Group 1-winning mare Autumn Angel, whose racing career was cruelly cut short by injury on the eve of her spring return, will be offered at a bespoke Inglis Digital online auction next week.
Connections of the Peter Moody and Katherine Coleman-trained mare moved quickly following her shock tendon injury, suffered at trackwork on Tuesday, by deciding to sell her as a breeding prospect rather than attempt to rehabilitate her back to racing.
By Arrowfield’s five-time Group 1 winner The Autumn Sun, who is coincidentally sidelined from stud duties this season due to a pelvic injury, Autumn Angel won a Group 3 Ethereal Stakes last spring before winning a Group 2 Kewney and Australian Oaks during the autumn.
She was also three times Group-placed in her 11-start career.
“I’ve had some good ones and trust me, this girl was right up there in the top bracket,” Moody said of Autumn Angel who had been nominated for stakes races in Melbourne this weekend.
“She was a special racehorse who had so much ahead of her on the track but instead, it’s now time for her to become a mum and she’ll be one heck of a broodmare, mark my words.”
The bespoke auction will open at 9am on Monday and the final countdown will begin at 4pm on Tuesday.
Autumn Angel is certain to command interest from Australasia’s most prominent investors, while she could also be a target for European breeders.
A daughter of Group 3 winner Angel Of Mercy, who won six races from 1300m to 1600m, Autumn Angel’s profile and pedigree, as well as the timing of her retirement from racing, also makes her an appealing prospect for commercial Japanese breeders as well as Australia.
“She was a special racehorse who had so much ahead of her on the track but instead, it’s now time for her to become a mum and she’ll be one heck of a broodmare, mark my words." - Peter Moody
Previously, Katsumi Yoshida’s Northern Farm has purchased Queensland Oaks winner Youngstar ($1.4 million) and her Flight Stakes-winning sister Funstar ($2.7 million).
Elite two-and three-year-old filly Yankee Rose, runner-up in the 2016 Golden Slipper and winner of the Sires’ Produce Stakes who went on to win the Group 1 Spring Champion the following season, has also proven to be a high-class broodmare in Japan.
Last year’s Australian Oaks winner Pennyweka sold for $1.6 million earlier this year, while 2018 winner secured $2.75 million at the end of her racing career.
Inglis Bloodstock chief executive Sebastian Hutch has no doubt that Autumn Angel will meet stringent criteria of many of the world’s best breeders.
“I watched her debut run as a two-year-old on my phone – she was desperately unlucky not to beat Legacies over 1200m at Cranbourne,” Hutch said.
“At that stage, it was obvious that she was supremely talented and she has done nothing but impress throughout her career.
“Anyone who saw her in the mounting yard before the Oaks in Sydney in April will have fallen in love with her on the spot – she is beautiful – and it’s heartbreaking for the owners that she won’t be racing on because her race record is one that doesn’t quite do justice to her ability, as accomplished as she was.
“We see it time and time again, these race fillies with genuine class are inclined to impart it to their offspring and she’s got a pedigree that features the likes of Redoute’s Choice, Galileo, Hussonet, so all the ingredients are there.”
Moody and syndicator Wylie Dalziel paid $230,000 for the Arrowfield and Jungle Pocket-bred filly at the 2022 Inglis Easter Yearling Sale.
“We see it time and time again, these race fillies with genuine class are inclined to impart it to their offspring and she’s got a pedigree that features the likes of Redoute’s Choice, Galileo, Hussonet, so all the ingredients are there,"- Sebastian Hutch
Dalziel was devastated by the premature retirement of Autumn Angel, believing the best was ahead of the four-year-old mare.
“When we bought her at Easter she had so much scope for improvement and that’s all she’s done since is improve, improve, improve, to the point where she came back recently after spelling in Queensland over winter and Moods and Katherine (Coleman) and the team couldn’t believe she was the same horse, she’d just grown and developed and filled out into herself even more,”Dalziel said.
“When they see her, people will understand what I mean when I say she’s a machine, she’s such a gorgeous mare with all the right physical attributes that breeders want and need.
“She won from 1300m to 2400m but Moods was training her as a miler for this campaign. She held noms for the Cox Plate and Caulfield Cup but we were targeting the Golden Eagle over 1500m and the Empire Rose over a mile, that’s how good she’d come back.
“Moods was heartbroken when he called me and told me she’d done the injury, he genuinely thought she was going to be the superstar of the spring carnival and beyond but now it’s time to let a breeder manage the next phase of her career.’’
Bren O’Brien
