In this week’s Rowe On Monday, Tim Rowe examines how Inglis and Magic Millions almost came together on a co-branded two-year-old sale, how a change of heart of Bittercreek has proven sweet for Troy Corstens, James Cummings’ affinity for a Snitzel and Tubba Williams salutes at Harden.
Team Australia two-year-old sale plan never got off the ground
It’s been more than 10 years since Inglis managing director Mark Webster made the first of two approaches to Magic Millions owner Gerry Harvey about the auction houses co-hosting an Australian two-year-old breeze-up sale.
Webster’s conciliatory olive branch was considered but eventually rebuffed by Harvey, the retail king, with Inglis and Magic Millions instead continuing to compete for horses, buyers and market share of the two-year-old sales, which are often conducted within a week or two of each other.
There have been times since Webster’s overtures to Magic Millions that Inglis had considered abandoning its investment in the breeze-up space, but it appears the company’s resolve to stay the course may now be paying dividends.
For various reasons, the turning point could have been the onset of the pandemic as the two Australian companies went head-to-head for their respective piece of the pie alongside market leader New Zealand Bloodstock, which was hardest hit by the Covid health crisis in terms of international travel.
In the spring of 2019, just months before countries including Australia and New Zealand would be plunged into lockdown, causing chaos around the world, Magic Millions had again sold more horses - and achieved higher turnover - than Inglis at its two-year-old sale on the Gold Coast.
And that had also been the case for at least the previous five years in sales data looked at by The Straight.
That year, Magic Millions sold 191 juveniles at its breeze-up sale, which was 35 percent of the horses sold in 2019 across the three sales, while the $11.628 million spent on the Gold Coast was 27 per cent of the total amount to change hands that year.
For comparison, Inglis sold 18 percent of the horses to find new owners and facilitated 19 percent of the spend that year while NZB sold 47 per cent of the horses with $23.58 million, or 55 percent, of the total yearling aggregate spend occuring at Karaka.
In 2014, in the same year Webster first approached Harvey about working together on a “Team Australia” two-year-old sale, Inglis accounted for 19 per cent of the spend across the three sales, slightly less than Magic Millions, but it sold just 17 per cent of the horses to be traded.
Attracting international buyers, particularly Hong Kong, is a major factor in orchestrating a strong sale.
“It's difficult for Asian buyers to come down here (to Australia) twice, right? They've got to choose whether they want to travel down twice and some of them will go to New Zealand as well, so then that's three trips down,” Webster said.
“And it’s at that time of the year when they're all building up to the major carnival in December in Hong Kong and it's not really convenient to come down too many times.
“So, that's when I put a proposal forward. Gerry Harvey listened but he didn't want to work together.”
A decade on from those talks, it is unlikely a combined sale will be happening any time soon.
Notwithstanding the challenges that lie within the niche segment of the bloodstock market, Magic Millions managing director Barry Bowditch, speaking at the conclusion of his company’s sale last week, was adamant that there was space for both Australian two-year-old sales.
That was proven, he says, by the fact horses sold up to $700,000 on the Gold Coast via a Justify colt who was purchased by Yulong’s Zhang Yuesheng.
“We've been doing this for many a year now and we'll continue to improve what we're doing and ensure we give our vendors the best opportunity and also give our buyers the confidence that they can come here and buy horses in a transparent way,” Bowditch said.
Tim Rowe
From 2020 to 2023, Inglis’ four sales have achieved greater turnover than Magic Millions. This year, both companies increased total spend year-on-year respectively to $15.6 million in Sydney and $7.86 million on the Gold Coast.
Aggregate isn’t everything, but given sales companies are paid on commission, gross turnover is a major factor in determining the success - and profitability - of a sale.
That said, it’s not as simple as compiling a catalogue with as many horses as possible. The sales companies also put their neck on the line by providing a line of credit to the vendors and their clients, allowing them to buy yearlings to reoffer at the breeze-up sales.
Anecdotally, Magic Millions and its owner Gerry Harvey took a more risk-averse approach to providing credit to buyers who intended on pinhooking horses through the two-year-old sales than what Inglis has over the past four years.
