Price tags, pipedreams and patience – Million-dollar yearlings miss Magic Millions moment

Of the 40 yearlings sold for seven figures in Australia during 2025, 13 were graduates of the Magic Millions sale on the Gold Coast.

Confirming once again that there are no guarantees when it comes to buying bloodstock, finding one of these high achievers from the sale ring in the field for the Magic Millions 2YO Classic will be an impossible task.

The highest-priced Magic Millions yearling from a year ago to contest the $3 million race on Saturday will be the Tulloch Lodge juvenile Knightsbridge.

Knightsbridge cost $750,000 when sold to prominent bloodstock agent James Harron and he forced his way in the 2YO Classic field with a last-start Sydney win for Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott.

More than four months since the first juvenile races of the Australian season were decided, and it has mostly been an underwhelming return for Magic Millions $1 million graduates.

That’s not to say a trend has been set, but there will be disappointment for those expecting a well-above-average purchase price to translate into racetrack precocity.

There is an exception, a colt by Golden Slipper winner Stay Inside who races as Incognito.

Incognito cost $1 million to be Stay Inside’s most expensive yearling from a highly anticipated first-crop.

Like Knightsbridge, Incognito was purchased by Harron for his well-patronised colts syndication model and the colt races out of the stable of Michael Freedman, who along with his brother Richard, trained Stay Inside to win the 2021 Golden Slipper.

It didn’t take long for Incognito to show that he had inherited his father’s speed, claiming the Group 3 Breeders’ Plate over 1000m on debut.

But instead of chasing Magic Millions riches, Incognito was put away with the intention of trying to emulate Stay Inside as a Slipper winner when this year’s edition is run at Rosehill on March 21.

Unsurprisingly, the colt shares the top portion of Golden Slipper as an $11 chance, having made his first public appearance since the Breeders’ Plate in October with a Rosehill barrier trial win in early January.

Incognito is the second foal from the I Am Invincible mare Bleu Zebra.

A half-sister offered by Bell River Thoroughbreds, was among the Lots at Tuesday’s opening session of the Magic Millions sale, with the daughter of Darley stallion Pinutabo selling for $600,000 to Ciaron Maher Bloodstock.

Incognito is an early standout pick from the babies who commanded million-dollar attention this time last year.

Most of the select group remain unraced, and of those who have, the $2.8 million purchase The Next Episode and Nations League ($1.7 million), failed to flatter at their first starts.

Three are yet to be given a name, while information on the most expensive Magic Millions yearling of all-time, a $3.2 million filly by first-season sire Home Affairs out of the outstanding mare Sunlight, is scarce.

She was sold to Japanese trainer Mitsumasa Nakauchida and sent to Japan a month after her record-breaking sale at the Gold Coast.

Named Lia La La, related to the Hawaiian name for sun, there is the potential for a debut appearance during the northern hemisphere spring.

For auction house bragging rights in the 2025 millionaire’s club, Inglis claimed the top honour.

The Sydney-headquartered bloodstock firm sold 25 seven-figure Lots through its signature Australian Easter Yearling Sale and another two out of its Melbourne Premier Sale.

At $3 million, a Home Affairs colt out of the 2020 Vinery Stud Stakes and Empire Rose Stakes winner Shout The Bar, is the highest-priced Easter graduate from 2025.

Shout The Bar joined the Coolmore broodmare band after selling for $2.7 million following her retirement from racing.

Her trainers Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott have been entrusted to guide her yet-to-be-named two-year-old.

While the sales-topper hasn’t been seen in public, the $2.7 million Easter brother to Coolmore’s young stallion Switzerland is close to stepping out for the first time.

St Gotthard, by champion sire Snitzel from Ms Bad Behaviour, has been to the barrier trials three times, the latest on Tuesday at Rosehill after being switched from Chris Waller’s Melbourne operation to his primary stable in Sydney.

Switzerland competed in a corresponding set of barrier trials two years ago before making a winning debut towards the end of January and it will be no surprise if St Gotthard is on a similar path.

Waller is the go-to trainer for racing’s millionaire babies and his method of preparing young horses to be at their best later in the season likely explains why so few Easter graduates have been seen at the races.

He trains 12 of the 25 Lots that sold for $1 million or more at Easter to add to at least two from Magic Millions.

The two yearlings sold for seven-figures in New Zealand in 2025 are yet to be named. 

The $2.4 million sister to Group 1 winner Orchestral is also with Waller, while Roger James and Robert Wellwood have been entrusted with the sister to Prowess, who cost $1.1 million.