Promising two-year-old Rachini could be set to create history at this week’s Inglis Ready 2 Race Sale, as the first time a horse has been offered by Inglis in the breeze-up format after her debut.
Rachini, a daughter of Zoustar, will make her debut in Wednesday’s Listed Debutant Stakes at Caulfield, a race for which she is the early $4 favourite.
Within 24 hours, she is set to be auctioned in absentia as Lot 89 of the Ready2 Race Sale, an occurrence believed to be a first for Inglis.
She will be offered by Dean Harvey’s Baystone Farm, who are in the ownership of the filly along with Flemington Bloodstock, Shane Morrissy and a couple of others.
Harvey, who works closely with trainer Leon and Troy Corstens and Will Larkin, purchased the filly for $200,000 at this year’s Magic Millions Yearling Sale.
The pinhook approach is a familiar business model for Harvey and Troy Corstens, with Baystone to offer 10 two-year-olds at Thursday’s sale.
Rachini registered a relatively slick 10.81s at the Wangaratta breeze-ups on September 30, the 17th fastest time of the day, but it was her Flemington jumpout win three days later which has her at the top of markets to win her first race.
She won the jumpout by three lengths in what looked like a perfect tune-up for her debut.
The prospect that she lives up to that potential and wins on Wednesday would create massive interest ahead of her sale on Thursday, assuming connections wish to proceed with the sale.
A filly on offer through a breeze-up sale with a black-type win already on her resume would be likely to challenge the record $1 million result from last year’s sale.
Who sold that horse? Baystone, of course. Signature Scent, as she is now known, was purchased by Yulong, who had actually bred the filly and sold her to Baystone for $200,000 at the 2024 Inglis Easter Yearling Sale.
A filly of significant promise, she has now won two of her four races for Ciaron Maher.
Two years ago, Baystone had a horse called Aardvark entered for the Magic Millions Horses In Training Sale.
So impressive was the Capitalist colt in winning two Flemington trials that bloodstock agent James Harron bought into him before he could be offered through the Gold Coast breeze-up sale.
Like Rachini, he debuted in the Debutant, running third before winning a Listed Talindert Stakes in the autumn of his two-year-old season.
The risk for Baystone is that Rachini fails to live up to expectation at Caulfield, but as Corstens told the Straight Talk podcast last month, the “sell-first” mantra is an important part of the plan.
“We are of the model, Dean and I, that we want to sell everything. I don't want to be seen as keeping the good ones. So, we put them out there and we sell them,” the trainer said.
“And hopefully in the future, I can buy the majority of the ones that I want to back. But at the moment, I can't afford it.”
The pinhook model is an extra string to Corstens’ bow in a competitive training landscape, but should she win on Wednesday and he has to hand her off to someone else on Thursday, it would still sting.
“I've got a solid training base of horses coming through that obviously I still want to get really good results because I can tell you, I sold a filly for a million dollars last year, but it wasn't as good as the feeling as Baraqiel winning a Group 1,” he said.