“That's a very selective thing because we're taking risk in putting (the sale) on and funding these people. They're taking a risk as well and, so, we share the risk with the consignors in our sale,” Webster said.
“We don't tell them what horse to buy. We just build a rapport with them and that we trust that they will buy the right type of horse because they've demonstrated that they know what they're doing and they understand the market.”
Tim Rowe
Who consigns horses is another important factor with reputation a major selling point and sales companies have at times made tough calls on vendors by preventing them from offering horses at their sales.
“The quality of the consignor is really important and, to that end, there have been some consignors over the years that haven't met our standards and so we've told them that they're not welcome to come back,” Webster revealed.
“We've been selective around the consignors and then we work with those that are professional because if you've got consignors that don't do the right thing, then they diminish your sales.”
NZB has a catalogue of 404 two-year-olds who will go under the hammer at Karaka on November 20 and 21. It’s the largest catalogue compiled by NZB since 2019 when it had 414 in the book, but well down on the 2016 figure of 552.
The expectations of buyers of two-year-olds have also changed over the past 20 years, with less importance placed on the breeze-up time and more scrutiny of how a horse gallops.
Without Singapore and Macau and emerging markets such as Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Korea, numbers aren't necessarily a focus for the Australian sales companies.
“You want to focus on really where the market is and that is for those people who have permits for (a high-end) horse for Hong Kong,” Webster said.
“If they've got a permit, they want a quality horse, and it's not easy to get a permit.
“In the old days, people would put a two-year-old up for sale and through the system because it just wasn't sellable as a yearling or the sire wasn't fashionable or it had some issue of some kind, but that's not the case now.”
Hawkesbury-based trainer and consignor Blake Ryan, who over the past eight years has emerged as one of Australia’s most respected preparers of two-year-olds, agrees that the market has changed.
“But, you know, it was always going to be tougher with economic circumstances, interest rates here locally are tough and Singapore and Macau going just takes that mid-range out of it,” Ryan said after the Sydney breeze-up sale on October 15.
“It means us as vendors - and it was trending that way last year - had to go and buy a better quality horse to start with.
“It's the old adage, you've got to spend money to make money.”
Corstens and Harvey to have last laugh with Bittercreek
If plan A, B or even C had come off, Saturday’s Group 3 Red Anchor-winning Snitzel colt Bittercreek would have been trained by someone else other than Troy Corstens, most likely Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott, or owned by other parties such as Yulong.
Baystone Farm’s Dean Harvey and Corstens paid a not insignificant $375,000 for Bittercreek as a yearling at last year’s Magic Millions sale and he was to be resold at the Gold Coast in the 2YOs In Training Sale that October.
Harvey hustled, pitching to numerous agents and trainers, including Waterhouse and Bott’s representative Bruce Slade, in an attempt to garner interest in the half-brother to Group 3 winners Siege Of Quebec and Bull Point.
Despite spruiking the colt’s talent, it was to no avail.
“We paid quite a bit of money for him, so we really had to stand our ground at the sale,” Corstens said, reflecting on the fortuitous non-sale of Bittercreek, the winner of the Group 2 BRC Champagne Stakes and Group 1 JJ Atkins runner-up to Broadsiding at two who added to his record with an important stakes victory at Moonee Valley at the weekend.
“If we had got what we wanted for him, he would have been sold. But unfortunately, we didn't get quite what we wanted.
“I'm the lucky one out of that, that's for sure.”
Bittercreek too strong late in the Red Anchor! @MaluaRacing @bennallen44 pic.twitter.com/GwZrkZwGFi
— 7HorseRacing 🐎 (@7horseracing) October 26, 2024
After Bittercreek’s Champagne Classic victory in Brisbane in May, another deal was almost done.
With Corstens and Harvey and industry heavyweights all on the Gold Coast for the Magic Millions National Sale, Yulong’s Zhang Yuesheng and his team inspected the colt.
Rumours of a pending sale ran wild around the complex, but in his next two starts Bittercreek raced in the colours of prominent owner Rupert Legh who had helped take some financial exposure off the table for Corstens and Harvey before he had raced.
