Affordability and opportunity underpins growth in Classic Sale

More than any other this past decade, the Inglis Classic Sale has been the fastest-growing of Australia’s major select yearling sales, ballooning in almost every one of its measurable components.

In 2013, this sale’s ‘Summer Book’ (there was also a Classic Yearling Sale Winter Book) grossed $11.85 million, with an average peaking at $33,382. Compare that to last year, when the Classic catalogue (Book One) grossed nearly $57.5 million, a 385 per cent increase in a decade (with an average of $102,640).

Comparing eras is difficult, especially with the evolution of the digital selling landscape. When it comes to yearling sales, often the year-on-year comparisons are best. 

However, the maturity of the Classic Sale in just 10 years is important because this sale, arguably more than any other, has traditionally been the ‘trainer’s sale’. It feeds an enormous number of horses into everyday racing stables.

The Classic Sale is a more affordable option than the Easter catalogue in April, and the buyers’ list is usually dominated by trainers and traders. It is also a sale that has arguably punched well above its weight in results.

The two most expensive sires in Australia today, Extreme Choice and I Am Invincible, are both graduates of a Classic Sale. Extreme Choice was sold through the 2015 catalogue, fetching $100,000 when going to trainer Mick Price, while I Am Invincible sold for $62,500 in 2006 when going to trainer Toby Edmonds.

Classique Legend, The Everest winner, is another Classic graduate , as is the former globetrotting sire Choisir, emerging sire Hellbent and the Group 1 winners She Will Reign and In Her Time, and Melbourne Cup hero Vow And Declare. Tony Ottobre’s latest star, Pride Of Jenni, is also a Classic graduate, her Champions Mile victory last November the highest-rated Australian Group One race of 2023, according to the Longines rankings.

These are big-money graduates for a sale that has, in the last five years, averaged  $97,547, and it’s why trainers the length of Australia return so solidly every year. 

“The yearling market has obviously evolved in the last 10 years, but the results out of the Classic Sale, year after year, appear to favour those persons shopping in the value part of it,” says Sebastian Hutch, CEO of Inglis Bloodstock. 

“The Classic Sale is not a sale with the profile of Easter or the Gold Coast in January, or even the Premier Sale in Melbourne, but it has consistently delivered results for people investing year after year.”

Since 2018, Classic graduates have won over $290 million in prize money, and, as Inglis is keen to point out. the Classic Sale, since 2018, is where buyers could have bought the most number of Australian stakes winners for $100,000 or less.

“I think that illustrates just how respected the sale is,” Hutch adds, backed up by the fact that 11 of the 16 horses nominated for this weekend’s $2 million Inglis Millennium are Classic graduates.

The price record for the sale sits at $825,000, realised in 2022 for an Extreme Choice colt from To Dubawi Go. Bought by a consortium of China Horse Club, Newgate Farm and Trilogy Racing, the yearling was a splash by the ever-burgeoning colts’ syndicates, which haven’t traditionally factored at Classic in the last decade.

“Classic has probably evolved in it being capable of now attracting that higher-end buyer,” Hutch says. “You can sell a high-end yearling here now where you probably couldn’t have seven or eight years ago, but the sale has still retained its value status and I think that’s important for it, and I don’t think it will ever change.”

This week, James Harron, Henry Field and Michael Wallace, all representing colts syndicates, are walking around Inglis’s Riverside complex, but it’s unlikely they will fill the bulk of the run-sheet when trading concludes next Tuesday. 

“The yearling market has obviously evolved in the last 10 years, but the results out of the Classic Sale, year after year, appear to favour those persons shopping in the value part of it” – Inglis Bloodstock CEO Sebastian Hutch 

In the recent past, that honour has belonged to trainers like Mick Price, Brad Widdup and Hawkes Racing, and bloodstock agents like John Foote and Justin Bahen buying for Hong Kong.

Last year, Price, trading as MG Price Racing & Breeding, bought five yearlings for a second-best buyer’s aggregate of $1,090,000. He was headed only by Bon Ho’s Legend Racing, which spent $1.53 million across seven lots.

“I’ve bought horses at this sale in the past and I’ll be buying horses here this week,” Price told The Straight, adding that he’s expecting to go home to Victoria with numbers similar to 2023.

However, Price also admits that the Classic Sale has its work cut out for it competing with the first money of the year, which inevitably is the Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale in early January.

“Over the years, the Classic Sale has been a very good sale, but it’s pretty clear that the Gold Coast has made inroads in terms of quality and quantity, and there are only so many good yearlings to go around,” Price says.

In December, The Straight spoke to veterinarian Chris ‘Doc’ Lawler, whose annual yearling-farm tours were run off their feet by the size of the Magic Millions catalogue this year. Lawler observed that the rate of withdrawals from the January sale was minimal because vendors were trying to avoid a repeat of last year’s uncertain trade; they wanted a direct line to the first buyers of the year.

Price says it’s impossible that this demand for the January sale would not impact the rest of the year’s sales, including the Classic Sale.

“I can’t see how it won’t affect Classic, and Melbourne Premier to a degree,” he says. “Even New Zealand had a good representation of yearlings on the Gold Coast. 

“I buy horses at every sale, as you know. Inglis always does a great job, but I made sure Magic Millions was a good sale for us last month. I bought 18, and at Karaka I ended up with seven. If I end up with seven here this week, that will be about right.”

Last year, the Inglis Classic Sale was down $10 million year-on-year. The average also dropped, but the results were still behind only the record-setting results of the 2022 sale. 

Economic unease was responsible for much of the yearling market downturn last year, something that is out of the control of the sales companies..

“We facilitate the market, we don’t set it,” says Sebastian Hutch. “We want to facilitate the best market that we can and we’re very much beholden to circumstance in terms of how the market plays out.

“There were challenges last year. We had a couple of sales that, as the year played out, were poorly timed through the fault of nobody, but vendors are conscious there have been challenges in the market in the first couple of sales of this year, and anybody who was involved with those sales is very aware of what those challenges are.

“We’re conscious of trying to condition people who haven’t been participating in those first sales that it’s something to be aware of because it’s not an easy market this year.”

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For Hawkesbury trainer Brad Widdup, the Classic Sale is his local sale. 

Last year, he was the leading NSW-based buyer (and fourth overall), spending $725,000 on six yearlings for an average of just over $120,000). He also co-bought a Headwater filly for just $18,000. 

It was the most number of horses Widdup has bought at the sale, and among them was Bella Khadijah, a Pierata filly who is one of the two he will line up in Saturday’s rich Inglis Millennium.

Widdup says that despite any market downturns or calendar disadvantages, he’ll be buying at Riverside.

“There’s always good value at this sale,” he says. “You’re still getting the good sires here and all the good vendors are here. We go to all the sales through the year, but this one is at my own backdoor and we’ve had a bit of luck out of it over the years.”

The best of that luck was the Sacred Falls mare Icebath, bred in New Zealand but sold at the 2018 Classic Sale to a Widdup partnership. She cost that magic figure of $100,000.

On the track, Icebath won over $5.2 million, including the Group One Empire Rose Stakes, and she was later sold as a broodmare option to Yulong for $2.3 million. 

“When you get results like that, you can’t necessarily think you’re only ever going to buy at one sale,” Widdup says. “We go to as many sales as we can, and it just happened for me last year that there were plenty of horses to buy. It might be a bit tougher to do that this year.

“Easter is such a quality sale and you’ve got to have very deep pockets, but it’s got its place. Melbourne Premier has got its place, and Classic has got its place. I’ll be happy if I can come away with a couple next week, and if we can get more, we’ll get more.”