author
Related Articles
🔒 🔒 Hinton heads to Hunter – Racing NSW chief executive and prominent breeders to break bread at Newgate
Racing NSW acting chief executive Graeme Hinton will visit the Hunter Valley next month as major thoroughbred farms attempt to mend relationships between the regulator and the breeding sector.
New Zealand faces up to industry ‘implosion’ with 40 per cent of Group 1s under threat
Racing jurisdictions, led by New Zealand, will use a key Asian Pattern Committee meeting in February next year to argue that changes need to be made to the way Group 1s are rated to protect their status as the country faces a brutal cull of its elite races.
British and Irish foal crop falls for a third straight year
Weatherbys’ Return of Mares puts the combined thoroughbred foal crop for 2026 at 11,312 in Britain and Ireland, down 17.2 per cent on 2023, with Britain falling hardest.