“They were circling, but it just didn't go ahead, the sale,” Corstens confirmed of a potential deal to Yulong.
“Again, it’s lucky for us that it didn't go ahead. We're trying to turn him into a stallion, obviously, and he's racking up the credentials at the moment. We’re working very, very hard to get that Group 1 against his name.”
That could come as soon as Saturday in the Coolmore Stud Stakes, a defining Group 1 for three-year-olds down the Flemington straight.
Zhang may not have bought Bittercreek, but he did buy a Baystone-Corstens partnership filly by Written Tycoon for $1 million at the Inglis Ready2Race Sale a fortnight ago.
As her price suggests, the $200,000 Inglis Easter yearling graduate - who was bred and sold by Zhang - has big raps placed on her and Costens himself stands by them, declaring the two-year-old gives him Starspangledbanner vibes.
Starspangledbanner, who was trained by Corstens and his father Leon prior to joining Aidan O’Brien’s Ballydoyle operation, won a Caulfield Guineas, an Oakleigh Plate, a Golden Jubilee and a July Cup all at Group 1 level during his illustrious racing career.
“She was a very, very classy filly and those sorts of horses don't come along that often give you that sort of feel,” Corstens said.
“And she was giving me Starspangledbanner feels right from the start. He was always just a really, really good horse and she was giving me that sort of feel and I haven't had that for a long time.”
Zhang has entrusted Ciaron Maher to train the filly who is a daughter of New Zealand dual Group 1 winner Soriano.
The two-year-old’s stakes-placed half-brother Alsonso, who was trained by Corstens, was exported to Hong Kong in March. He is in training with Mark Newnham and in the ownership of Zhang.
Cummings’ affinity with Snitzel
James Cummings dominated the Kirkham Plate at Randwick on Saturday, training the trifecta of Godolphin homebreds in an ominous warning for the stable’s two-year-old season ahead.
It was Comedy, the $2.50 favourite, who had the better of his stablemates Gaeilge and Lapis Lazuli in the 1000m Randwick opener, a precursor to the $1m Golden Gift (1100m) at Rosehill on November 9.
The victory by Comedy, a half-brother to Godolphin stakes winners Bacchanalia and Aquitaine, also continued Cummings’ affinity with the progeny of champion Arrowfield sire Snitzel, taking his tally to 13 individual winners from just 16 runners.
The best of those, of course, was 2019 Magic Millions 2YO Classic winner Exhilarates, a mare who was exported to the UK last year to be covered by Darley’s champion sire Dubawi. Exhilarates’ first foal, two-year-old Street Boss colt Dubai Adventure, is in training with Cummings at Agnes Banks.
Comedy’s dam Thalia, meanwhile, is becoming a blue hen with the Kirkham Plate winner aiming to become her third stakes winner from just four foals to race. Thalia had a Bivouac colt born on August 24.
You're laughing if you're @godolphin! They turn up to Randwick with three runners and fill the trifecta in Race 1, headed by Snitzel colt Comedy 🤣 pic.twitter.com/MTmh4vLqA6
— SKY Racing (@SkyRacingAU) October 26, 2024
Williams stands tall after long-awaited breakthrough
It wasn’t just James McDonald who stood high in the irons after a momentous performance in the saddle on Saturday.
Tony “Tubba” Williams, the popular industry allrounder who last year dropped more than 30 kilograms to return to the saddle after more than 40 years away from race riding, broke his long-awaited duck in sensational style at Harden, 11 months since his Bong Bong reappearance.
Tony 'Tubba' Williams is back in the winner's circle. (Photo: Facebook)
While McDonald basked in the glory of Via Sistina’s track record-breaking Cox Plate win, much to photographers’ glee, Tubba was riding on the picnic circuit in country New South Wales and his drought-breaking effort also prompted him to provide an iconic post-race salute.
Not only did Tubba guide Side Cash to victory for trainer Bill Hayes in a maiden plate worth $3,950 to the winner, he backed it up in the following race by taking out the $10,000 Harden Picnic Cup on Titled Tycoon, a horse owned by Williams and his wife Sue.
