Prized mares declared off limits as auction houses begin chase for top-class breeding prospects

As Inglis and Magic Millions jostle for the right to sell the best mares to go to auction in 2025, two of Australasia’s premier Group 1 winners won’t be among them when catalogues are released for the breeding stock sales in May.

The respective owners of New Zealand Derby and Vinery Stud Stakes winner Orchestral and Saturday’s Coolmore Classic second favourite Amelia’s Jewel intend to retain their valuable mares for breeding purposes rather than cash them in for probable multimillion-dollar amounts.

West Australian owner-breeder Peter Walsh has previously vowed that he will keep five-year-old Amelia’s Jewel, who won the Group 1 Northerly Stakes in Perth as a three-year-old, and Orchestral’s New Zealand owners Colin and Helen Litt also plan on keeping their daughter of Savabeel.

Either mare would be a star attraction, commanding huge international interest, if they were to be offered at either the Inglis Chairman’s Sale in Sydney on May 8 or the Magic Millions National Broodmare Sale from May 27 to 29.

At the same time as confirming he had no plans to sell Orchestral, whose sister became the most expensive filly ever sold at the New Zealand Bloodstock Karaka Yearling Sale at NZ$2.4 million earlier this year, Colin Litt revealed that the mare had been “plagued by being in-season a bit here and there”.

Litt’s disclosure could explain Orchestral’s below-par performance in Saturday’s Group 1 Bonecrusher New Zealand Stakes at Ellerslie when seemingly disinterested early before making up some ground to finish sixth behind the in-form Hong Kong-bound El Vencedor.

Her run hasn’t dissuaded Litt and his wife Helen from holding onto Orchestral despite the lucrative return she could provide them in the sales ring.

“We’ll see how it all goes but at this point we’re keeping her (to breed with),” Litt said.

“She’ll go to one of the best (stallions), I suppose. Breed the best to the best and hope for the best is what they say.”

A $625,000 yearling purchase by her trainers Roger James and Robert Wellwood at Karaka in 2022, the Cambridge-based stable intends to target the Group 1 Tancred Stakes over 2400m at Rosehill on March 29. 

She spent Wednesday morning jumping a few logs on a cross-country course in a bid to revitalise her ahead of the trip to Sydney and her first start beyond 2000m as a four-year-old.

“She won a Derby very easily as a three-year-old and then it was probably fair to say she might just have had (enough for the preparation) when beaten a length in the (Australian) Oaks,” James told The Straight.

“So, with another year on her, I think a mile-and-a-half is very suitable for her. But you’ve got to go in cautiously when she’s run a race like that (last Saturday). It could be that next time she’s a far more positive horse, and that’s probably what we’re gambling on.”

In the absence of Amelia’s Jewel and Orchestral as pin-up broodmare sale prospects, questions also remain about the immediate future of reigning Everest champion Bella Nipotina, whose breeder and co-owner Michael Christian is desperate to add her to his Longwood Thoroughbred Farm broodmare band.

However, the Ciaron Maher-trained four-time Group 1 winner’s co-owners Tim Porter and Mark Johnston equally have stated that they don’t want to remain in the ownership when she retires as a broodmare, a scenario which could see the seven-year-old being sold at public auction this year.

Another Group 1-winning seven-year-old mare, New Zealander Belclare, could also head to a sales ring in May, having been passed in by owner David Woodhouse at the Gold Coast last May, a decision which netted wins in an Invitation and a Group 2 Hot Danish during the spring for trainer Bjorn Baker.

After three starts this year for original trainer Lisa Latta, including last Saturday in the New Zealand Thoroughbred Breeders Stakes, Belclare is expected to return to Baker’s Warwick Farm stable for a probable final racing campaign.

Syndicator Go Racing’s decision to withdraw Atishu from last year’s Magic Millions sale also paid dividends when the veteran mare won the Group 1 Empire Rose Stakes at Flemington and finished runner-up to star Chris Waller-trained stablemate Via Sistina in the Champions Stakes.

Zougotcha, who won back-to-back Group 1s in the Coolmore Classic and Queen Of The Turf Stakes 12 months ago, would be one of the year’s pinnacle mares if she was sent to auction but the Zoustar mare is owned by a syndicate which includes high-profile breeders Widden Stud, Robert Anderson, Frank and Christine Cook and Noel Greenhalgh.

For that reason, the syndicate may wish to continue on the path to breeding with her if she retires to stud later this year.

Inglis has already confirmed Group 1 winner Royal Merchant, Group 2 winner Estriella, the Group 1-placed Semana, Mumbai Muse and Dancing Alone among its Chairman’s catalogue for 2025, but rival Magic Millions is keeping its cards closer to its chest for now.

Last year’s Group 1 Robert Sangster winner Climbing Star, who like Zougotcha and Mumbai Muse is by Zoustar, could also enter a sales ring this year after being withdrawn from the Gold Coast in 2024 while Dynamic Syndications’ I Am Me, third in last Saturday’s Challenge Stakes, may also be entered in a breeding stock sale as a rising seven-year-old.

I Am Me’s Maher-trained Group 2-winning stablemate Tiz Invincible, a $550,000 Inglis Easter yearling who has not raced since the spring, could also find her way into a breeding stock sale depending on how her autumn campaign goes. 

Connections of Lady Laguna, Stretan Angel and Bellatrix Star, who could all potentially race on next season, will all be pitched strongly to by the rival sales companies to put them up for auction in as little as two months.