A Too Darn Hot colt has delivered on hype and expectation after selling for an auction-topping $775,000 at the Inglis Australian Weanling Sale.
Eclipsing the record sale price of $650,000 paid on Monday for a Stay Inside filly, the colt was the star foal on the second day of selling with Equine Growth Fund the winning bidder.
Stefan Pardi, who secured a filly by The Autumn Sun for $280,000 during the first session, signed for the colt, a brother to Group 2 winner Too Darn Lizzie, on behalf of the fund.
“It's a model of sophisticated investors that I have on board - 10 to 20 of them,” Pardi said.
“I have an appetite to pinhook. I've been successful over the last couple of years doing it. We all put our money together, and we just try to find the right ones.
“We're buying them mostly at the top end, so that's really what I do. Just a cool bunch of people with a cool bunch of money, and we go from there.”
Pardi is back in the game after having a Racing NSW ban lifted over his involvement in several thoroughbred-related companies
He was warned off NSW racecourses in 2009 before that was overturned.
“It was a very, very dark time in my life, and I’ve certainly cleaned that act up a long time ago, or I wouldn’t be here,” Pardi told members of the bloodstock media.
A bay colt praised for his temperament as one of the most inspected weanlings on the ground at Riverside, the sale is likely to trigger a monumental week for his blue-blooded family.
His dam, the Magnus mare Enbihaar, and Too Darn Lizzie will be among the eagerly anticipated Lots to go through the Inglis Chairman’s Sale on Thursday night.
They will also be consigned by Widden Stud.
“Well, that was another key element to buying here. I think (Too Darn Lizzie) … she's going to make good money,” Pardi said.
“The family's outstanding, anyway.”
Pardi signed for $1.235 million worth of bloodstock from three lots purchased across the two days.
Enbihaar will be offered in foal to Widden’s champion sire Zoustar.
Too Darn Lizzie comes off the racetrack after winning the Group 2 Thousand Guineas Prelude before finishing in the minor placing in the Group I Thousand Guineas for high-profile owner Andrew Lloyd Webber.
Webber raced Too Darn Hot and he paid $1 million for Too Darn Lizzie via agent Johnny McKeever at the 2023 Magic Millions sale to help kick-start the stallion’s career in Australia.
Widden’s Matt Comerford said the timing could be better to make the most of Too Darn Hot’s growing popularity ahead of a return to Darley’s Kelvinside for the 2025 breeding season.
“The stallion's red-hot, the owner's looking to capitalise on the market,” Comerford said.
“(The owner’s) obviously got the mare in the Chairman’s on Thursday as well and then Lizzie's in as well so I think it's opportunistic.
“There's so much focus on that family … it certainly looks (to be) a very good pinhook play for Stefan and the team.”
Meanwhile, buyers were given their first opportunity to assess the progeny of Godolphin’s nine-time Group 1 winner Anamoe with a filly bringing $340,000.
“There's so much focus on that family … it certainly looks (to be) a very good pinhook play for Stefan and the team," - Matt Comerford
One of only two Anamoes in the sale, the filly was consigned by Alma Vale Thoroughbreds and sold to Lime Country Thoroughbreds.
Alma Vale’s Oscar Engelbrecht said the filly’s sale exceeded his expectations after deciding a weanling venture would lessen the chances of things going wrong.
The filly is the fourth foal from the Sebring mare Eawase, a daughter of the outstanding sprinting mare Karuta Queen.
“I can see how she was easily found … there's an appetite to buy nice horses wherever you go. It doesn't matter what sale you're in,” Engelbrecht said.
“We just thought she would come here and we'd make our money and we have.
“It takes a bit of risk out of the equation rather than keeping hold of them for Easter and things like that.
“I mean, if someone goes and makes money on her, that's awesome.
“The whole industry needs to keep ticking over, so we're happy to bring nice horses here and hopefully everyone has a win.”
Engelbrecht said the industry vibe around Anamoe’s progeny only added to his decision to sell the filly at Riverside.
“I've talked to a lot of other managers and staff of farms and there's a really, really good feel on Anamoe,” he said.
“I mean, that's why we wanted to come here because there’s only two (Anamoes) in the sale.”
Alma Vale matched that sale price later in the day when Lot 453, a Too Darn Hot colt, sold for $340,000 to Silverdale Farm.
The result ensured Alma Vale ended the sale as the leading vendor, selling 15 Lots for an average of $96,333 on a gross return of $1.444 million.
Overall, Too Darn Hot’s progeny grossed $1.825 million from seven lots for a sale average of $260,714.
The sale realised a record gross of over $19 million, up from $16.3 million last year, for an average of almost $54,223 ($53,533) and a median of $30,000 (same las last year)as part of a stunning growth phase since 2017 when it generated $2.2 million.
“Each and every year we come away from the sale feeling like in past years that there was an opportunity to sell more nice foals here,” Inglis Bloodstock chief executive Sebastian Hutch said.
“It's been a source of frustration for a number of years.
“So to be here today having turned over in excess of $19 million, sold over 350 foals for a clearance rate to be where it's at (74 per cent) and for the median and the average to have held solid with the equivalent figures 12 months is pleasing.
“I feel we worked constructively to try and give vendors confidence that this is a sale they can bring good stock.
“It has built momentum year after year … we've managed to maintain some degree of upward trend with the sale each year and we were confident that this was the best weanling sale that we would run.
“It certainly is the most lucrative weanling sale that we would run in recent history.”
