Run The Numbers – It’s not always a clear path from sale-topper to superstar

Since 2020, three of the top-priced yearlings at an Australasian yearling sale have gone on to become Group 1 winners: Autumn Glow, Profondo and Voyage Bubble.

Autumn Glow, a three-time Group 1 winner, topped the 2023 Inglis Easter Yearling Sale when selling for $1.8 million to Arrowfield and Hermitage. Her prize money total of over $9 million is already five times that initial substantial investment.

Profondo, a future Spring Champion Stakes victor and resident at Windsor Park Stud, was the benchmark at the 2020 Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale when the son of Deep Impact was purchased for $1.9 million by Ottavio Galletta.

In his 11-start career for Richard Litt, he earned $770,000 but would have returned many multiples of his yearling price when purchased to stand in New Zealand.

Voyage Bubble was also offered during that 2020 yearling season, in his case at the Inglis Classic Sale, when he was sold to his future trainer Ricky Yiu for $380,000. The son of Deep Field has banked the equivalent of AU$23 million in his 33-start Hong Kong career, which has included six Group 1 wins.

Run The Numbers has looked at the 75 horses which have featured as the top-priced yearlings at sales in Australia and New Zealand since the start of 2020. While three Group 1 winners may seem a small number from horses of such profile, it still represents a four per cent Group 1 success rate.

That percentage only increases when you look at the actual number of horses that made it to the track.

Of the 16 outright or joint sale-toppers from 2025 across Australia and New Zealand, just six have had starts to date.

The best-performed is Omolong, the top-priced lot from the 2025 Magic Millions National Sale, who has won both of his starts from Chris Waller and looks destined for stakes grade or better.

Shintono, a joint Tasmanian sale topper, has a win and a stakes placing to her credit in three starts for Tony and Calvin McEvoy.

The other four have yet to place. La La Lia, the $3.2 million Gold Coast Yearling Sale graduate who was the highest-priced yearling across Australasia in 2025, has had one start for Mitsu Nikauchida, when fifth at Hanshin in June.

Miss Black Betty, the NZ$2.4 million purchase from NZB’s Karaka sale, has been unplaced in two starts for Waller, while God’s Hammer (Perth) and Copper Reign (Tasmania) have also debuted, but have yet to register their maiden wins.

None of the five sale-toppers from Inglis’ 2025 yearling sales (there were joint yearlings on top at Melbourne Premier), made it to the track as two-year-olds.

Stepping back to the 2024 yearling sales crop, we see that nine of the 12 sale-toppers have made the track, with eight of those having won a race.

There is one stakes winner among that now four-year-old collection: the Tasmanian-trained Mazzini, who has turned a $145,000 purchase price into $277,000 in prize money.

The most notable horse among that cohort to have not made it to the track is the Quinceanera, the filly by Pierro out of champion mare Winx. An Australian record-breaker at $10 million as a yearling, she was retired in April.

The crop from the 2023 yearling sales is clearly highlighted by Autumn Glow. There are no other stakes winners among the 12 horses that topped sales that season, although eight of the nine horses that made it to the track were winners.

In 2022, all 10 of those sale-toppers who started have been winners, with the lone stakes winner being The Instructor, a Listed winner who was top seed at the Gold Coast March Yearling Sale.

From the 2021 yearling sales toppers emerged 10 winners from 12 starters, including stakes-winning pair Zoukerino (Adelaide) and Crosswinds (Inglis Premier).

The 2020 cohort of sale-toppers has been the most successful, with the two future Group 1 winners mentioned earlier, Profondo and Voyage Bubble, joined by Group 3 winner and Group 1-placed Bruckner, who was the highest-priced yearling at the Premier Sale.

In those 2020 figures (combining the two different Easter yearling sales as one), 11 of the sale-toppers made the track, with seven of them winners.

Across all those years, 56 of the 75 sale-toppers have made it to the track, or 74.7 per cent. Of those, 80 per cent were winners, 14.2 per cent were stakes winners and 5.3 per cent became Group 1 winners.