Magic Millions moves in, Inglis era ends at Scone after 74 years

When Magic Millions chose the Seven Network’s prime-time racing broadcast on Saturday to announce that the auction house was the new sponsor of the Scone Race Club, it left out one key detail. 

Producers featured Magic Millions’ Katie Page-Harvey and a number of Hunter Valley breeders to promote the new race club-auction house partnership, but understandably, it didn’t mention rival thoroughbred auctioneer Inglis.

After months of negotiations, the new deal also brings Inglis’ association with the Scone Race Club to an end after 74 years. 

The ramifications of Magic Millions taking over from Inglis as a sponsor at Scone is not quite as simple as changing the colours of the signage – as may be the case when a wagering company replaces another. 

The decision means that the running of the Inglis Challenge – a $200,000 two-year-old race previously restricted to graduates of the HTBA, the now defunct Melbourne Gold sale and yearlings sold on Inglis Digital – will not be held on Scone Cup day in 2026.

It’s understood that the Murrumbidigee Turf Club at Wagga, which holds its two-day cup carnival at the start of May and usually a fortnight before Scone, is in the box-seat to be the new home of the Inglis Challenge race. It is almost certain to be staged on Cup day on May 1.

In a further change, the Inglis Challenge race will now also be open to all graduates of the company’s sales who have been paid up for the Inglis Race Series, rather than horses from just a select number of sales.

Such a move would also make the race more appealing to owners and trainers of Victorian-trained Inglis graduates, with Wagga about five hours’ drive between Melbourne and Sydney.

Wyong will remain the venue for the Magic Millions’ sales-restricted races in New South Wales which are run each December as key lead-ups to the carnival on the Gold Coast.

Inglis’ ties to the Scone Race Club loosened considerably in 2020 when the pandemic prevented the Hunter Thoroughbred Breeders Association (HTBA) yearling sale going ahead at White Park on the Sunday after the cup carnival each May.

That year’s Scone sale was held at Inglis’ purpose-built Riverside Stables complex in Sydney in July, coinciding with its Easter Round 2 yearling offering after its flagship April sale was heavily impacted by government-imposed travel restrictions.

When Hall of Fame trainer John Hawkes paid $180,000 for the top lot of the Scone sale, unaware the son of Toronado was not part of the preceding Easter sale catalogue when first inspecting the horse at Riverside, there was no turning back for Inglis. 

The competition between Magic Millions and Inglis is fierce – and which sponsors what and who doesn’t falls into that auction house battleground.

When Inglis agreed to become one of the 12 inaugural slot holders in NSW’s The Everest in 2017 – at a cost of $600,000 a year for a minimum three-year commitment – it had it written into the contract that Magic Millions would not be allowed to own a slot.

Magic Millions owner Gerry Harvey had his homebred mare Libertini run twice in The Everest, in 2020 and 2021, but that is as close as the company has come in terms of direct involvement in Sydney’s $20 million race. 

Intriguingly, Magic Millions has been a minor sponsor of racing at Wagga in recent years but Inglis’ affiliation with the Murrumbidgee Turf Club could potentially sideline the Gold Coast-based company’s association with the Riverina’s biggest club.

The three-year commitment from the auction house to the Scone Race Club comes 40 years after the first sale of yearlings eligible for the Magic Million race was held at Bundall in 1986. Snippets entered history by winning the inaugural $1 million feature in 1987.

“It’s an important region to the global thoroughbred industry, the Hunter Valley, and obviously Scone Race Club is at the forefront of racing in the area and they have such an exceptional Scone Cup carnival each and every year,” Magic Millions managing director Barry Bowditch told The Straight. 

“When we were provided with the opportunity to partner with them, it was a no-brainer and we’re looking forward to creating something really special for Scone, not just from a racing perspective, but also with what happens all through the community. 

“We want to ensure that we give Scone the best opportunity to be a fun and vibey place to go each May and, further than that, whether it’s around the stallion parades (in August) or our yearling parades in December, we want to have a lot of fun with the area.”

Scone Race Club chair Alister Fraser welcomed Magic Millions to its suite of sponsors.

“The board remains firmly focused on the long-term sustainability and growth of Scone Race Club,” Fraser said.

“With the opening of our Polytrack, the ongoing Racing NSW stables development within the adjacent equine precinct, and the continued support of our valued partners, now including Magic Millions, the future for the club, the industry and the Upper Hunter region is extremely positive.”

It’s believed the Scone Race Club board has been considering options to revitalise its May cup carnival, which in recent years has had the Listed Scone Cup on the Friday with a standalone metropolitan standard meeting on the Saturday.

The idea of staging the standalone Saturday meeting in November, after The Hunter at Newcastle and The Gong at Kembla Grange, has also been floated.