Re-sale or retention – Foal market made for many purposes

The weanling market may be more speculative than buying yearlings or mares, but it is arguably the most commercially driven aspect of the bloodstock market.

There are myriad reasons why buyers would take the more speculative route and purchase a weanling rather than bide their time and wait until the more traditional yearling sales.

For Mick Malone, principal of the new outfit North, it was about bolstering his yearling draft for 2025.

Jo Griffin, from Lime Country, hadn’t purchased a foal at a sale before this year in four years, but strong competition in the mares’ market forced her and husband Greg, into a change of tack midway through the sales season.

Bruce Slade, Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott’s bloodstock man for the past three-and-half years, was there looking for a racehorse, hoping that getting in a year early on a well-bred filly would prove canny business.

The sales ring at a weanling sale on the Gold Coast is much less hectic than its yearling equivalent. But those who are there are generally there to do business. Tyre kickers and well-wishers find it harder to get as motivated late in May as they do early in January.

Malone launched his North brand this year, having suddenly split from his previous operation at Kitchwin Hills. Well-respected as a breeder and vendor, he pulled together drafts for yearling sales at Magic Millions Gold Coast, Inglis Classic, and Easter this year.

He sold nearly $8 million worth of yearlings with the 45 purchased averaging nearly $235,000. It was a good start, but one he is keen to build on.

For Malone, the weanling market in 2024 was about preparing for the yearling sales in 2025. He purchased five foals on the Gold Coast, with all but one likely to return to the ring next year.

On Monday, the second day of the sale, Malone was up and about early to pay $350,000 for a colt by Zoustar, Lot 192 and later added a filly by Wootton Bassett (Lot 264). On Sunday, he had bought colts by Home Affairs (Lot 111) and Jonker (Lot 19), while a $450,000 Frankel filly (Lot 144) is likely to be retained by her owner.

Malone already envisions the Zoustar colt being one of the main attractions in an Easter draft next year.

“I think Zoustar just keeps stepping up, doesn’t he? It’s always been sort of Snitzel and Vinnie’s time. And Zoustar, every year just keeps popping up with a new horse,” he said.

Zoustar’s yearlings averaged $478,420 in 2024, $200,000 more than what they did in 2023. Set to become just the second sire to produce 200 Australian winners in the season and with a career-high $275,000 service fee, expectations are that the Widden resident will only become more commercial in the coming years.

Zoustar had six million-dollar yearling colts in Australia in 2024 and Malone is hoping that Lot 192, out of stakes-placed Exceed And Excel mare Miss Canada, can join the seven-figure club in 2025.

“If he’s in the minds of the colts syndicates, you’re spot-on, he could go that way,” he said.

“And if you’re not, I think for the money we paid for him, as good a type he was, we’ll be alright anyway.

“I look at him and I think it’s all going well and all the other little problems you have to get through, like paddock injuries and scope and X-rays.”

As Malone suggests, while the foal market may offer a discount on those top-end prospects, it does come with that extra risk. It also comes with the fact that the colt is only nine months old, and a lot further away from being a finished article than if he was a yearling.

“As a weanling, he wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea. He is a Zoustar but he’s just up a bit behind and sort of down in front. He sort of looks like a race car at this point,” he said.

“He is a Zoustar but he’s just up a bit behind and sort of down in front. He sort of looks like a race car at this point,” – Mick Malone

“But I see the horse coming up in the wither and furnishing really, really well by Easter. I don’t think he’d be a January colt,” he said.

Backing up that opinion on where the horse’s development is headed is years of experience.

“I do see a lot of yearlings as well, not just breed and stand at my box selling my yearlings. I do get around looking a lot. And so often I’ll see a weanling that I would have thought to myself at the time, jeez, will that make it? And then it does. So everyone gets their turn,” he said.

Jo Griffin had to wait her turn. She wanted to top-up with a few purchases at the Inglis broodmare sales in Sydney but was unable to get the ones she wanted. On the vendor’s side, Lime Country sold only three of the 10 they offered.

The Griffins haven’t been active at the foal sales since 2020, but felt it was time to get back in and top up with a couple of quality fillies.

Lime Country went to $120,000 for a Nicconi filly (Lot 211) on day two and then stretched to $360,000 for a filly by first-season sire Home Affairs (Lot 217).

“We couldn’t find the type of mares that we wanted at Inglis, so we decided we’d have a bit of a nudge on some foals,” she said.

The Griffins approached a couple of long-term clients to support the change of strategy and got the tick of approval before the Gold Coast sale.

“You just have to work to market conditions,” she said.

Jo has a clear idea of what she wants to see from a foal.

“A good weanling will parade more than a yearling at a yearling sale, they get smashed. So if you see them putting up with that and keeping their action all the way through. It’s a lot to ask of them and she just keeps putting in.”   

“She’ll (Lot 217) come back next year, not exactly sure what sale she will go to, but she will be a lovely addition.”

While Lime Country had to see off the attentions of Coolmore to buy the Home Affairs filly, that will give them confidence on who may be in the mix for her when she is offered in 2025.   

Slade, working under the banner of Kestrel Thoroughbreds, knows all aspects of the bloodstock market through his various roles, including with Newgate.

He wouldn’t usually be shopping for foals for prolific yearling buyers Waterhouse and Bott but went to $400,000 for a filly by first-season sire Stay Inside out of Pasar Silbano, Lot 224.

But this filly, much like the sale-topping $800,000 I Am Invincible filly purchased by Hill ‘N’ Dale Farm, was offered as part of Element Hill’s dispersal. It was that opportunity that drew Slade to the half-sister to now Widden stallion Zousain, with a view to retaining her to race.

“It won’t be a thing we do often, but when you have a dispersal sale of the quality of the Element Hill dispersal,” Slade said.

“The Hutchins family have developed this family over a long time and we just want to make sure that when those fillies come on the market here, they may not come on the market again if we don’t get them here, so we were keen to secure her.”

Slade, who was involved with Newgate purchasing the sire, Stay Inside, as a weanling, said recent experience had taught him that when it came to the best foals, it was worth getting in early.

“Last year there was a Snitzel filly out of Serena Bay that we liked very much, but we got outbid on her at $480,000 and I think she ended up making $1.25 million at the yearling sales and we underbid her there. We just didn’t want that to happen again,” Slade said.

“She (Lot 224) was just a filly that we thought would suit the system to so well, come early but also has a lot of residual value to bank on the back of as well. We’re delighted to get her.“

Frankel foals up front again on the Gold Coast

The international appeal of Frankel was again to the fore at the Magic Millions National Weanling Sale on the Gold Coast, with the Juddmonte stallion providing the top two priced foals on what was a solid day of trade.

The StraightBren O’Brien