McArdle sets new mark as Tassie sale rebounds strongly

John McArdle paid a record price for the Tasmanian Yearling Sale, going to $170,000 for a Pinatubo half-sister to his stakes-winning filly Yum.

McArdle has had a wealth of success buying out of the Tasmanian Yearling Sale and this family has produced his Group 2-placed mare I’ll Have A Bit was well as Ghaiyyath filly Yum, who won the Listed Jim Moloney Stakes earlier this season.

The Mornington-based trainer had to go past the previous record price for the sale, which stood at $150,000, but was determined to win the day.

“We still had a little bit left. I actually bought the first-ever horse that made $100,000 down here. So I was happy to break that record and we did today,” he said.

“She’s very similar to her sister, probably looks a little sharper than what she was as a yearling. Yum’s a beautiful mover and this filly was very much in the same mould as her.”

It was a high-water mark of a sale that marked a revival in fortunes. After the gross crashed below $2 million for the first time in a decade last year, it was a much more positive result, with the aggregate reaching $2.82 million.

The average stood at $36,090, surpassed only by the 2022 edition and up nearly $13,000 on last year. The median of $21,000 was up $2000 from last year.

The only soft metric was the clearance rate, which was down to 69 per cent, but which will likely improve over the coming days. 

MyRacehorse marked its entry into the Tasmanian market, combining with trainer Stuart Gandy and bloodstock agent Damon Gabbedy to secure a Capitalist filly for $120,000.

MyRacehorse already has more than 2000 microshare owners in Tasmania and was encouraged by Magic Millions and Tasracing to step into the local bloodstock market and pick out a horse through the sales.

While Gabbedy had compiled a short list, it was always Lot 50, a filly from the Armidale Stud draft, which was top of the list and the bidding raced quickly to $120,000.

“She just looked rock solid,” MyRacehorse’s head of growth, Robert Dauth said of the filly out of stakes-placed Tough Speed mare Speedonova.

“I think she’ll be potentially quite an early runner.”

“Capitalist is a proper stallion, and you know, this sale has quite a few really big-name stallions. Obviously, you’ve got Needs Further and Stratosphere and the Tassie contingent, but seeing a Capitalist down here is obviously very tempting.

“We’ve done our due diligence and we think she’s a really smooth, compact sort of horse, and she’ll get to the races early.”

Stuart and Ruth Gandy, based in Brighton just north of Hobart, will be the beneficiaries of the filly, with MyRacehorse having worked hard to identify the best stable to partner with in its first foray into buying a horse for the Tasmanian market.

“Our bloodstock agent Damon has very strong roots here in Tassie, and we were looking at what sort of trainers fit the bill for what we’re after,” Dauth said.

“We want trainers that are obviously capable of finding and training good horses, but we’re all about getting new people into racing, so we want a stable that’s going to help us open up and give owners that great experience. 

“We’ve been dealing with them a bit in the lead-up to this, and we couldn’t be happier.”

Prime Thoroughbreds stepped in for the third-highest-priced yearling, with Lot 61, a Paulele filly, selling for $115,000.

Joe O’Neill has been buying and racing in Tasmania for over 30 years and purchased two horses on the day, with the Paulele filly out of Lonhro mare Ventura, a sister to Denman from the family of Golden Slipper winner Kiamichi.

Melbourne Cup-winning trainer Tony McEvoy was on hand to buy the top-priced colt of the sale, a first-crop son of State Of Rest for $115,000.

Attention for the sales season now turns to the Inglis Melbourne Premier Sale, which starts next Sunday.

Statistics:

Lots: 125 (126)

Sold: 78 (84)

Passed In: 31 (28)

Clearance rate: 71.6% (75%)

Gross: $2,815,000 ($1,974,500)

Average: $36,090 ($23,506)

Median: $21,000 ($19,000)