The art of pinhooking is not for the faint hearted, but while increasing costs have made margins for investors even finer, there was still profit to be had in returning horses to the Australasian market in 2025.
Australasia’s pinhookers turned a collective profit of more than $700,000 across 329 horses at the yearling sales in 2025, with the boom and bust nature of the challenging pursuit of trading young stock on full display.
Not for the first time, Silverdale Farm hit the pinhooking jackpot, selling a Stay Inside colt at the Inglis Easter Yearling Sale in April for $650,000, more than five times the price principal Steve Grant paid for him as a weanling.
In a pure price paid and sold measure, the trade of the $120,000 weanling was the most profitable of the 329 pinhooked yearlings to find a new owner this year, although the commercial realities are never that simple.
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