Some of the best-credentialled yearlings by Victoria’s leading stallions Written Tycoon and Toronado and the state’s emerging sires Alabama Express and Hanseatic will be offered at next year’s Inglis Premier sale next year.
In announcing an 803-lot catalogue for the 2025 Melbourne Premier sale on Sunday, auction house Inglis also confirmed that the Oaklands Junction offering next March would be the sole live yearling sale conducted in Victoria next year.
As well as yearlings by Victoria’s leading sires, progeny of Extreme Choice, I Am Invincible, Too Darn Hot, Harry Angel and Wootton Bassett will also be offered by local and interstate vendors at the Melbourne sale next year.
The support of Victoria’s leading breeders underpinned the depth of the Melbourne catalogue, Inglis Bloodstock chief executive Sebastian Hutch says.
“Obviously, we're at a juncture in Australian breeding where the volume of proven stallions or the traditionally perceived to be proven stallions isn't as big a pool as what it might have been in the past,” Hutch told The Straight.
“But there is a huge number of young and emerging stallions, and not just first crop stallions specifically, but second, third, fourth and fifth crop stallions who are promising or progressive and they have the capacity to really make a name for themselves over the next two, three and four years.
“We work hard to research those horses to make sure we get the right representation in the catalogue and I think next year (we have that).”
A common theme at almost all bloodstock sales, domestically and internationally, is that vendors who target sales with nice horses are well rewarded in the sales ring and Hutch believes that was the case in 2024.
“And that appears to have encouraged a greater interstate support for the sale, not just in terms of quantity, but quality as well and I expect that to be reflected during the inspections (at Oaklands Junction next year),” Hutch said.
FULL 2024 INGLIS PREMIER CATALOGUE
Yulong, Rosemont Stud and Blue Gum Farm, Maluka Thoroughbreds, Aristia Park and Stonehouse Thoroughbreds are among the Victorian vendors to support their local sale, with the 66 consignors also coming from interstate with the likes of Newgate Farm, Alma Vale Thoroughbreds, Emirates Park, Segenhoe and Vinery studs bringing extensive drafts to Melbourne.
Newgate Farm sold 2023 The Everest winner Think About It at the Premier sale while this year’s winner Bella Nipotina was also sold at Oaklands Junction as was 2021 winner Nature Strip.
The selling schedule will remain the same as 2024 – two days of Book 1 (565 lots) with the third and final day of the sale exclusively for Book 2 (238 lots).
Tim Rowe
The Melbourne Gold Sale, traditionally held in April and about six weeks after the Premier auction, meanwhile, won’t be run next year after dwindling entries and fewer buyers attending the sale.
At what turned out to be the last edition of the Gold sale last April, 60 horses changed hands at an average of $20,054 and a median of $15,000.
Inglis informed vendors soon after this year’s sale that it was likely Gold would be axed and that was the eventual decision taken when the 2025 sales schedule was released months later.
