Real Steel's single yearling crop well received

Written by Jessica Owers

Cover image courtesy of J Fukuda

As the curtain dropped on the Magic Millions National Sale on Wednesday evening, it finally brought the yearling season to a close in this part of the world. However, it also closed an Australian chapter for the one-time Arrowfield shuttler Real Steel (Jpn), whose single crop of 2020 foals has now been sold.

On the Gold Coast this week, the son of Deep Impact (Jpn) had 12 yearlings catalogued and all but one were snapped up. The horses came from vendors such as Arrowfield Stud, who had eight, KBL Thoroughbreds and Berkeley Park Stud, and also Bowness Stud, which had two.

Across the board, all but one of the Real Steel yearlings sold in excess of the stallion’s 2019 service fee, which was $16,500 (inc GST).

The best-selling of the bunch was Lot 1555, a colt from Aspen Summit (Fastnet Rock) in the Arrowfield draft.

Aspen Summit is a full sister to the G1 Thousand Guineas winner Irish Lights (Fastnet Rock), and a half-sister to the G2 Silver Shadow S. winner Omei Sword (High Chaparral {Ire}), and her colt was bought by Import Racing on Tuesday for $80,000.

The 12 Real Steel yearlings this week attracted a range of buyers, from Australian Bloodstock (Lot 1442) to Adam Trinder (Lot 1512) and the hard-hitting trio of Catheryne Bruggeman, Paul Moroney Bloodstock and Paul Harris (Lot 1699).

Mitchell Bloodstock (FBAA) bought Lot 1478 for $26,000, while North Queensland trainer Michelle Petrofski bought a daughter of the excellent race filly Hurried Choice (Choisir) for $52,500.

Gallery: Some of the Real Steel (Jpn) yearlings sold at the Magic Millions National Yearling Sale, images courtesy of Magic Millions

Real-deal buyers

The National Sale yearlings were the last of the Real Steel youngsters to sell in Australia.

The Japanese sire, a resident of Shadai Stallion Stallion, shuttled to Arrowfield Stud for a single season in 2019, getting 72 mares that produced 51 live foals in the spring of 2020. The sales returns on those foals have been interesting this year, with just 32 offered.

At the Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale in January, four were catalogued and each sold to a trainer. Ciaron Maher paid $200,000 and $150,000 respectively for a pair of colts, while the remaining two went to Danny O’Brien and Bennett Racing.

At the Inglis Classic Sale in February, two yearlings by Real Steel were offered, with Duncan Ramage paying $200,000 for a colt and Blake Ryan picking up another for $50,000.

None were offered at the Inglis Easter Yearling Sale, and only one was offered at the Inglis Melbourne Premier Sale.

Interestingly, however, Real Steel’s best-selling filly was a daughter of Princess Charlotte (Redoute’s Choice) that sold for $130,000 this year at the Magic Millions Adelaide Yearling Sale. Consigned by Collingrove Stud, she went to Bourne Racing Stable.

World-class family

For Jon Freyer, the bloodstock manager of Arrowfield Stud, none of these prices, nor the buyers, surprised him.

Around the world, the Real Steel pedigree has been resonating through the deeds of the stallion’s full sister, Loves Only You (Jpn) (Deep Impact {Jpn}). Her 2021 feats included the G2 Kyoto Kinen in Japan, the G1 Queen Elizabeth II Cup and G1 Hong Kong Cup in Hong Kong, and the G1 Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf at Del Mar last year.

Real Steel himself won the 2016 G1 Dubai Turf at Meydan, and he was a dual Group winner (and Group 1-placed) at home in Japan through 17 lifetime starts.

“This is a magnificent family,” Freyer said. “Any of those descendants of (third dam) Miesque have been remarkable, and that’s from a breeding perspective but also on the racetrack. That was one of the great appeals of having Real Steel at Arrowfield, apart from the fact that he was a world-class racehorse. The female family was certainly an attraction.”

Freyer thinks that this year’s prolific buyers of Real Steel progeny, the likes of Maher and Ramage, knew exactly what they were buying.

“A lot of those buyers are well across the success of the Japanese horses and how they’re rated,” he said. “Ciaron Maher, for example, has had obvious success with Maurice, and Hitotsu in particular, so a lot of them are across the whole Japanese story. They rate the form and they rate the horses.

“We thought the Real Steel progeny were very nice animals. They were strong and robust with great frames, probably not 2-year-old types on the whole, to be honest. But they were stylish horses that looked like they could be Classic horses as 3-year-olds.”

Arrowfield’s collection of Real Steel yearlings at Magic Millions this week was the last of the stud’s small collection.

Freyer said they were an eclectic lot, all there for their own particular reasons. He said the youngsters don’t know that they’re something of a limited edition.

“If they’re good, they’re going to be good,” Freyer said. “They don’t know that the whole shuttle situation was affected by COVID, and unfortunately we don’t have that continuity with the stallion.

“But there are some of Real Steel's horses that sold earlier this year that you'd really fancy to gallop and they sold well, and there's a few here at this Sale that are really nice types too. I think by the end of it there could be a few bargains that have gone through this ring this week.”