A stronger market than expected contributed to a 52 per cent year-on-year growth in the overall sales at the Inglis HTBA Yearling Sale in Sydney, with a filly by Wootton Bassett topping the sale.
In a continuation of a positive end of the yearling season for Inglis, 199 yearlings were sold at a clearance rate of 81 per cent and a gross of $4.47 million, up from last year’s total of $3.03 million.
The average of $22,471 was also well up on last year ($18,731) as was the median at $16,000 compared to $10,000.
“For the last few years, we have seen an increasing trend of supply exceeding demand in this part of the market across a broad cross section of sales, so to produce results like these today, particularly in terms of the clearance and median, is very satisfying for our team,” Inglis Bloodstock CEO Sebastian Hutch said
“As has been the case all year, we worked hard in advance of the sale to consolidate as strong a buying bench as we could for the sale and it’s been very effective again, with a strong clearance and good competition, particularly for those lots that met the expectations of buyers and vetted well.”
International buyers played a much larger role at this sale, coming from Hong Kong, Philippines, and Taiwan.
“Nicky Wong, to his credit, got on a plane a few days after the Easter Yearling Sale to travel to Hong Kong, Indonesia, Philippines and Korea to canvass buyers for our sequence of sales through this period and that trip has already paid dividends, with excellent participation from Philippines-based buyers today in particular,” Hutch said.
“We also had particularly strong participation from a number of buyers who will look to trade through our market-leading 2YO Sale back here in October and I think there are a lot of encouraging signs for that sale at this time.”
It was a filly by Coolmore’s Wootton Bassett from Alma Vale which sold for $140,000 which highlighted the day.
Cape Schank Stud’s Tony and Lynn Ottobre were the buyers of the filly, who is out of the Lonhro mare Zezolla, who hails from the highly successful “Tennessee’ family.
“This filly, she’s a nice athletic build and that’s what I’m looking for,” Ottobre said.
“I’m really happy with that. We had a good look at her and she scoped well, she X-rayed fine so she’s certainly worth a chance.”
The filly was reared at Yarraman Stud and was prepped by Verna Metcalfe‘s Alma Vale.
A St Mark’s Basilica colt out of city-winning Encosta De Lago mare Kristy Lee colt from Bowness Stud sold for $130,000 to Graeme Gathercole.
“It’s a tremendous result for the stud. He’s an outstanding colt which had paraded well here all week and we’re just thrilled with the result,” Bowness’ James Daly said.
“We bought the mare in foal because he (St Mark’s Basilica) was a first season sire and we’ve got a great result here today because he really stood out. It’s fantastic.
“It's good to stand out at a sale. He was really popular all week, was well paraded and handled himself well and sold accordingly. That said, when we got here I’d hoped he’d maybe get $50,000 but he paraded like a horse that was worth a lot more so to get $130,000 is huge for us.”
Inglis’ next public auction is the Australian Weanling Sale on May 5 and 6.
