Magics Stats - A record Sale by the numbers

Cover image courtesy of Magic Millions

Seven-figure stars

The record tally of 19 yearlings which sold for $1 million and over at the Magic Millions has got plenty of attention in the aftermath of the Sale. Digging deeper we can see it paints a picture of the diversity of both the buying bench and the equine genetics at the top end of the Australian market.

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Breaking down by sex, 14 colts and five fillies sold in the elite $1 million+ price range. It reflects an increase in the desirability of the top-priced fillies in the 2022 market, given there was only one filly sell for $1 million-plus at the Sale last year, compared to 11 colts. In fact, there were as many seven-figure fillies in this Sale as there have been in the past three Gold Coast sales combined.

There were eight different sires - all proven - represented among the millionaires at this year's Sale, with the two star stallions of the Gold Coast ring in the past decade, I Am Invincible and Snitzel with five apiece. The final crop of Not A Single Doubt produced two seven-figure colts, while Zoustar and Pierro also had two in the price bracket. Darley's Exceed And Excel and Lonhro had one apiece as did Deep Field, who marked a milestone with his first-ever $1 million-plus yearling.

Gallery: Sires of the million-dollar-plus lots

Going back a further generation and there was considerable diversity among the broodmare sires of the top lots. There were 17 different stallions who had their daughters produce seven-figure yearlings on the Gold Coast. The only damsires who featured on multiple occasions were Street Cry (Ire) and Not A Single Doubt.

What was also notable is that four of the dams of the 19 million-dollar yearlings were American-bred, pointing towards a trend in market confidence in crossing Australian speed over fast American mares. The top lot of the Sale, the $1.9 million I Am Invincible colt offered by Coolmore, was out of a French-bred mare, albeit who already proven in Australia.

The windfall from a record Sale seemed to be evenly spread across many vendors. There were 11 vendors that achieved $1 million-plus results, a list headed by Newgate, which had four in all. Newgate set a new record for Book 1 vendor aggregate of $18.8 million.

Table: Million-dollar lots by sire in Book 1

Segenhoe Stud also had a milestone Sale, with three seven-figure results, the most in its history, while Yarraman Park, Widden Stud and Emirates Park all had two yearlings sell in that elite price range.

There were three farms which had their first-ever $1 million-plus sales, Silverdale Farm, Fernrigg Farm and Lauriston Thoroughbred Farm, while Arrowfield, Kia Ora Stud and Sledmere also had million-dollar yearlings.

In terms of the distribution of $1 million lots across the Sale, while there were none sold on Day 1, there were four on Day 2, a record eight on Day 3, three on Day 4 and four in a power-packed Saturday night session.

Girls versus boys

The demand for fillies at the top end, as mentioned earlier, was very strong and it flowed right through the Sale. In fact, when broken down by the median price, fillies outperformed colts through the ring; $240,000 compared to $220,000.

The colts edged the fillies on average, helped by that top end demand, with $298,977 compared to $287,640, but the annual percentage growth was stronger for fillies.

Gallery: Fillies that sold for $1 million-plus, images courtesy of Magic Millions

The average price of a filly jumped 23.36 per cent compared to the 2021 Sale, while the colts' average jumped 12.8 per cent. To give that some context there was an additional $17 million spent on fillies this year, while there was $13 million more spent on colts. That's despite 100 fewer fillies selling through the ring in Book 1.

Looking through that top end of the market, eight of the top 10 lots were colts and 15 of the top 20. As we flow down through the price points, the fillies' representation gets stronger, with a 34-16 split in favour of colts in the top 50 and a 65-35 split over the top 100.

By the time we break it down to the top 200 lots, 115 were colts and 85 were fillies, a ratio that closely represents the catalogue breakdown which saw fillies represent 43.6 per cent of lots sold and colts 56.4 per cent.

Table: Book 1 results broken down by sex

What was also fascinating was to see the Sale's biggest buyers, and Australia's biggest trainers, really hone in on fillies.

Ciaron Maher Bloodstock purchased 20 fillies, spending $8.7 million, while 21 of the 33 yearlings Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott purchased, either by themselves or in partnership, were fillies.

Annabel Neasham added 10 fillies to her stable, Chris Waller and Guy Mulcaster purchased eight fillies as did Tony Gollan, Bennett Racing and Trilogy Racing.

Sheamus Mills Bloodstock (FBAA), buying on behalf of his usual clients which have successfully raced fillies such as Group 1 winner Odeum (Written Tycoon), was the busiest fillies buyer at the top end, spending $1.55 million on an I Am Invincible filly and $1.05 million on a daughter of Lonhro. He also purchased another I Am Invincible filly for $900,000 on the first day of the Sale.

The colour of money

Does a horse's colour impact its sale price? There are plenty of old tales in the sale ring about the merit or otherwise or buying greys or chestnuts or the like, but does this impact the market?

Make of this what you will, but 15 of the 19 $1 million-plus lots were classified as bay, with two browns and two chestnuts. Bays are by far the most represented colour, with 54.1 per cent of those colts of that colour, but that doesn't account for the domination at the top end. Although it is relevant to note that several of the current top sires are pure-breeding bays, such as I Am Invincible, Pierro and Fastnet Rock.

As expected, the aggregate total of sales for bay yearlings at the Sale was 55.2 per cent of the total gross, pretty close to the overall representation on numbers.

Bays averaged $299,864 across 422 sold, chestnuts $283,256 across 172, bay or brown $307,256 over 82 yearlings sold, while brown horses, of which there were 74, sold at an average of $281,689.

Table: Book 1 results broken down by horses' colour

All other colour categories had 10 or fewer sales, making statistical comparison a bit problematic. Black horses averaged $515,000 but there were only two sold, while there were similarly high averages for small numbers for black or grey ($425,000 with one sold), and bay or grey ($343,333 across three).

All about the timing

When is the right time to bid? There are no doubts that in any sale there are lulls and peaks during the day, something that is usually attributable to the random way the catalogue falls.

But for the sake of it, we decided to break down the averages through certain times of the day, focusing specifically on the four day sessions on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, It's worth noting of course that the Tuesday session doesn't start until 12pm, but that doesn’t necessarily impact averages over the course of several days. We didn't include the final Saturday session as that is a very different environment

Breaking the day session into two-hour blocks we found the most expensive time to buy a horse was early and late in the day. The average price between 10am and 12pm on the Gold Coast last week was $319,899. The action also tended to heat up towards the end of the day and the average price after 4pm was $318,288.

The lunch session at sales can be a little tricky, especially for auctioneers trying to conduct bidding over people catching up over a meal, and moving in and out of the ring. Our stats told us that the average in the 12pm-2pm timeslot was considerably less than at any other time of the day. The average price was $260,125, while for the 2pm-4pm slot, it rose to $286,408.

A look at the top end reflects this. Of those 19 yearlings sold for $1 million or more, not one of them was sold in the timeslot between 1pm and 2pm.

Table: Book 1 result averages per timeslot (Day sessions only)