Baystone Farm’s Dean Harvey and trainer Troy Corstens’ gamble to bring a well-bred filly to the Inglis Ready2Race Sale in Sydney has paid off handsomely with the daughter of Written Tycoon achieving an Australasian record seven-figure price.
Yulong principal Zhang Yuesheng paid $1 million for the star filly, who breezed up in a slick 10.50 seconds at Wangaratta in country Victoria on October 1, the highest price for a two-year-old sold at an Inglis, Magic Millions or New Zealand Bloodstock ready to run sale.
The Chinese coal billionaire, who was a notable absentee from the buyers’ sheet at the Inglis Easter sale in April, returned with a bang on Tuesday with three high-priced acquisitions in a market otherwise dominated by Hong Kong owners and trainers.
And it was the filly, who he bred out of New Zealand dual Group 1-winning Savabeel mare Soriano and who Yulong sold for $200,000 at the Inglis Easter sale, that he had to have.
“We’ve got absolute faith in our product and this is a gorgeous filly. They bought it off us for $200,000 at Easter and turned it into $1 million, so a huge congratulations to the Baystone team. She’s been extremely well marketed,” Yulong general manager Vin Cox said.
“She’s pretty special, this filly. She breezed up well, the team around her were talking a big game with her and that brought a big price tag, but we’re thrilled to get her back.
“The boss (Mr Zhang) was very keen on her. I’ve been in Europe with him and this was the horse in the sale that he kept asking about, so I think it’s fair to say he’s had his eyes on her for many weeks.’’
Harvey said bringing the daughter of champion sire Written Tycoon was about having a point of difference at the breeze-up sale.
“We've seen fillies in the last couple of years at sales like this sell really, really well and we just thought that if we bring something to market that had a little bit of a different feel to it,” Harvey said.
“She was a quality filly from the start, she was an Easter filly with a big page. The stallion's gone to a new level, Written Tycoon, and she's just such a good sort.
“She's grown into a beautiful filly and ability-wise, she's pretty special.”
Troy Corstens, who educates the Baystone partnership’s two-year-olds at Flemington, had been talking up the filly’s ability for quite some time.
“I've had a lot of horses with Troy and he's just been so confident the whole way along with her,” Harvey said.
“Troy was desperate to keep her, so I just told him then to run in and see Mr Zhang to see if he can train her, but I think he's left, but hopefully he can get her back to train, fingers crossed.”
Tim Rowe
Zhang also paid $525,000 for a Written Tycoon colt from Leanach Lodge and $420,000 for a son of Too Darn Hot from the draft of AH Bloodstock.
The second highest-priced lot was a colt by Deep Field who made $750,000 to the bid of Cranbourne trainer Clinton McDonald who used his inside knowledge to advantage in snapping up the two-year-old for a not insignificant sum.
McDonald educated the horses sold under the Shane McGrath Bloodstock banner and he was adamant that the colt, who is out of US stakes winner Sheer Pleasure, had to remain in his care.
He revealed his interest to McGrath, but kept some pivotal information up his sleeve for a horse he believes compares to stablemate Angel Capital, the Caulfield Guineas Prelude winner this campaign.
“I told him a little fib what price I was going to. So anyway, I told him a lot less but I was always going to go home with him no matter what,” McDonald said.
“I've had a lot of luck with Deep Field and the full-sister (Deep Pleasure) ran very well the other day at Cranbourne. He is a stronger version and what he's shown us at home, we expect to see him in the autumn.”
McGrath, who also sold a Toronado colt to Hong Kong for $500,000, paid $260,000 for the son of Deep Field at the Easter sale.
At least 32 of the 89 horses and 12 of the top 20 to change hands at the breeze-up sale were bought by Hong Kong interests and their involvement helped push the sale’s turnover to $15.37 million at an average of $167,065 and a median of $110,000 at a clearance rate of 62 per cent.
It wasn’t quite Hong Kong or bust, but at times it felt like that.
“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,” prominent vendor Blake Ryan said.
“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.”
Ryan sold a son of emerging Waikato Stud-based sire Super Seth for $550,000 to Hong Kong interests, having paid $115,000 out of the Inglis Classic sale in February.
“He could be anything, that stallion, I think, and we're lucky enough to get (the colt) before he'd taken right off,” Ryan said.
“And this horse, he's physically beautiful, he carried himself and presented himself really well here all week and he vetted as clean as a whistle.
“He was just one of those horses. The day he walked in the place, I thought he's the best one. He was one of 15 or so and, from day one, before we even galloped, he was the best. I'd labelled him the best one.”
“He could be anything, that stallion (Super Seth), I think, and we're lucky enough to get (the colt) before he'd taken right off." - Blake Ryan
Harvey’s Baystone Farm sold six of its draft of 13 two-year-olds to go through the ring. He agreed it was taking time for the market to adjust to the absence of Singapore and Macau.
“Probably taking Singapore and Macau and those places out of the market leaves a bit of a hole, which the sale will take a little time to adjust to, so you're either Hong Kong or not,” he said.
“The local market hasn't gravitated as heavily yet. You saw Mick Price bought one for $200,000 before, so I think the sale is starting to get momentum with results going through, which you'll see the local market get more and more involved.
“Once that does, it will be more of a complete sale in terms of clearance rate and that sort of thing.”
Inglis Bloodstock chief executive Sebastian Hutch said the strength of the Ready2Race Sale over the past four years had been the contribution of the domestic market.
“We were conscious coming into this sale that there wasn't likely to be the same strength amongst the domestic buying bench,” Hutch said.
“Although, that said, I've been pleasantly surprised by the nature of the participation. There were a lot of domestic buyers who looked to try and get involved today that weren’t able to and that's primarily because of the depth of the Hong Kong buying bench.
“That's stretched further than what I think we could have ever reasonably anticipated.”
He said the company would digest the results of the sale in the coming days.
“I think we'll reflect on it in a very positive light but the depth of the buying bench certainly through the second half of the horses is a challenge,” Hutch said.
“That's something we've been conscious of for some time. It's not an easy fix. But, look, it's something that we've worked on progressively over time and something I think we can continue to improve into next year.”
The Magic Millions Horses in Training Sale will be held on the Gold Coast next Tuesday with New Zealand Bloodstock’s breeze-up sale to be conducted in November.
Final Sale results:
Catalogued: 196 (226)
Sold: 92 (103)
Passed In: 56 (76)
Withdrawn: 48 (47)
Gross Amount: $15,370,000 ($10,943,500)
Average: $167,065 ($106,248)
Median: $110,000 ($90,000)
